Just checking out how simple imeem makes sharing audio files.
Time Magazine listed the service as a Top 50 Website for 2008.
Other sites in this space include HypeMachine, Pandora, Blip.fm and Last.fm, but none of them make it as easy to embed a particular track or album in a post, email or social media site as does imeem.
Yesterday at quarter ’til six all the tables at Glisan Street acoustic music and drinking establishment, The Laurelthirst, were spoken for. It seems word is now out about Two Beers Veirs, and the band’s October series of free Wednesday shows.
EP available at live shows for $5
While we could have arrived earlier, we did manage to secure a spot on the padded bench in the back corner. I ordered Organic Tree Hugger Porter from Laurelwood Brewing Co. and a pinot noir for Darby and then prepared my ears for the old time offerings of Ms. Veirs and her collaborators (one of whom is the guitar player for The Decemberists).
While it’s not always fruitful to make comparisons, my first thought once the music started was how Two Beers Veirs reminds me of Ollabelle, a band we saw perform at Merlefest last spring.
According to Local Cut, Veirs says the title of her EP and group, “Two Beers Veirs,” was her dad’s nickname in college and once her friends discovered that fact hers as well. Neither could down much alcohol.
[MP3] “Spike Drivers Blues” by Two Beers Veirs
The Oregonian is reporting on The Dandy Warhol’s latest effort called Breathe Easy, which will be released on October 21, with all the profits going to the Three Rivers Land Conservancy.
Breathe Easy Trailer from World's Fair on Vimeo.
Breathe Easy is a collective effort that features multi-layered tracks laid down by friends of the band at their famed Odditorium studio in Portland. According to the press release, the Dandy’s have always striven to build and promote a community for musicians, and in 2007, they took a very purposeful step in making this a definitive part of their ethos.
For more, see Breathe Easy on MySpace.
In the video above, Elizabeth Cook, who Nanci Griffith calls “this generation’s Loretta Lynn,” tears it up holler-style with her husband Tim Carroll.
But don’t be fooled by her footwork, this is a complicated and modern woman.
She grew up the daughter of musician/moonshiner parents, but Elizabeth also graduated from Georgia Southern University in 1996 with dual degrees in Accounting and Computer Information Systems, and accepted a job offer from Price Waterhouse’s Nashville office. But her gift for music proved inescapable and the young accountant signed a publishing deal within a year.
Cook’s 2007 release, Balls, was produced by Rodney Crowell. “This is a very ‘indie’ album,”Crowell says. “In order to get it made, we all had to pull together and pitch in. But, Elizabeth brings out the best in people. Most of the record was performed live. There’s very little overdubbing and no layering. What I wanted was a snapshot of Elizabeth’s sensibilities. In the end, it was almost as if we filmed these songs.”
MP3 Offering: “Times are Tough in Rock and Roll” off of Balls
I enjoyed seeing Anders Parker play solo last Thursday afternoon at The Beast House in downtown Portland. It was also nice to sit outside on a bench and rap with the troubadour. This is what we talked about:
Q. How do you feel about Iron & Wine stealing your look?
A. (laughs) Only the few and the proud can grow beards like this.
Q. Where do you live?
A. I’m in Burlington, Vermont now.
Q. Does that have an impact on your music?
A. We just moved. My girlfriend and I just moved up there (from Queens, NY) in July. Since we moved up there, I’ve been in the studio. I have a studio in the house and I’ve been working on a new recordings, so in the fact that I have the space to do it, yeah.
Q. Do you mostly play solo, like today?
A. I’ve done everything from duos to trios to bigger bands, but lately it’s been mostly solo stuff with an occasional band tour.
Q. I noticed that you were recording your own riffs and then using a loop. What does that bring to your show?
A. In my formative years, I used to play a lot of open mics. I came out of that singer-songrwiter/folk/pop/songcraft school. It’s sort of a murky thing to define. I started out playing acoustic guitar in coffee shops and bars. I liked doing that, but I guess for more of an interesting experience for me and hopefully for the people listening I like to do a little bit more. There’s spontaneity to it. A lot of improv involed in it. Covering all those bases on an acoustic guitar, you can do it to a certain extent, but it’s another flavor, another tool.
Q. What drives you to create? What inspires you to write and perform?
A. I just find music endlessly interesting. There are a lot of metaphors, but it’s kind of a river. There’s always something to learn. As a writer, there’s something about that spark of writing a tune. It’s hard to define. There’s a mystery to it. There are certain skills you can learn and techniques and what have you, but that actual spark of a song coming or showing up at your door is a pretty wild thing.
Q. Is there anything else you’d like us to know about your work and what you’re up to?
A. I’ve got a bunch of records I’m recording, right now. That’s what I’ve been doing the past two months. Finishing all these records that have been half-fininshed. I’ve used this year to write and record.
Anders Parker’s “14th & Division (Live)” was released by Portland label, Bladen County Records on August 14th. Parker is also a member of Gob Iron with Jay Farrar.
Last Saturday night we made the wise decision to attend the early show at Doug Fir Lounge. Portland band Blue Skies for Black Hearts played an acoustic set, followed by another acoustic set from Oakland’s Rogue Wave. I’ve been listening to Rogue Wave’s Out of the Shadow for some time, but I’d never heard Blue Skies before. Both bands appealed to me, particularly in the intimate confines of Doug Fir’s basement.
Recently, PerformerMag wrote a cover piece on Blue Skies and provided some insight into their new album, Serenades and Hand Grenades, released on Portland label King of Hearts Records.
(It’s) an album that’s thick with nods to the punchy beat of the British Invasion bands and the rootsy rock of Tom Petty, but doesn’t feel out of place next to likeminded indie pop bands like The New Pornographers. Though the album was recorded digitally in ProTools, Serenades has the warmth of an analog, direct to tape session — something the band pulled off by recording everything live, using a real plate reverb rather than touching up the tracks after the fact, and finally being able to afford the technology necessary to help get the sound they wanted to hear.
Speaking of sound, singer/guitarist Pat Kearns served a brief stint as a live sound engineer for bands like Spoon and Death Cab for Cutie, and has worked as a producer and engineer for bands from all over the Northwest, including The Soda Pop Kids, Exploding Hearts, and The Very Foundation.
Colorado’s acoustic jam scene will have a massive audience tonight as Yonder Mountain String Band takes the stage at Mile High Stadium just prior to Barack Obama’s acceptance speech.
Also scheduled to perform at the event are: will.i.am, Stevie Wonder and Dave Matthews Band.
The convention anticipates 75,000 people in attendance, and a huge international and national media audience, for the acceptance event.Â
This 2008 Democratic National Convention is the first convention to be held in Denver in one hundred years.
I hope the band plays “Two Hits and the Joint Turned Brown.” Although “Finally Saw the Light” would also do nicely.
Feast on this. DocuTunes.tv is new site featuring an amazing series of videos shot in Martha’s Vineyard, with musicians Ben Taylor, Kate Taylor, Carly Simon and others.
These are exceptionally well done videos from the documentarians at Film-Truth Productions, also in Martha’s Vineyard.
“Got to make it somehow on the dreams you still believe” -Robert Hunter
Jerry in 1974, with Wall of Sound
Jerry Garcia was born on this day in 1942.
For the next nine days Nugs.net is streaming “All Jerry all the time.” At this moment, they’re sharing music from deep in the second set of 7/21/72, Seattle. The music is working to bring me back, not to that time (I was seven), but back to my old self, a self I think of as better in many ways.
I miss Jerry, a man I learned so much from.
Tony Furtado was one of my favorite performers in Boulder, and now he’s going to be one of my favorite performers in Portland. Can’t wait to catch up with him when we get to Pacific Wonderland.