Bad Religion - 30 Years Live

This will probably be one of my shortest posts ever, as I am simply too unfamiliar with the music to properly comment on it, but at the same time, I realize that it's a big enough deal to be worthy of a post.  Bad Religion have released a free live album in celebration of thirty years together.  The album is called 30 Years Live, and you can download it by signing up for their mailing list.  Once you get your email, it will have a code that you can use on the Bandcamp website to download the album in the format of your choice - the default is MP3 320k, but you can choose lots of others, even FLAC if you want to be able to burn your own copy in CD quality.

My brother Mike (who wrote a post on this blog about Metallica a couple of years ago) is a pretty big fan of Bad Religion, so he's much more qualified to talk about them than I am.  He says that the album has "one heck of a setlist," and that the first and last songs, which are from their debut album, "sound light years better here!"  Also, if you visit the band's page on the Epitaph site, "you can click on the album covers on the bottom of the screen and download 1 or 2 songs from almost every single one of their releases. and that includes a few of their best songs, i.e. 'sorrow' from The Process of Belief. altogether you can download enough for a really nice little unofficial greatest hits record."

Okay, so this wasn't as short as I'd thought it would be, but that's mainly thanks to Mike.  I hope you enjoy the album, and also the free MP3s from the record label's site if you decide to check then out.  Happy listening!

URLs:

http://www.badreligion.com/mailinglist.html

http://www.epitaph.com/artists/artist/5/Bad_Religion

Artist Spotlight: The Machine

The Machine is an excellent Pink Floyd tribute band that allows recordings of their shows to be hosted on the Live Music Archive.  At the time of this writing, there are 22 shows available for download in a variety of formats - namely, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, and VBR MP3.  So far I have downloaded three shows, and they all sound great and are quite lengthy; each of them clocks in at just under three hours.

The Machine covers a huge variety of Pink Floyd material.  All the staples that you would expect are here, like "Money", "Another Brick in the Wall Part II", and "Comfortably Numb", as well as more obscure songs; notably, they play songs from The Final Cut, something Pink Floyd themselves never did in concert.  They even play songs from the two David Gilmour-led albums, A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell, which kind of surprised me as those two albums do not seem to be very popular among Pink Floyd fans (The Division Bell happens to be my favourite album of theirs, though).  All of the songs are played incredibly well - to my ear, there's not a whole lot to distinguish them from the real deal, making them very authentic sounding.

This post has been written in memory of my father, who passed away very suddenly last month.  Music was a huge part of his life, something that he passed on to both of his sons, and he was the biggest Pink Floyd fan I have ever known.  I love you, Dad.  I wish you were here, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day.

URL:

http://www.archive.org/details/TheMachineLive

Album Spotlight: Noise Addict - it was never about the audience

From out of nowhere, Noise Addict's it was never about the audience has come along to become one of the best albums I have heard this year, free or not.  This is a collection of 15 songs in various eclectic styles, many of which are very catchy.  After one listen to the album, two songs really stuck in my head, and they stayed there until I listened to it again; I listen to an awful lot of music, so for anything to be this memorable, it has to be pretty special.  One of these songs was "Big Ups", which features barbershop-esque backup vocals ("da doooo BOP!", etc.), a drumbeat that occasionally stutters, and a soaring chorus.  The other was "Lasagne", which features songwriter Ben Lee's 7-year-old stepdaughter on lead vocals; the impromptu nature of the song and all of the laughter in the vocals makes it a joy to listen to. 

 

Subsequent listens to the album have revealed more gems.  The opening track, "That's How It Goes", takes a quirky look at the life of musicians, with lyrics like "Bands keep making music 'cause they didn't go to college, and as people are not suited to working in an office."  The multilayered, lower-register vocals in "Get Well" remind me of Brad Sucks.  "The Faster Side of Normal" adds strings to the mix, to absolutely beautiful effect.  "I Heart Your Band" marries a garage rock sound with lyrics about a fan's undying love for a band, even during such periods when they thought they were U2 or added a horn section.

 

The album closes with "Let's Do Our Thing", which is unlike anything I've ever heard before.  The verses are instrumental, with understated guitar solos taking the usual place of vocals, while the choruses feature layers of vocals, piano, and other effects.  It has such a warm, gorgeous sound, but it really needs to be heard to be believed - it's that unique.

 

it was never about the audience can be downloaded in a variety of formats; the default is 320k MP3, which weighs in at 80 MB, but "Audiophiles and Nerds" may wish to download it in other bitrates (I chose VBR high), or in other formats such as FLAC, OGG, or Apple Lossless.  An email address is required, which subscribes you to the Noise Addict mailing list, but they say that you can unsubscribe from it at any time.  Happy listening!

 

URLs:

http://noiseaddict.net/

Artist Spotlight: Justin Townes Earle

I have been a huge fan of Steve Earle for many years now. I am currently enjoying listening to his recently released album Townes, which is a tribute to Earle's friend and mentor, Townes Van Zandt. This album is not the only thing Earle has named after the late singer-songwriter - his first son, Justin Townes Earle, also bears that name. It is perhaps not too surprising that Justin has chosen to pursue a career in music. When he was a teenager, he made a guest appearance on his father's album El Corazón, playing guitar the rocker "Here I Am". He also appears on Townes, this time singing a duet with his father on "Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold".

I initially found it rather amusing that Justin appeared on the album "courtesy of Bloodshot Records", but after thinking about it a bit, I think it's great that he is forging his own musical path, rather than just riding on his father's coattails. Justin has released three albums of his own in the last few years, and last.fm is currently hosting two free MP3s from the second album, The Good Life. The first one, "Hard Livin'", is a fun country romp, while the second one, "Who Am I to Say", is a beautiful ballad. His Wikipedia page mentions that he has played at South By Southwest for the last 2 years, and a quick trip to the SXSW website yielded a third free MP3: "Midnight at the Movies", the title track from his latest album, which is another beautiful, laid-back country ballad.

Justin has also recently given permission for recordings of his concerts to be distributed via the Live Music Archive. At the time of this writing, there are 21 complete concerts available for download in multiple formats, including MP3, OGG, and FLAC. The sound quality of these recordings is not always perfect, but if you are a fan of live recordings, they are well worth checking out. Right now I am listening to the 2008-12-24 show from The Cactus Cafe in Austin, TX, and it sounds great - the recording is very clear, and the performances are excellent.

For someone who bears the names of not one, but two musical legends, Justin Townes Earle has a lot to live up to; from what I have heard so far, he is doing very well for himself indeed and has a very bright future ahead of him. I'm really looking forward to hearing more from him, and I hope you enjoy this music too. Happy listening!

URLs:
http://www.last.fm/music/Justin+Townes+Earle/_/Hard+Livin
http://www.last.fm/music/Justin+Townes+Earle/_/Who+Am+I+To+Say
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Townes_Earle
http://2009.sxsw.com/music/shows/schedule/?a=show&s=88839
http://www.archive.org/details/JustinTownesEarle

Album Spotlight: Smashing Pumpkins - Machina II

Sometime in the mid-1990s, I decided that I didn't want to listen to any music that was really popular at the time. I was a teenager and just wanted to be as different as I could be. I had my own favourite artists, mainly in the metal and progressive rock genres, and I figured I was fine listening to what I liked. Unfortunately, about a decade later I began to realize just how much great music I had shut myself off to, and for the last few years I have been doing a lot of catching up on music that I had missed out on. That can get expensive at times, so it's always nice to find some of that music available for free.

One band that I was always kind of a casual fan of is The Smashing Pumpkins. I liked a lot of the songs that I heard, such as "Today", "1979", and "Tonight Tonight", but never really enough that I wanted to buy any of their albums; I'm sure my elitist attitude didn't exactly help. I'm sure I'll eventually get around to obtaining some of their albums, but recently I was delighted to discover that one of their albums was released for free on the Internet. The album is called Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music and was released in 2000; until their reformation in 2007, it was actually their final studio album.

Not only is it free, but it is also a very good album. There is a lot of heavy rock, such as the rapid-fire album opener "Glass", the slower "Dross", and a cover of James Brown's "Soul Power". There are also a lot of more melodic songs like "Real Love", "Go", and "If There is a God". Also included in the download is a collection of "B-sides" to the album, which include alternate versions of a few of the songs, including a beautiful piano & vocals version of "If There is a God", which is one of the true highlights of the album. Some other highlights of the B-sides include "Slow Dawn", a melodic, mid-tempo number with a wonderfully warm sound, and "Try", a nice poppy song.

Now, because of the nature of this album's release (only 25 vinyl copies were made and distributed to online Smashing Pumpkins fans, with instructions to redistribute it on the Internet for free), there are a number of sources to download it from. I don't know if any of these sources is better than the others; the one I have does sound a little muffled, but it is definitely listenable and doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the album at all. The Wikipedia page about the album lists the following sources:

SmashingPumpkins.com (160 kbit/s CBR MP3) (doesn't seem to be available now) 
Billy-Corgan.com (320 kbit/s CBR MP3) (no longer available)
ThePumpkins.net (192 kbit/s CBR MP3)
MetroChicago.com (192 kbit/s CBR MP3)
Archive.org (192 kbit/s CBR MP3)
Archive.org (Q101 transfer, FLAC, OGG and MP3)
Archive.org (Virgin transfer, FLAC, OGG and MP3)
SPIFC.org (192 kbit/s CBR MP3) (seems to require a password now)

Please let me know in the comments what you think of the album, The Smashing Pumpkins in general, or your opinion of what is the best download source for this album.  Happy listening!