Bang The Bay Live Recordings

Lee Hoffman's Bang The Bay books rock and punk shows at venues around the bay area. Between his Solar Van Saturdays at Point Emery and Rocky's Beach near the bay and his Wendesday night residencies at the Ivy Room in Albany and now the Fab Mab in San Franciso, Lee books MANY bands per month.

For the past year and a half, I've been helping to capture and mix recordings of all the Bang The Bay shows. This involves connecting a computer to the venue's mixer via usb to capture good quality mult-track recordings of each performance. Afterward, I take these recordings and mix them much like one would mix a studio recording - balancing the instruments and voices to yield a rocking record of the show. I'll write another post about the work that goes into mixing these recordings.

Many bands, many shows

Lee is a busy guy and connects with a ridiculous number of acts based in or coming through the bay area. In the year and a half that I've been working on this I've had the privelidge of hearing about 200 acts and about 340 sets (many bands have played several times). A typical show at the Ivy Room will have 6 or 7 bands, each playing about a 35 minute set. Lee books two-to-three shows per month at the Ivy Room, plus one at the Fab Mab, and one or two Solar Van shows each month.

I'll try to keep this spreadsheet updated as we produce more recordings.

A few of these acts are solo singer/songwriter types, but most are full bands - punk rock, alternative rock types. This has allowed me to see and hear a serious swath of the bay area music scene. You'll be happy to know that the bay area scene is thriving - chock full of great bands. I've been lucky to hear many of them.

What's it mean?

For a booker who aims to put on live events, this is kind of a game changer for their model. Live shows are really fun, but they only last a moment in time. Sure everyone has a small recording and movie studio in their phone that could capture the event. A phone-quality recording at least. As nice as these devices are the quality is of the audio they capture is still just so-so.

A good recording of a live performance can bring a good moment to a much larger audience. It's a much more permanent and tangible product of something that takes a lot of work. Bands will practice for many hours and spend time promoting their appearance before packing up their gear and heading to the club for their moment of glory. They try to bring their best. It would be really cool to have a high quality recording that captures that moment.

This playlist is embedded above features many of Lee's live recordings. Or view this on YouTube.

All this happens with the each bands permission of course. There's a high degree of partnership between band, booker, venue, and audience. This only works because everyone wants it to work.

Compilation in the works

At this point with 300+ recordings we're ready to start to share more. We'll be putting a best-of compilation together. We could slice a collection like this in a couple ways, but at this point we're thinking that we will start with a 'best of Ivy Room 2024/2025' and see where that takes us.

I'll write a few more blog posts covering what makes a good recording, what makes a good performance, and why the bay area is seriously amazing.

Stay tuned!

PS the photo collage at the top features these bands: (all shot by me)

1. Tektonic, Sparkle Plenty, Super Apes, Nick from Phantoms Forever, Louiza, The Rinds
2. Ultrafiend X, Stone Dog, Ultra Sounds, Sacripolitical, The Diversions, Ansible
3. Right Proper, Lost Cosmos, Out Of The Ring, Angry Aztecs, Can't, Baltic Kiss, Sleepers A.D.
4. Family Obligation, Dark Satellite, Somebunny Else, Fancy Dad, The Hajj, Davinski And The Haute Pantzz, Cuva Bimo