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Cool album art.

Again, I am glad that everyone likes the recording. Many of the tracks are shooting up the MFT chart, in 2-3 days becoming the top downloads of the month. It is really cool, from my angle, to have so many people interested in a recording I made. Granted, it is Margot & that is 99.9% of why there is so much interest, but still I am thrilled that so many people appreciate the recording. Thanks again to Richard, Andy & the rest of the band for allowing me to upload the show to MFT.

Hopefully I will get to record them again sometime this year at another Indy show.

Cheers,

Mike

After 7 days on MFT, there have been 1787 downloads of songs from this show, making it currently the #3 downloaded album on MFT this year (and it has only been up a week).

I was hoping Richard might have a short comment on what he & the band think of this show.

I have run into the band at a couple shows recently here in Indy, but have been really shy about talking (really to about anyone) when I am out. Part of the reason this recording took so long to come out is because the show was simply not mixed well. I had been recording 80 or so bands over nine months at various Indianapolis venues for bands associated with MFT (some at MFT-sponsored shows, most at other local shows they were playing.

Long story short, I overextended myself, was not home as much as I should have been, & I have a wife & a 7 year old son (5 back then), that I was spending too much time away from. I took a little over a year off from anything musical (fell of the face of the earth) and am now in a place where I feel I can take some of this on again (in a more balanced way) & start mixing the backlog of live shows I have recorded.

If anyone is interested in reading a bit of off-the cuff recollections from recording this show (probably not too interesting, but here it is anyway).

This is a blog entry I put up on MFT about the day of this show. It is not the best written account of it all, but it was certainly a memorable day/night for me & the middle of a magical 9 months of my life where I was given the opportunity to record some great Indiana bands (& a few nationals). The highlight of all of those recordings for me was this Margot show.

MFT Blog about recording the 12/30/06 Margot show at The Irving:

Way back on 12/30/06, I had the pleasure of recording Margot & The Nuclear So and So's at The Irving Theater. It was an all-ages show with about 850 in attendance.

My family & I (wife & son) had spent Christmas down in Atlanta, visiting my family - who moved there from Indiana back in 1988 & whom we get to see 2-3x/year. Christian Taylor (of America Owns The Moon & a good friend of Richard & the band's), was set to be one of the opening acts & was also down in Georgia over Christmas visiting family, as he is originally from Georgia. His sister drove him up to Atlanta (a few hour drive). We met up off the highway & brought him to my sister's place to spend the night. We took off early in the morning of the 30th from Atlanta, so we could make it to the show on time (after a 9 -10 hour drive back to Indy).

Before leaving for Georgia, I had left all of my recording gear at Queensize (Margot's recording studio) so that I could pick it all up on the way to set-up for the show at The Irving & not waste time heading home to pick it up. I think we made it to The Irving like 2-3 hours before the show started. It was a magical night. Christian Taylor, Mike Bloom, & Cameron McGill played 3 remarkable sets & really set the mood for the 800+, all-ages crowd. There was a line outside around the block in two directions from the entrance - one side for those that had tickets, the other for those who wanted to purchase them at the show. From what I remember, there were about 600 presales & 250 people at the door that wanted to get in.

Margot played an amazing set that night, mostly off of "The Dust of Retreat", but with 3 new songs (Ocean, Payphone, & Broadripple Is Burning). Andy & Emily were working late nights at Queensize trying to get the rest of the remodelling done. The band was getting ready to go in & track the preproduction sessions for what has become Animal! & Not Animal! They were several months away from finally signing with Epic & going to Chicago to work with Brian Deck.

This show was 16-channel multitracked, split off of the front of house (FOH) mixing board (mixed brilliantly by Jonee Quest) into a Roland VS-2480. Soon after the show, I made a really rough mix that I gave to the band (which will never see the light of day). Marshall Baumgartner, the band's road manager & film documentarian, did a 2 camera shoot of this show as well. The goal was to sync up the audio and edited video for a live DVD, something that to date has still not happened. I need to talk with him & see about getting this done sometime.

A few months passed, I fell off the face of the earth for a year or so, the band signed with Epic and started recording Animal! & Not Animal in Chicago & the hard drive with the show sat in my home studio waiting for a good mixdown. Jeb Banner (the main man behind Musical Family Tree) prodded me to reengage with the world again & I made this mix about a month ago & sent it to the band to listen to. Andy talked with the band and Epic & Richard MySpace Messaged me to tell Jeb to put it up. That was July 4th, 2008.

I really want to thank Margot for allowing me to do the recording in the first place, but especially for being able to share it with all of you (their fans). I also want to thank Jonee Quest for any headaches I may have given him (they truly were not intentional), and Jeb Banner for his understanding & support.

I think that this show probably represents the best of the live recordings for Margot that is on the MFT site.

Jeb & I have been working on rough mixes of some MFT Showcase shows that I tracked a year or so ago (Panic Attacks? AOTM?, Gentleman Caller?, Jorma & The Movie Bear, Cameron McGill & Whose Army, Mike Bloom). We should be putting some of these shows up as soon as they are done & we have permission from bands/labels).

Hope you enjoy the show!!

Mike