Category: Websites

Other Stuff You Might Like: Live Performances from KEXP

It’s easy, sometimes, to think of radio as a dead medium.  The sort of thing that can get you through a visit to the dentist, or an elevator ride, but not much else.  In a post-Buggles world, what good can radio really bring us?  Well, of course, there’s rather a lot of good to be had out there.  I’ve looked at, and featured, NPR’s excellent All Songs Considered on this site before.  But there’s so much more to be found in local stations across America (and the globe) – perhaps none so striking as Seattle’s KEXP.  The site features an enormous amount of live, in-studio recordings and interviews, as well as news and video (they’ve even got a nifty iPhone app).  As someone who lost faith in radio during the ClearChannel consolidation years, I find it very reassuring to know that stations like this have managed to survive.

You really should take some time to rummage around their site.  After the cut, I’ll highlight some of my favorite live recordings, and give you a few tips from their upcoming performances list.  Hint: Jónsi tomorrow!

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A Good Cause: The Voice Project

One of the amazing things about music is its ability to bridge gaps and unite people for a common, peaceful purpose.  All too often, when confronted with the great injustices of the world, we find ourselves thinking: “Hey, I’m just one person.  What can I do?”

Well, the Voice Project believes that one voice can make a real difference.  Here’s a bit about the mission:

A peace movement is an incredible thing, people coming together, mobilizing like an army, and in this case armed not with guns but with songs and something more powerful than than any bullet; compassion, the strength of human will, and determination.

For over two decades war has ravaged Northern Uganda. It is Africa’s longest running conflict and it has spread to Southern Sudan and Eastern Congo. Joseph Kony’s LRA has made abducting children and forcing them to fight his chief weapon of war, even making them kill their friends and family members. Many abductees and former soldiers escape but hide in the bush, afraid to return home because of reprisals for the atrocities they were forced to commit.

The women of Northern Uganda – widows, rape survivors, and former abductees have been banding together in groups to support each other and those orphaned by the war and diseases so prevalent in the IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps. And they are singing songs. The lyrics let the former soldiers know that they are forgiven and that they should come home. The songs are passed by radio and word of mouth out into the bush, as far as the Sudan and DR Congo. And it’s working. Former LRA are returning and for the first time 24 years the region has a chance at real peace.

The Voice Project is an attempt to support these incredible women and the peace movement in Uganda, and an effort to see how far a voice can carry. And although we are a non-profit, we don’t see what we do as charity, but rather a partnership and an exchange of value. The strength, the message, and the art of these women and their peace movement can benefit the world, and in return we can help spread their message as well as help provide them with basic necessities and the tools to sustain their efforts and themselves. We have two main goals, to AMPLIFY the message in their songs in order to support the peace movement, and to assist them in their efforts to EMPOWER themselves economically in order to better their lives, create real social change, and to sustain peace. Please join us and be a link in this incredible chain that the women have started, help spread the word or donate to the cause.

Music and word of mouth, it can end wars, it can change the world. These incredible women have shown us that. Pass it on.

They’ve worked hard to further efforts to rehabilitate child soldiers, and to bring vocational training to these war-torn parts of Africa.  They’ve also assembled musicians who have raised their voices in support of this cause.  Why not check them out at twitter and facebook, and on their own site, and then follow me for a couple of great videos:

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Other Stuff You Might Like: Wolfgang’s Concert Vault

I’ve never forgotten my first experience with buying music for myself.  There was something magical about being able to pick anything I wanted, and then bring it home to enjoy over and over again.  But after a while, as it does for many, my obsession with a number of bands had begun to run out of things to feed it.  The radio gave no new songs, and the record store had long since been cleaned out.  Dark days, indeed.

Enter bootlegs.  For those of us who had a great local record store with a side section, a well-connected friend, or even knew an avid enthusiast of tape-trading websites, nothing was more special than your first listen to something that only a select few could ever hear again.  Want to hear that 1978 Winterland Ballroom gig where the Sex Pistols broke up?  (You shouldn’t, it’s awful, but let’s just say…)  You’d better know someone.  Bootlegs revealed a world of mystery and splendor, and showed a band as it really is/was… not just how the studio wanted you to think of them.

Nowadays, this is old hat.  We have any number of online video/audio services, and the ability to record something is in almost every pocket.  Heck, I’ve even done it myself.  The experience has definitely changed for new bands and today’s fans.  But if you want that good, old stuff, then you still have to be able to find it.

This is where Wolfgang’s Concert Vault comes in.  The site has thousands of performances from the ’50s to today.  There are interviews with artists, the ability to make customized playlists (and save them), and even some nifty background information about shows and artists.  I first found the site through its iPhone app, and I’ve loved spending time digging through the archives.  You do have to sign up for a free account (make sure to set those communication preferences), but it’s well worth a look.

After the jump, you can find some great free samples:

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Happening: South by Southwest 2010

Oh, sure.  I could go to South by Southwest.  Have my mind blown by an onslaught of bleeding-edge web development, films, music, and awesome people.  I could, but then I’d have to give up the charms of Northern England in March.  I’d have to leave exciting York (“Hey, there’s a Minster!  And, erm… it’s big!  Did you know that Constantine became Emperor of Rome while in York?”).  I’d have to give up my ascetic life, and my beloved dissertation.  Yeah, right.

Actually, there’s a bit of a funny story about the Minster.  In the Nineteenth Century, a young man named Jonathan Martin tried to burn the thing to the ground.  It seems that God told him to do it.  Oddly enough, that’s my name.  Hm.  Dear future employers: Please be thorough in your Googling of my name, and move beyond the words “Jonathan Martin,” “York,” and “Arsonist.”  Thanks.

But for some of you, this year’s SXSW is a perfectly pleasant alternative to day jobs and real life.  Sort of a Pleasure Island for hipsters.  Well, if you, like me, want to experience some of this excitement vicariously – and, more importantly, from the safety of your own, rain-drenched houses – then I’ve got you covered!  Let’s start with music.  An awesome, enterprising fellow has gathered up tracks from all of the artists playing this year’s SXSW.  They’re all public domain, and you can find the formidable five gigs of torrents here.  Definitely something to keep you busy for the duration of the festival!  In addition, NPR is giving away 11 tracks via iTunes.  You can get the code, and the details, here.  There’s tracks from Spoon, The Walkmen, and more!

As for video, I’d suggest hitting the SXSW page over on YouTube.  You can get film trailers, musical performances, talks, and stuff from previous years.

And that’s pretty much all.  In all seriousness, I’m so immensely jealous of the folks that are in Austin, and the ones that are on the way.

Have a great time…jerks.  😉

Other Stuff You Might Like: Luxury Wafers

Whilst doing a bit of research on YouTube for an upcoming post, I came across a Lissie video from LuxuryWafersVideo (posted below).  It was a great, studio rendition of “Wedding Bells,” and I was instantly intrigued.  Upon further investigation, it turns out that Luxury Wafers is chock full of amazing studio sessions by artists from Lissie to J Tillman (Fleet Foxes) and Tiny Vipers.  It’s a really great bunch of artists – all produced in a slick, yet immediately accessible and intimate style.  They offer the following about their site:

Luxury Wafers is the passion child of Landry and Peter Malick, raised with the help of an amazing network of dedicated, creative folks who also dig fine indie music.

Peter produces, engineers, mixes, writes and plays music. Hardly moderate, total immersion is his way. Long sleepless nights cozied up to his radio began for Peter in grade school. It wasn’t long before he pumped over to sketchier neighborhoods on his bike to discover the juiciest of records. Peter avidly listens to new indie music from his favorite blogs and podcasts. His professional experience goes way back to his first signing on the Vanguard label in 1968 when he was just 16. Peter engineers and mixes the Luxury Wafers sessions.

Nurtured from birth by a big, black, baby grand piano, Landry has also had a life-long love affair with music. When she was about seven, she received an 8-track with some tapes to play in it, the most rousing of which was the William Tell Overture. As fate would have it, her room was soon after remodeled and the drywall guys forever changed her life by leaving behind a mysterious copy of Led Zeppelin’s IV. Since then, she’s delighted in exploring most genres, ever connected to the core of music as she’s traipsed through life and various professional incarnations. She lives in LA with Peter, where she coordinates Luxury Wafers, helps to manage their music business, writes, cooks, teaches yoga and edits this blog. Landry books the Luxury Wafers sessions. She also photographs and shoots and edits video for the sessions.

Peter and Landry owned and operated Chessvolt Recording Studios from 1/2006 until 10/2009, when LAUSD grabbed it by eminent domain to build a new elementary school. They currently work from their home studio and at Kingsize Soundlabs Studio C (where much of the gear has found a home) as well as at various studios around LA, including Scott Gilman’s Eagle Rock Hobby Shop.

Together, the pair brings friendly ears, techie lust and artistic vision to Luxury Wafers.

The site is full of beautiful videos, free music downloads, and great information.  I strongly encourage you to head on over and check it out!  You can see some of my favorite videos after the cut:

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