Thank you, Inconstant Sol

I’ve been trying to reunite myself with this record, Bush Baby by Arthur Blythe, for a long time.

In a world - of bloated corporate Tune Pimps…

…Matt Lebofsky is Free Music Guy.

The Hellcows on the blogosphere.

The Hellcows were one of my favorite bands to see in Portland in the late eighties, they had a very original approach to noisy art-school postpunk with lots of personality. The only thing that I didn’t like about them was that they hated my band, I mean really hated my band, and loved to talk smack about us onstage. Anyway, someone put their first EP and split single with Smegma up on a blog. Good times.

Kletka Red may no longer exist, but they made more records than I thought.

I bought and enjoyed Hijacking when it came out in 1996. Definitely the most transformational of the nineties Klezmer activity (excluding Charming Hostess for having a more catholic-with-a-small-c concept of Jewish music and for dabbling in goy tuneage), well-informed by punk, Beefheart, and improv. Then I didn’t hear anything about them until I came across this blog post (via), which tells me that they made another record, Hybrid, before Soybelman hung it up, linking to free lo-fi downloads and the reissue available for sale, and also some YouTube (that’s a YT link, natch).

Dude, free metal.

At TGR’s Free Metal Albums. Browseable by sub-genre (there are 16) or country of origin (there are 30).

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Listening diary: Ruggles and Berio

So the first thing I did after digging on American Mavericks was go out and buy a bunch of old electronic music by Morton Subotnick (specifically #’s 1, 7, and 8 on this page). It was as great as I thought it would be. The next thing was to go get some Henry Brant (you can get you some here). That was great too. The next thing was to get some Carl Ruggles, but it took me until about a month ago, and then it was on vinyl (complete works directed by Michael Tilson Thomas, got it on ebay) so it’s taken me this long to digitize the first half. My impression was that I was going to love it as much as I love Henry Brant for alot of the same reasons, but I have to say that Ruggles succumbs to academic tedium alot more often. I’ve still got two thumbs up for it, but get the Brant first.

So then I decided to listen to some Bartok, but as I was scrolling up through the B’s I saw Berio (wikipedia), and I thought “gee I haven’t listened to that in a really long time” so I am. And it totally outrageously rocks. Don’t you love it when that happens? I listened to it when I got it, probably 12 -15 years ago, and forgot about it. It’s Laborintus 2, which as of this writing is available used for 5 bucks at Amazon. But I gonna go get me some free Berio here (vocal) and here (instrumental).

Steve Coleman too.

Steve Coleman also gives his music away for free. Here’s why.

On The Edge of Tomorrow really blew my mind in 1985.

Free (as in beer) Ostertag

Bob Ostertag has put as much of his own music as he is allowed to online for free.  Elsewhere, he explains why.

In this case I do have a clear favorite, Say No More.

DMG online- unreleased Fripp and King Crimson.

Robert Fripp sells and gives away lots of unreleased stuff at DMG online, including live performances of most if not all incarnations of King Crimson. Also diaries and reviews pertaining to RF, KC, and someone called The Vicar of whom I’ve never heard.

More King Crimson goodness at Elephant Talk.

Free downloads of unavailable classical and electronic records.

“The Avant Garde Project is a series of recordings of 20th-century classical-experimental-electroacoustic music digitized from LPs whose music has in most cases never been released on CD, and so is effectively inaccessible to the vast majority of music listeners today.”

I’ve begun with “The Double Life of Amphibians” by Morton Subotnick.

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