• A neuroeconomics critique of box sets: "So much of the pleasure of a purchase lies in the anticipation of the buy rather than the having. The anticipatory pleasure of a Big Box Set, no matter how large, is not so much greater than the anticipatory pleasure from a single CD. Yet once you own a large box it sits around." (Marginal Revolution)

• MP3s of the Week, from Beatles soul covers to Sivlersun Pickups to a Dinosaur Jr bootleg from Lollapalooza '93. (The Morning News)

• What happens when Sufjan Stevens and David Byrne share a stage? It's mentioned all over the place. "Indie Rock Dies Happy" exclaims the heading at Rock & Roll Daily. More coverage at Brooklyn Vegan, Stereogum and...well...just check the Technorati search results for the rest.

• An interview with Gerd Leonard of Sonific, a startup that allows users to make available on web pages. (Digital Music Weblog)

Posted by Glenn at 2:38 PM | Link
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• Here's a feat of flexibility if there ever way one: A David Fricke review of The Church's recent show at NYC's Irving Plaza that comes in under 2,000 words. Fricke wasn't one Coolfer would have thought would have made the transformation to blogging's succintness -- since so few print trad journalists can manage -- but he's doing it very well over at Rolling Stone's music blog. Now if only other print journalists could figure out how to blog... (Rock & Roll Daily)

• Blair from Music For Robots offers "Another Summer Sunday Mix," a 72.9 MB mixtape MP3 with tracks by Black Strobe, Walter Meego, Tussle, Kelis, Dieter Schmidt and others. Nice. (Music For Robots)

• The Guardian took notice of the controversy surrounding the Bands Under The Radar podcast. (The Guardian)

• The witticisms are flowing at The Velvet Rope over this indicting statement in Charles Duhigg's article about Geffen's Ron Fair: "'The corporate bosses used to buy a music company and then make the lawyer the CEO because he was the only one who spoke Wall Street's language,' said Peter Paterno, an attorney who once headed Walt Disney Co.'s Hollywood Records. 'But those are the guys who destroyed the industry.'" (The Velvet Rope)

• Get a free subscription to Spin magazine...if you're still into print magazines. (freebizmag.com, via Brooklyn Vegan, via Gawker)

Posted by Glenn at 3:41 PM | Link
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• Here's a link for lawyers, law students and people like me who try -- with varying degrees of success -- to follow these kinds of things: William Patry uses Dimension Music Publishing, LLC v. Kersey to explain the connection between the disco era and the 1992 Automatic Renewal Act. (The Patry Copyright Blog)

• Coolfer noticed an ad for the upcoming ABC series "Brothers & Sisters," which stars Calista Flockhart. A main character on the show is played by Balthazar Getty, known to music folks as one half of Ringside (Getty programmed the beats for the Flawless/Geffen self-titled album). Guess Getty won't be concentrating too much on Ringside any time soon...though the band is playing The Viper Room on August 17th.

• Songs found around the www. today: A Nelly Furtado-meets-Ratatat mash-up at Gorilla vs. Bear, a catchy early '80s-styled song by The Gray Kid at In Flight At Night and Beyonce's new single "Ring The Alarm" at Bum Squad DJz.

• The Guardian calls Jose Gonzalez (known best for the cover of The Knife's "Heartbeats" that was used in a Sony Bravia commercial) "this summer's 'Mr Festival'." He's appeared at more British festivals in 2006 than anybody else. Ironically, Jose says doesn't like playing festivals. (The Guardian)

Posted by Glenn at 9:27 PM | Link
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Yesterday's Wall Street Journal, of all places, mentioned some sites that offer free downloads of vintage music. Here they are.

• Cylinder Preservation & Digitization Project, run by UC Santa Barbara (go Gauchos!). This is a collection of over 6,000 cylinder recordings from the late 19th and early 20th century.
• Juneberry78s, a collection of songs mostly from the '20s to early '50s that encompasses early jazz, early blues and gospel, early bluegrass and other forms of American roots music.
• Library of Congress's American Memory archive, which currently has 31 music collections that covers Civil War Era band music, Dust Bowl era folk music and music from the nothern Rio Grande.
• Library and Archives Canada Virtual Gramophone collection, a collection of 78s and cylinder recordings released in Canada.

A sample of recordings from the above websites, in MP3 format:

• Ford Hawaiians: "Akahi hoi" from Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project.
• Black Diamond Twins: "Block and Tackel" from Juneberry78s.
• Julio Gomez' Orchestra: "Anna Magdalena Waltz" from American Memory

Other sites containing digitized early recordings:

• National Park Service's Edison National Historic Site
• Percussive Arts Society's Library of Cylinder Recordings
• Tinfoil.com's Cylinder of the Month

Posted by Glenn at 12:09 PM | Link
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Free downloads abound on the Internet. But how does one find the good and skip the bad?

Today Pitchfork announced its Infinite Mixtape, a series of free MP3 downloads. The first series, 21 tracks in all, are songs that are the staff's favorites of 2006. Pitchfork has long offered MP3 links, but not in this format. Now there's more weight behind each offering because Pitchfork's stamp of approval is valuable.

Another online tastemaker, eMusic, offers a free daily download. Today's freebie is "The Sediment" by The Palaxy Tracks. Only one track is posted at a time (better visit every day) and a thorough biography explains the song, the album from which it's taken and the band.

As the number of music blogs explodes, it becomes harder and harder to keep up with the offerings. New blogs enter the blogosphere just as MP3 blog readers seem to be tightening up their list of daily visits. There's a lot of discovering to do, but who has the time?

When the volume of blogs rises to an unmanageable number, sites like elbo.ws come in handy to show which are the most popular tracks on MP3 blogs. It's a good shortcut to endless surfing and downloading. At the same time there's a need for trusted, familiar voices to be a source for free music, too. Pitchfork and eMusic are filling that need

Posted by Glenn at 7:38 PM | Link
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• Download Man Man's "Boombox" (MP3). The band's next album will be released by Ace Fu on February 21st.

• Watch the very cute video for "Conceived," the first track from Beth Orton's new album, Comfort of Strangers. View WM high or low, or Real high or low.

• Singer Dot Allison (formerly of One Dove) has a few MP4 downloads at her website. One is a duet with Pete Doherty titled "I Wanna Break Your Heart." (Via Chromewaves)

Posted by Glenn at 11:54 PM | Link
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• Saint Etienne's Tales From Turnpike House finally gets a Stateside release (with bonus tracks) on January 24th, via Savoy Jazz. Click here for an e-card with audio streams and tour dates.

• AOL Music has a free download of Nightmare Of You's "Why Am I Always Right?" (MP3). You'll have to enter your birthday and zip code, but it's pretty painless.

• The Isley Brothers page at the Def Jam website has an audio stream (in WMA or RA) of the new song "I Just Came Here To Chill" (in the "latest audio/video" section at the bottom left). The duo's upcoming album, Baby Makin' Music, will be out on March 7th.

Posted by Glenn at 9:19 AM | Link
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Some bloggers have posted the track without as much as a mention, but Coolfer sees an angle on the new Elefant MP3 that adds a new wrinkle to the DRM debates: The download comes with the blessings of Hollywood Records.

Hollywood, which has a deal with Elefant's label, Kemado, is part of the Walt Disney company and so Coolfer is very surprised such a label advanced beyond lossy audio streams as a way to build Internet buzz. Generally, the bigger the label the less interested it is in giving away unprotected files of its songs -- unless, of course, it's somehow "leaked" to P2P networks. That's why Hollywood's involvement in this free download is such an event. Will others follow? For their own sake, some majors should follow suit. MySpace streams will only go so far.

The song wasn't just leaked or emailed to bloggers. A page was created and is hosted at the Hollywood domain.

Ah yes, about the song: A good tune, it's a thematic leap forward for the band and has a richness that was missing on its debut album. The album from which the song is taken, The Black Magic Show, will be out in April of 2006 and was produced by Don Gilmore and mixed by Andy Wallace. Yes, Kemado wanted to do it right.

Elefant: "The Clown" MP3

Or stream the song in WMA or RA.

Posted by Glenn at 8:56 AM | Link
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Konono No. 1: "Ditshe Tshiekutala"

When Konono No. 1's Bazombo trance music is blown through a self-made sound system the result may remind some of experimental/psyche rock bands or German electronic band Kraftwerk. For listeners who don't listen to African music there are reference points. It recalls the mechanical DIY and freakout-ness of Silver Apples. Percussion, likembes (thumb pianos), whistles and homemade microphones create dense, distorted grooves unlike anything heard on these shores. This track isn't on Konono No. 1's recently released Congotronics Vol. 1, but it's very similar and should give you a good indication why the band and album has received rave reviews. The band is currently on their first U.S. tour and will play three shows in New York next week (one at Joe's Pub, two at SOB's).

(MP3 link via The Suburbs Are Killing Us, long a champion of Konono No. 1)

The Bronx: "Heart Attack American"

There's nothing new about the song or this band. The Bronx's debut album was one of Coolfer's favorites of 2003, a sharp blast of loud, screaming rock 'n' roll. Seriously raw power. They're on tour with Dilinger Escape Plan and according to the band's website they were in the studio over the summer recording a new album.

The Morning After Girls: "Hi-Skies"

Was it the movie "Dig!" or was it inevitable that listeners and labels would be paying such heed to bands that owe greatly to the methodone-fed psychedelic rock that the Brian Jonestown Massacre has championed since the mid-'90s? The one-sheet has the requisite references to all the key names one mentions when describing fuzzed out, droning, multi-guitar rock music -- Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Spiritualized, Spaceman 3 -- and even Primal Scream (pre-"Come Together" maybe) and The Psychedelic Furs (there's a band that should be mentioned in reviews of half of NYC's rock bands). But this trend, this sound, is really about Anton Newcombe and his merry band of BJM pranksters. The name-dropping would be for nothing if the band wasn't good, and the Morning After Girls' Prelude EP 1 & 2 (Rainbow Quartz) lives up to the name-dropping as well as anybody.

Posted by Glenn at 9:42 AM | Link | Comment (1)
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Arctic Monkeys: "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor" (Demo, Domino Recording Co)

The slightest whiff of British buzz sends the New York music scenesters into a mild frenzy. There will be much downloading, much blogging and a hurried purchase of concert tickets. That's the sequence of events. The bands who have got it together -- not necessarily the good bands, though in this case the buzz is legit -- are able to build the hype, ride the hype wave into town, show up at The Mercury Lounge (no, not CBGB, which explains why it's closing) and find a line around the corner. There will be a lot of students and expats to give the essing line a few different accents -- they pay attention to what's going on at home. By the way, Arctic Monkeys are all the rage in Britain and are playing the Mercury next month. (They're currently atop the British singles chart.) The demo hints at the pogoing and beer-spilling that will unfold.

We Are Scientists: "Inaction"

I'd estimate 92% of listeners would guess this band is from England. Of the remaining 8%, roughly half saw the band's CMJ performance and doesn't remember an English accent and the other half actually knows the band is from New York (though some of that group, like Coolfer, thought for a long time they were from LA, which is were the group formed before they moved to New York and started gigging). Coolfer estimates that 42% of all live concert reviews will mention the bass players' mustache, and 86% (give or take a few points) of all album reviews will name check, in order, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party and Kaiser Chiefs. But the Kaiser Chiefs have fallen off a lot of radars, so I'm not too confident they'll get mentioned in all 86%.

The Delays: "Swallowing The Silence"

So nice to hear The Delays have finished their second album, You See Colours. As you can tell from the spelling of the title, the band is from England, and makes some of the sweetest Brit pop heard this decade. In an email to fans the band said of the album, "It's a beautifully succinct cut of the propulsive pop, man-eating bass lines and skyscraping harmonies." And to "tide you over before the tour swings into action," the email included a link to the above song (originally from the Long Time Coming DVD).

Posted by Glenn at 9:03 AM | Link | Comment (5)
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Coolfer got an email from Warner Bros Records the other day with an offer to replace the dead link to an old World Leader Pretend song with an MP3 from the band's debut album, ">Punches. If you're OK with it, I replied, I'll be happy to host. Given major labels' attitude about file-sharing and the fact that allow downloads of their music (opting for streams instead) I had to double-check. Bloggers don't want the RIAA to come knocking (though to be honest nobody is losing too much sleep just yet).

This has happened once before in the Warner Bros...as far as I can remember. To promote The Secret Machines' Now Here Is Nowhere, the label contacted a group of popular MP3 blogs and offered a song -- and an olive branch. Many bloggers balked. Music For Robots "sold out" and posted the song "Nowhere Again." The site took some grief in the comments section as well as some positive words from a few commentors. It turned out four of the comments were left by people in the Warner Bros office, and the label was ridiculed not only in the blogosphere but at some mainstream media outlets as well. (Note to readers: If you leave a comment, a blogger will know your IP address.)

So here it is, World Leader Pretend's "Bang Theory" from their debut Warner Bros album "Punches. This is a solid album -- with a few astounding highlights -- and the young band puts on a powerful live show. This song in particular stands out.

World Leader Pretend: "Bang Theory" MP3

For more, read Gothamist's interview with the band.

Posted by Glenn at 9:42 PM | Link | Comment (1)
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Test Icicles: "Scene Damage" demo
Test Icicles: "Catch It"

If I were British I suppose I'd use words like "cheeky" and "take the piss" to describe the three lads in Test Icicles. But I'm not so I won't. These kids scream, pose and snicker like art school class clowns who turbo charge (some may say sabotage) otherwise tuneful dance rock with fitful heavy metal and gabber-influenced blasts of beats. Don't ask me how, but they somehow manage to make it work. These downloads are from the band's MySpace.com page and won't be on the first U.S. single (out in November) or either U.K. single -- all of them released by Domino Recording Company.

Bloc Party: "Blue Light" Engineers 'Anti-Gravity' Mix

Being part of a trend, especially one that is predestinted to be short lived, is never easy, but Bloc Party's Silent Alarm manages to make itself heard amidst the stampede of similarly fashioned bands. It's among 2005's most enjoyable albums. With Silent Alarm Remixed the band leaves its reputation in the hands of others and for the most part doesn't come out any worse. My favorite remix is Engineer's 'Anti-Gravity' Mix of "Blue Light," a gentle interpretation that strips away era and leaves only songcraft.

Kudu: "Bar Star"

Not for lack of effort and want, I have yet to see Kudu perform live. Word on the street is they dazzle. "Bar Star" goes a long way to support that claim. Like Nublu cohorts Brazilian Girls, Kudu take the bridge and tunnel out of Manhattan dance music. How nice to have brains with beats again.

Posted by Glenn at 9:26 AM | Link | Comment (2)
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Times are tough. The belt has been tightened. You've gotta hear it before you buy it, spend your money wisely. So here, listen to music from today's new releases. Tracks are MP3 downloads unless noted otherwise.

• American Analog Set: "Immaculate Heart i" (Arts & Crafts)
• Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash: "Austin Night" (clip)
• Disturbed: Audio and video streams available at the band's website.
• Echo & The Bunnymen: Hear an album sampler at the Siberia mini site.
• El Ten Eleven: "Lorge" (Bar/None)
Kingsbury Manx: "Harness and Wheel" (Yep Roc)
• Lawless Element: Hear "Rules Pt. 2" at its MySpace.com page.
• Nada Surf: "Do It Again" (Barsuk)
• Old 97's: "Lonely Holiday" Windows Media (New West)
• Shaggy: Hear new tracks at his MySpace.com page.
• Swords: "City Life" Real Audio (Arena Rock Recording Co)

Posted by Glenn at 3:02 PM | Link | Comment (1)
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Rather than put them in the body of the Previewing the Week Ahead post, this time I'm putting them in a separate post so readers don't have to dig for them. As usual, it's the indie rock bands who are in the greatest numbers making their music available for downloading and streaming. Some majors are getting into the act but not many and in my opinion not early enough. Hopefully some other genres other than rock will hop on the pre-release listening bandwagon.

• Diamond Nights. Preview new album, Popsicle, at the band's website.
• The Double: "The Idiocy" from Loose in the Air.
• Apollo Sunshine. Hear at the band's MySpace.com page.
• CocoaRosie: "Noah's Ark"
• Sam Champion: "TV Fever"
• Stellastarr*: "Sweet Troubled Soul"
• Dandy Warhols: Go the band's sounds page to stream the new album.
• Sigur Ros: The band's MySpace.com page is streaming the album in its entirity.
• Cocorosie: Go to this page and listen to a stream of the new song “Noah's Ark.”

Posted by Glenn at 10:49 AM | Link | Comment (1)
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Yeti: "Never Lose Your Sense of Wondor"

I ran across Yeti because the band is on the Oasis On The Road – World Tour 2005 CD. "Never Lose Your Sense of Wondor" is a throwback to decades-ago Los Angeles, when B. Mitchell Reid would spin psychedelic and progressive rock on stations like KMET and KPPC. It has a catchy, innocent pop character that polishes a song plucked off a country-and-roots tree. I close my eyes and see Squeeze toying with Sweetheart of the Rodeo-era Byrds.

Deathray: "Sometimes"

Is there a more name-dropped band this decade that My Bloody Valentine? For all the references very few of the bands actually possess MBV's studio precision or knack for hazy layers of distortion that flow slowly like magma. Deathray's "Sometimes," recorded for a split 7" on Track Star Recors released in 2002, sounds like MBV because it's a cover of its song. Normally the band sounds nothing like MBV. Actually, this song doesn't really sound like MBV, but Deathray did a nice job with the cover.

Lomov: "Onyx"

With the rise and fall of electroclash and the emergence of schaffel, good old fashioned minimal clicks-and-cuts electronic music seems to have got lost in the...schaffel. Ahem. Coolfer found the Stadtgruen website through a Skitkatapult email. All of the label's albums are available as free downloads (visitors can donate to an artist via PayPal) and they're split evenly between minimal ambient and Detroit-era techno. This song, "Onyx" by Lomov, is of the ambient persuasion.

Posted by Glenn at 8:51 AM | Link | Comment (1)
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Broken Social Scene: "7/4 Shoreline" zip file

After a delay and two name changes, Broken Social Scene's new album is set for an October 4th release. To get the hype ball rolling, Arts & Crafts has posted a "brand new Broken Social Scene track." The song, "7/4 Shoreline," is a new song that has been in the band's live set for years. It has the same propulsive beat as "Almost Crimes" from their breakout album You Forget It In People. And like that song, Leslie Feist's voice is the engine that makes this song roar. Sounds like a rough mix to me. Hope it's a rough mix.

Rinocerose: "Bitch"

French disco-rock collective Rinocerose had been so quiet that until I got a CD single for "Bitch" in the mail I had sorta forgot all about them. This song grabbed my attention in about 0.6 seconds and held it until the final yelp. It's a dancefloor rocker for those Sparks-fueled early mornings at those few clubs in the Lower East Side that flaunt the city's cabaret laws. "Bitch" makes me imagine an amped-up mash-up with Prince's "Kiss" and KISS's "Do You Love Me." Rawk!

Koufax: "Why Bother At All"

Neighborhoodies has MP3s. The other day the free MP3 of the day was "Why Bother At All" from Koufax. Don't check now, the link changes every day. This comes from the Doghouse website. I haven't paid much attention since their first album on Vagrant. Seems they've been taking in some of the recent British invastion. Or they foresaw the Kaiser Chiefs's popularity when recordings this album, which is extremely impressive if they had such catchy songs and the ability to see into the future.

Posted by Glenn at 9:30 AM | Link | Comment (2)
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