Digitally Perfect Live Music - Free, Legal, Amazing.

[GrandmaStabone]

Internet Archive - Live Music

As I understand it, finding your way to lossless live recordings is a natural progression in the life of a music enthusiast/collector. This means that a lot of you are probably familiar with the resources/music in this thread, nevertheless discovering this archive has been a great experience for me over the last week and I wanted to share it with those of you who either don't know about it, know about it and haven't dug in, or perhaps don't now where to start.

Up until finding this I had been in a musical 'funk' for a while. I have been collecting music digitally for about 4 years now (not long, I know). Naturally as your collection grows at some point you begin to discover new music at a slower and slower pace. It becomes hard to discover new music you like and really hard to discover music you LOVE.

In the past I had poked around etree.org a bit, etree is a site where trade friendly artists allow their fans to share their live shows (in perfect lossless formats) for free. I'd downloaded a couple shows with mild success, the list of cooperating artists was really, really impressive but not knowing where to start left me with medicore recordings of otherwise spectacular shows...

Then last week I found the Internet Archive. The site as a whole is attempting to store perfect digital recordings of radio, TV, movies, and.... live music. They have partnered with etree to archive all of these shows. They are all well organized, free, legal, streamable, downloadable (as a single track or as an entire show), with a community that can upload shows, comment on them and rate them. So, with an improved interface and spurred by extreme musical boredom, I dove in.

To say I was surprised is an understatement. The albums I have found here are not just great, they are some of the best (if not the best) recordings in my entire music collection. The key to finding the absolute best stuff is to check out the user rating/comments (the community there is pretty knowledgeable abut this stuff) and where the original recording came from (this info is listed with every show). A lot of these shows are recorded directly off the soundboard, meaning that every note is a clear as it could possibly be. Combine this with the fact that these are all offered in completely lossless formats and you have a certified audiogasm. BTW, although you can stream music from the site, it is in a much lower bitrate than if you downloaded it, so don't think that if you download a show it will sound like the stream. When you download a song/show it is in a digitally lossless format, meaning no sound quality has been lost in transition from the master recording to the file you are downloading. Most of the albums I have from this site are so good that listening to the studio versions of the same songs is like a HUGE step down. I guess you just can't recreate the ambiance and energy of a perfectly played and perfectly recorded live set by an artist/band that can really, really wail.

I started out tentatively at first. I organized the shows by rating and looked through the 5-star shows (there are a lot). To my dismay I hadn't heard of a lot of the artists, so I apprehensively downloaded one of them and couldn't believe it, 10/10. I got 3 more, 10/10, 10/10 and 10/10 as well as discovering 3 new bands I had never heard of but can't get enough of. At this point I am just going crazy and loving everything.



I'll kick things off with a few suggestions:

Michael Franti and Spearhead Live at Filmore 1-15-2005

I don't even know what to say about this, it is just soo good. The sound quality is better than any studio recording I've ever heard. The band is unbelievably talented and extremely flexible, Franti's voice is perfectly captured and his lyrics are deep. If you want to check out a couple tracks first, try 'ganja babe' and 'never too late'. I've never steered you wrong OOT, so get this show. If you don't like it please let me know so I can put you on ignore.



Calexico at the China Theater 4-24-2003

I had never heard of these guys before hearing this and after one listen this is easily one of the most musically talented groups I have ever heard (a common occurrence since exploring this site). Like many other artists I have found here, they are just so [censored] musically talented. I can't even identify some of the instruments I am hearing in this show.

Jam Cruise Jam Room, Live at the Cabaret 1-11-2006

Admittedly this one probably has less mass appeal than the previous submissions. This is essentially a non-stop jam session with an ever-changing cast of musicians on the Jam Cruise. Here is a trip report from someone who was there:

[ QUOTE ]

I was there for the whole jam, second row, center stage, and totally entranced the entire time. At one point, I counted 17 musicians on stage together including one of the ship's crew on percussion. The drummer would stand up and keep the beat going with one hand while another drummer would slide in and pick up the beat from him. Closing your eyes to groove for a minute was fun because when you opened your eyes again, even though the music never stopped, it appeared to be a whole new lineup playing. Jam Cruise is the best thing to happen to music since Edison figured out how to record it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. This really is a serious jam with some really talented musicians, If you're into that kind of thing check it out, if not you might want to look for something a bit more structured - there is plenty to keep you busy.


So, OOT - I hope that some of you find some great new music here (as I have). If you do please share experiences, links, info, etc. on the stuff you are digging. For those of you already deep into the live show game, feel free to chime in with additional links, recommendations, info, whatever.

Have fun!

[NT!]

best poster in oot

[brick]

http://www.archive.org/details/calex...3-04-25.flac16

[TIEdup14]

anytime someone uses the word "jam" to describe a song I know it will be horrible

sorry, I'll take a pass

[GrandmaStabone]

[ QUOTE ]
anytime someone uses the word "jam" to describe a song I know it will be horrible

sorry, I'll take a pass

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I only used the word 'jam' to describe one of the shows. What about the other two? What about the other 2500 artists with 40,000-some shows available? Are you pretty sure they will all be horrible?

[TIEdup14]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, I only used the word 'jam' to describe one of the shows. What about the other two? What about the other 40,000-some shows available? Are you pretty sure they will all be horrible?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes.

I took a look at the internet archive list and couldnt recognize a single band-- and I'm not about to sift through 40k plus no-name garage bands to find a needle

[GrandmaStabone]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Well, I only used the word 'jam' to describe one of the shows. What about the other two? What about the other 2500 artists with 40,000-some shows available? Are you pretty sure they will all be horrible?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes.



[/ QUOTE ]

You are smart.

[TIEdup14]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Well, I only used the word 'jam' to describe one of the shows. What about the other two? What about the other 2500 artists with 40,000-some shows available? Are you pretty sure they will all be horrible?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes.



[/ QUOTE ]

You are smart.

[/ QUOTE ]

of course I'm no UVa grad, but I get by

[GrandmaStabone]

[ QUOTE ]
I took a look at the internet archive list and couldnt recognize a single band-- and I'm not about to sift through 40k plus no-name garage bands to find a needle

[/ QUOTE ]

You seem pretty close-minded so I am probably wasting my time, but just in case - you can sort the archives by rating, allowing you to check out the 5-star shows first to get your feet wet. You don't have to be familiar with something for it to be great.

Oh, and lol @ "40k plus no-name garage bands". That is a HUGE generalization to make (as well as being flat out incorrect) and honestly it is at this point that I realized your opinions weren't exactly fueled by logic.

To each his own though. I honestly couldn't care less if you are interested or not. I do think it is unnecessary to make a post letting us know that you aren't interested, especially when you are coming to this decision based on 0 experience with the material.

Also, thanks to the poster who posted a link to the Calexico show. Apparently I had that link screwed up.

[heater]

This is pretty sweet, thanks.