To be legal, or medieval? That is the suggestion.

I had a friend ask me the other day if it was legal to provide my
readers a link to “bootlegs” and sites that give away complete albums
on their servers.  I asked my friend if she thought it was illegal
for a journalist to write about or show footage of war?  Well, I
don’t know if the analogy makes sense to you, but it does to me. 
I direct my readers to mp3’s I’ve come across, not because I believe in
the open market mp3 file sharing philosophy, but because I believe
the internet is an unchartered dimension that requires good tour
guides.

For those of you interested in legally protecting your music or art work, visit Creative Commons:

 ”Creative Commons offers a flexible range of protections and
freedoms for authors and artists. We have built upon the “all rights
reserved” of traditional copyright to create a voluntary “some rights reserved”
copyright. We’re a nonprofit. All of our tools are free.”

For those of you down with the revolution before the revolution is bought out by Googlemart, visit the radical folks at Illegal Art:

  
” If the current copyright laws had been in effect back in the
day, whole genres such as collage, hiphop, and Pop Art might have never
have existed.”

At Dusk

It’s hard to come across music these days that does not follow some
sort of musical standard.  You’ve got the many denominations of
punk, pop, rock, metal, but do we have enough non-conformist
genres?  Why do bands tend to follow a specific route?  Is
it for marketing purposes (so your local record shop knows where to put
your CD so that the trendy consumer can find your record properly
labeled?)?  I joined this mp3 blog world because I wanted to
present music that was not mainstream or unconventionally
conventional.  Today I give you At Dusk out of Portland, Oregon.  Their influences range from Philip Glass to Mission of Burma. 
What stands out is an approach to song crafting that is sincere and
from the gut.  They remind me a bit of local SF favorites, The
Moore Brothers.

At Dusk : We Could Do Anything
At Dusk : Farewell Joel Dean

eL Archer: 4F/EP

In recognition of the fine folks out there who have checked out this
site on many occassions and have e-mailed me comments, I give you the
first ever 4F/ EP. The songs are by  el Archer,  which also happens to be the editor of this blog.  The songs
were recorded in the past year.

1. intro
2. bus ride

3. the sea

4. think slow

Secretly Canadian

Just came across a label called Secretly Canadian
that’s putting out a wide variety of new and old names with a common
sound and theme.  Tomorrow night a group from the label called the
The Impossible Shapes will grace the stage at the Hush Hush Lounge
in San Francisco.  This band is out of Indiana and they produce a
sweet neo-psychadelic/ country fare that’s mellow and “midwestern” (a
new adjective I made up that refers to a romantic rolling hilled past of grand
pasteurs and sunny scaped solar flare). 

 Also on the label is the
evolving sound of Damien Jurado. 
I first heard a song of his called “Tornado” and immediately fell for
his story telling and unconventionally honest voice.  Here’s a
sampling of some of the great tracks I came across today:

Damien Jurado : Texas to Ohio
The Impossible Shapes : The Perfect Timing
The Impossible Shapes : Naked Bullrush

or find others that suite you here

Veterans Day: The Things They Wrote

Something really worth watching tonight on HBO at 9PM: Last Letters Home

Also
check out some of the letters published in the New York Times:Passages
from letters sent this year by men and women, now dead, to their
families in the United States. [The New York Times > Most E-mailed Articles]
more…

Bill

From the depths of a town once slated to be the next Seattle (is that
the most antiquated cliche I could possibly use?) where great bands like
Rocket From the Crypt, Drive Like Jehu, Three Mile Pilot, Pitchfork and
tons of other 90’s phenoms erupted, comes a new rock sound called Bill
that at times resembles No Knife and at times a poppy ‘Bill’y Joel? 
Well, you be the judge:

Only Wanna
Sound Scientist