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March 15, 2008
Shorties
Yesterday's additions to the list of 2008 SXSW streaming and downloadable music performances:
Audio streams of shows by Basia Bulat, Billy Bragg, Carbon/Silicon, Christine Fellows, the Constantines, Darondo and Nino Moschella, Dizzee Rascal, the Duke Spirit, Grand Analog, Hot Springs, Kaki King, Liam Finn,, She & Him, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, the Stills, the Weakerthans, the Whigs, and White Williams.
MP3 downloads of shows by REM, DeVotchKa, and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin.
Bittorrent downloads of a lossless performance by the North Mississippi Allstars.
Celebrity chef and SXSW showcase promoter Rachael Ray discusses her musical tastes with the Austin American-Statesman.
“We have very eclectic taste. We listen to everything,” Ray said in an interview with the American-Statesman in Austin Friday night. “We are both devout followers of the Foo Fighters. We both love John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, opera and indie rock. That’s what I like about Austin, it’s not just one scene.”
The Times Online profiles Josh Ritter.
He is, of course, hugely grateful now for having been made the odd kid out - his parents used to tell him that the human brain was “like outer space”, and so he got stuck into exploring it, eventually becoming a songwriter of immense talent and originality. Musically, with his fast guitar strumming and tongue-twisting singsong, he gets compared to Bob Dylan a lot - he says it's a huge compliment, though he doesn't waste his time being too humble about it. (The writer Stephen King said The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter was his record of the year in 2006, and “the most exuberant outburst of imagery since Bob Dylan's A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall”.)
Ross Simonini of Trespassers William shares his SXSW experience with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
The beaten path is Sixth Street, where there are 10 venues on every block. In some ways, it's better to play away from the festival's throbbing, drunken heart, where the sounds of seven simultaneously performing bands -- specifically, drummers -- creates a roaring wall of sound. Nuance and atmosphere are destroyed in the Sixth Street environment, which would be unfortunate for us, a band that traffics heavily in these qualities.
The Times Online is keeping a SXSW diary.
The New York Times profiles the event, and talks to singer-songwriter Casey Dienel about SXSW.
But for many of the performers at South by Southwest, the ambitions are on a smaller scale: just to be heard. Casey Dienel is the 23-year-old songwriter, pianist and wispy-voiced singer of White Hinterland; her gentle melodies carry tales of visionary transformations. She said she was at the festival just hoping that “if you put yourself out there authentically, you’re going to attract people who think like you.” Looking at her rapt audience of perhaps three dozen people, she smiled shyly. “There are so many of you!” she said.
NPR's Morning Edition excerpts from Hillary Jordan's excellent novel Mudbound, and talks to he author about the book.
Jordan says Mudbound was inspired by her mother's family stories of the year they spent on an isolated farm without running water or electricity. Eventually, it grew into a larger story with darker themes. But the first character she wrote about, Laura, was based on her own grandmother.
NPR's Fresh Air interviews Dan Kennedy and excerpts the first chapter from his memoir, Rock On.
also at Largehearted Boy:
2007 online music lists
Daily Downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
this week's CD releases
tags: music books popculture indie news
