DarrenBarefoot.com

All about music and related noise.

• Sharing
  the Groove. Message boards for downloading bootleg-friendly bands like
  Phish and the Dave Matthews Band. Their Bittorrent
  tracker seems kind of undependable, but all in all a decent site if you’re
  into the so-called "groove bands".
• Over at Chocolate and Vodka, Suw bemoans
  the radio edit. What’s the point? It used to be because they wanted the
  radio version shorter, but I’m not sure that’s the reason anymore.
• Bob Gruen, legendary rock
  ‘n’ roll photographer.
• "Downloads have an effect on [music] sales that is statistically indistinguishable
  from zero." From the
  Guardian. Don’t miss their list of legal (some for sale, some free) sites
  for downloading
  music.
• This
  is yesterday’s news, but all Duke freshman are going to receive an iPod
  for free. Sounds like a clever marketing scheme from those
  expert marketers at Apple. I was interested to read this
  graduating student’s reaction, who says "despite having raised vast
  quantities of money the university somehow doesn’t have enough money to fund
  its dining service and the Art & Sciences school is running at a deficit
  of $1.4 million!".
• Irritate your coworkers! Thanks to Rebekah
  for finding Ronan’s
  Online Karaoke. I tried Dave Matthews’s Satellite,
  but it proved too difficult, so I satisifed myself instead with Rocky
  Racoon. Some renditions are better than others–Brown
  Eyed Girl, for example, make me shudder. It’s peculiar that currently
  the number one song is A
  Whole New World (followed by Don’t
  Speak). Do karaoke demographics skew female? Or do lots of men dig belting
  out the Disney modern classics? Requires IE to hear the music.

Links about music.

• Via the very fruitful Steel
  White Table, we find the tablature to the 100
  greatest guitar solos of all time. Why Eric Clapton’s Crossroads
  is only at #10, I have no idea.
• Rog despairs
  of the live albums. I’m not sure why, but I live and die by live recordings
  (legit or bootlegged). Live performance provides an opportunity for musicians
  to imagine and re-imagine their music, and enables improvisation. More importantly,
  there’s the inherit risk of screwing up, which makes the music more compelling.
  Rog also points out that Rush has released an
  EP of covers. This isn’t an endorsement, as I’m no Rush fan, but your
  mileage may vary.
• Bad
  reviews of classic albums (and other art) from Amazon. On Pet Sounds,
  ‘full of bland harmonizing by guys that could barely swim’.
• This is cheating slightly, but if you want to transfer music to somebody
  else over the Web, use Dropload.
• Tim Bray references
  another
  reason (registration required, use this)
  not to buy music from the iTunes music store or other online music vendors–it
  sounds bad.