Music for Hypocrites 02.01.07: Download This
Posted by Matt Stone on 02.01.2007
Between Weezer and Chicago, there's way too much love going on in this column.
A long, hard week it has been. I'm busy putting together an article on Martin Sexton to segue from the Top 5 Cover Songs article, but frankly, as you'll see below, the guy has a really large catalog of bootlegs with are usually much stronger than his albums, and I'm trying to find some great examples for people to listen to. So, we'll get to Marty next week. For this week, I'm just going to monologue about finding good music on the 'net. But firrrrrst...
I'VE GOT MAIL
"I just had to email you because your article is ACTUALLY the story of my life as a diehard Weezer fan. Just had to let you know that we could possibly be music soulmates, and even though we differ in that I have faith that Rivers will make a comeback in the somewhat near future (although this could be a bit off considering the fact that I also believe he will soon be leaving his wife for me), your article was pretty much dead on. Definitely the best Rivers update I've ever received, thanks for making my week a whole lot better!" -Cam
Awww, I'm blushing, but I totally agree with you agreeing with me. I'd actually really like to see Rivers move on to something else. The guy has talent and has written some great songs. Maybe an extended break is all he needs to bring forth some new material. I'd like to see him do it on his own or with another band, though. I think the rest of Weezer needs to move on to new projects and spread the love a bit. As a small addendum to last week's column, I managed to find a bootleg of a 2002 show at the World Music Theatre (or Tweeter Center or whatever it was at the time) that I actually attended and was able to rekindle some of my love for this band. They had a really good live show.
PLUGS
I have to plug Mikey MiGo and his column on the best venues in Chicago. I'm a Chicagoan (yeah, go Bears), lived there for a long time before retreating to suburbia and still love the venues. I'm upset about the lack of love for Mutiny and Big Horse, but those aren't really "best" venues and much as "best place to get hammered for $8 and have a 50/50 chance of seeing something totally awful and laughable. I love Metro and Double Door. I got to see the Smashing Pumpkins on their 1pm in the afternoon "practice" show at Metro back when their touring keyboardist died and all that jazz. What an experience that was. Double Door? I got to see the Posies and the Burden Brothers there, and I got to play on that stage in 2005, which was #2 on the list of goals I had for ever becoming a musician in the first place. As I've eventually played most stages I've ever wanted to play (save for Metro...sigh), 99% of them don't live up to the hype. Double Door totally outdid itself. The house was full, we were dead on, my guitarist totally insulted the hell out of a twerpy other band in the green room....just an awesome, awesome time. Anyways, let's get on to the whining...
DIGITAL MUSIC ROCKS, YO
As the music industry begins to slowly pull their collective head out of their ass and realize that "tangible" is no longer a commodity, the evolution of digital distribution is well on its way. Of course iTunes and the iPod moved digital distribution forward by leaps and bounds, turning a novel concept of portable mp3 players into a lifestyle item. With the seamless integration between your digital music player, hard drive library and a vast online catalog of very reasonably priced music readily available and almost instantly accessible with a high speed internet connection, your options are endless. As it always happens with concepts like this, the also-rans have emerged, and with them brought competing rights management formats, bulky media library software and partnerships with various labels. Napster went legit and got back into the game, Creative got their own world, Archos, let us not belch forth the name of Zune and so forth. For my money, I'm an iTunes guy and probably always will be, despite not owning an iPod and probably not owning one any time in the near future.
As I've gotten older and for the most part wiser, the guilt (or maybe just annoyance) of downloading music from unauthorized sources (aka stealing) has become too much of a hassle to deal with. I'll admit, occasionally something might happen to get sucked down off the net, but for the most part I've gone the straight and narrow route of using commercial sources for my downloaded music. While iTunes offers a vast amount of music, it turns out that there are many things you can't find there vs. when you were downloading *.* from Napster every waking moment of the day from your office T3 pipe back in the day. As a music dork, I've found the need to seek out places to get music legitimately that a) offers variety and exploring new artists and b) doesn't wipe out my bank account.
The first site I would highly recommend is for the live music fan. The site is archive.org. While it's an archive for much more than just music, we'll focus on that section. What you will find on archive.org under the audio section is a list of musicians that allow their concerts to be taped by fans. There are hundreds of artists listed, and all the downloads are available in non-rights managed MP3 or FLAC format (FLAC being a wicked awesome loss-less audio format). Mind you, you'll be finding lesser known or completely unknown bands on this site, but with the rating system for the show and recording quality, you can pick and choose and possibly find a rare gem. My recommendation, and the artist that will be covered in the next column, is Martin Sexton's live show from 08-18-2006, I believe from the Gathering of the Vibes, which is an excellent set and really showcases what he is all about.
The second site I recommend is my new addiction: emusic.com. I signed up for the free 25 downloads and within about 20 minutes found enough albums I wanted to hear that I upgraded to the $20 package for 75 downloads a month. Emusic reload day is like crack for me. Within about 10-15 minutes of logging in with a fresh 75 downloads to go, I am out of tracks to download and putting together list of what I need to grab next month. Again, this site isn't really tied to major labels, so you'll have to work a little bit to find what you are looking for. Bonus: Lots of Johnny Cash. Extra Bonus: Finding albums by band members that did a one off side project or formed another group and released an indie (i.e. Matt Sharp of Weezer, Colin Hay, the Finn Brothers). It's a great site for finding any indie bands you like (except people on SubPop, which irritates me to no end).
Those are my finds. I'm always on the lookout for more sites like these. Think you've got one? Email me at the links below and let me know about it. Otherwise, I'll be next week with a new installment on an artist I think people that haven't heard of will very much like.
