The Weepies - Butternut Ridge - 2004

[I've listened to this a few times now since posting and decided to make some changes (something I rarely do). I removed to audience to turn it into a studio album and while I was at it I redid the cover to my liking. If you downloaded the original I recommend re-downloading.]

The Weepies were a husband and wife duo consisting of Deb Talan and Steve Tannen. Their music has been described as "subtly intoxicating folk-pop". Light melodies with an acoustic base and wonderful harmonies. They met as mutual admirers of each others music which led to each contributing to to the other's next solo album both of which featured a version of Deb's song Rocks and Water. They immediately began writing together and self released the first Weepies album Happiness soon after the release of their solo albums. They married in 2007.
 
I discovered The Weepies around the time of their Hideaway album in 2008 while at a Barnes & Noble where I heard it playing in the music department. I fell in love with them right there and purchased the album. I bought their other CDs as I found them. Later I found some live shows posted on the Internet Archives. I downloaded five of the eight posted and gave them all a good listen then filed them away.
 
Yesterday (as I write this) I was organizing my library and came across those live shows and gave them another listen. They were mostly as I remembered them, very good to excellent audience recordings but one show stood out for a couple of reasons. First it was a soundboard of an intimate club show from 2004 between the release of their first and second albums and second they played a bunch of songs from their pre-Weepies solo albums. So I extracted those songs and found I had a nice little album and I decided to share it with you. Enjoy.

Tracklist

01 Rocks and Water
02 How Will He Find Me
03 The World Spins Madly On
04 Sing Me to Sleep
05 Tell Your Story Walking
06 Big Strong Girl
07 Cherry Trees
08 San Francisco
09 Love Come Knocking
10 Don't Pay No Mind
11 Comfort
12 Strange Place Now

Reality Notes

This show is just Deb and Steve, no backing band so the interplay between to two really shines. The recording is nearly perfect so I did not feel the need to do any post production work. The only flaw I found is that the applause after the song Comfort is cut short. I could have patched some from elsewhere but with everything else so perfect I decided I could live with it as is, so I hope you can too. The original full show is still up and can be found here along with the others.

In 2006 The Weepies released their Live Sessions EP. A six song EP of tunes from this same pre-Weepies era. Only three songs are duplicated here. I do not have that album so I don't know if they have other musicians behind them.

I found a cover I liked online and used that as a template to make my own. The original download came with an OK bootlegish cover but someone made a better one that was much nicer and already used the photo I intended to use (this photo was also used as part of the cover for the Live Sessions EP).