SOUNDTRACK: NPR Live Concerts from All Songs Considered (Podcasts).
For a couple of months now I have been exploring the All Songs Considered Podcasts. I recently stumbled upon a link to a whole slew of Live Recordings that are available for free. All of them are available for listening and most of them are available for downloading.
Some of the recordings seem to be acoustic in-studio sessions that last about 15 minutes (called the Tiny Desk Concerts), but there are many which are full concerts recorded from the soundboard. I happened upon this site because of a 2008 Radiohead show which runs just over 2 hours. Some other full concerts (most of which are recorded at the 9:30 club in Washington D.C. include: Superchunk, Dinosaur Jr., New Pornographers, Public Image Ltd., Tom Waits, and a whole bunch of shows from SXSW. The Tiny Desk shows include “Weird Al” Yankovic, Phoenix and my new discovery Sharon Van Etten. And there’s even videos of many of the shows, too.
I’m pretty excited to have discovered this, as there are a surprising number of great shows available here (as I’m scrolling to the bottom of the list, I keep finding more and more bands that I like). And all you need is to download iTunes to hear them (and if you’re a geek like me, you download Audacity and insert track numbers for ease of cataloging).
[READ: November 21, 2010] “My Bird Problem”
Of all of the Franzen non-fiction pieces that I’ve read, this one has been my least favorite. And one of the reasons for that is that it made me feel kind of uncomfortable. Not because of the main content of the article (bird watching) but because of some of the personal information that he (as per usual) included in the article.
The first uncomfortable part concerns his at-the-time-wife. It feels the like he is including information that seems like he would have needed her permission to write (especially since we know who he is and therefore know who she is, I can’t believe she would give it).
The second thing was just how misanthropic Franzen is. When he goes out into the woods to look for birds, he finds that the mere awareness of other people sends him into a fury. (“Oh no, were those human voices coming up behind us?”). And while I’ve certainly felt like that, to see it in print and to see it so often is more than a little unsettling. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 