01.22.09
From the Archive #10: Jack Johnson on Latitude 32
Jack Johnson at Pavilhão Atlântico in summer 2008 (Photo by José Goulão)
Not that I’m running out of artists by featuring Jack Johnson for the second time in this series, I just wanted to get this out of the way. This is going to be the last one of the weekly archive.org entries, but by no means the last one ever. There are still many recordings to introduce, I just don’t have the time to write about a new show every week.
Many people say that all Jack Johnson songs sound the same. While I don’t agree, I can certainly understand them. There’s that certain style to his music and his vocals are very distinctive. And there’s a melody in many of his songs that first has a couple of low notes, this goes up about an octave, then comes back down and does that over and over again. But his music has never been too repetitive to me, I like it.
This is a recording Jack made for a San Diego radio show called “Latitude 32″ awhile back. The sound quality is fantastic, but very little is known about the recording, not even the date or if it ever aired. It’s an old one, most likely from the time before the release of his debut album in 2001. The recording is available in all the usual formats or can be played in the onsite player.
Jack Johnson Live at Latitude 32
It’s just Jack and his guitar. He’s introducing songs and playing them, there’s no radio host. Times were very different at the time of recording, Jack was just a starting artist, most likely with no idea how popular he was to become. All of the songs sound so innocent, and almost all of them are now fan favorites.
The first song is Rodeo Clowns. It first appeared on G. Love & Special Sauce’s 1999 album Philadelphonic, then later on Jack’s second studio album On and On. It’s one of my favorite ones. I saw Jack last summer in the beautiful town of Sankt Goarshausen on the river Rhine in Germany. G. Love was opening for him, and one of the things I anticipated the most was G. Love joining Jack and the band to play Rodeo Clowns, and sure enough, they did just that.
All of the remaining songs made it to Jack’s first album Brushfire Fairytales. The second song, Posters, lyrically touches some of the same aspects as the first one – I’m an energetic, apathetic version of another person, check out my outsides, there ain’t nothing in here – and Jack sings it so genuinely.
The News is a naive and beautiful song. Drink the Water interestingly has the same intro that is used for Rodeo Clowns on the On and On album. Bubble Toes and Flake have grown into big crowd favorites over time. To sum it up, this is eight early songs by Jack Johnson and some stories about the songs. Definitely worth a listen if you are at all into Jack Johnson.
01.13.09
From the Archive #9: Donavon Frankenreiter @ Palace Theatre
Donavon Frankenreiter at Conrad Sohm in Austria in 2007 (Photo by Robert Mölzer)
Donavon Frankenreiter is an artist I’ve mostly heard jamming with his long-time friend Jack Johnson on acoustic guitars, but I haven’t listened that much to his own stuff.
In this week’s recording, Donavon and his band are opening for Gov’t Mule, so his set is a pretty short one, less than 50 minutes. The recording is available in all the usual formats: Flac, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, or can be played in the onsite player.
Donavon Frankenreiter Band Live at Palace Theatre on 2006-11-30
All of the Donavon Frankenreiter shows in the Live Music Archive are under “Donavon Frankenreiter Band.” I haven’t seen “Band” appear elsewhere, and as far as I can tell, that’s what it usually is when it just says his name.
Many of the songs in this show are from Donavon’s self-titled album from 2004, which was released by Jack Johnson’s Brushfire label. The opener is called Free, a song Jack also cowrote and used to play frequently at his own shows. It’s a small catchy tune, like many of Donavon’s.
The next three songs, What ‘Cha Know About, It Don’t Matter and Call Me Papa are also from the same album. The first one of them contains a nice guitar solo by Donavon. Call Me Papa has an interpolation of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Simple Man in the middle of it, such a mellow version of the classic. Donavon sure got used to playing southern rock songs in his previous band, Sunchild.
The remaining four songs are from Donavon’s second album, Move by Yourself. Fool, All Around Us and That’s Too Bad are bluesy songs with a slightly more electric sound than the rest of the show. This is a nice recording with an okay sound quality, and it won’t take too long to listen.
01.06.09
From the Archive #8: Howie Day @ Carthage College
Howie Day is a talented musician who started writing songs of his own at an early age. This show is from 2000 when he used to play solo shows with an acoustic guitar and use pedals to make the performance richer. It’s a soundboard recording, so the sound quality is very good. On the other hand, you won’t hear audience at all.
Howie Day at the Calvin Theater in Northampton, MA in 2004. (Photo by Javier Izquierdo)
The recording is available only in the shorten format, which the media players can’t play by default. I use the shorten tool to convert the files to WAV. Then a program called Switch can be used to easily convert the WAVs to MP3, if you wish. There are also some plugins available for music players to play shorten files. For more information, see this page. It’s a bit complicated this time.
Howie Day Live at Carthage College on 2000-09-09
Howie was only 19 years old at the time. He already had many songs of his own, but plays lots of covers in this show as well. He self-released his first album Australia two months afterwards, and most of the songs on the album are played here.
The most famous cover he plays is Toto’s song Africa. Howie says he doesn’t like the lyrics, still plays it, and so passionately that it brings a smile to my face. He also plays David Gray’s Babylon, sounding so much like the artist himself, but still somehow doing it in his own style. Other covers are Paddy Casey’s Fear and Joseph Arthur’s In the Sun.
He also plays three Dave Matthews songs, the first one being DMB’s big fan favorite, #41. He’s so much like Dave when he sings it! Somebody asks him to play Crash Into Me, but he refuses to play such a hit song and plays Minarets instead. From All Along the Watchtower he makes a smooth transition into another Dave song, Halloween. (Watchtower is originally by Bob Dylan, but Howie plays it in DMB style.) He’s got to be one of the best artists to cover Dave Matthews. I think this is the only time I’ve heard someone cover Halloween, at least successfully.
Howie’s own songs here are good too. He plays everything so passionately. Some of my favorites out of them are Ghost, Secret, and She Says, which ends the show. She Says was later released on Howie’s both albums as well as a single.
If you’re getting just some of the tracks, notice that there are incorrect song names in “Audio Files” section. #41 is in the recording though it’s missing from the names, it’s the fourth track. The file called “Sorry” is really Secret, and everything in between is incorrect.
Howie had a nice start to his career at the time. He got signed to a major label and released his second album in 2003, but hasn’t released one since then due to his problems with drinking and violent behavior. In 2008, he did some touring and has been working on a new record, so I really hope those problems are past him now and he can continue making great music.
12.31.08
From the Archive #7: Matt Nathanson @ Recher Theatre
Matt Nathanson at Troubadour in West Hollywood, CA. (Photo by Jason Tang)
Matt Nathanson is one of those artists who have established a loyal fan base in the States, but haven’t really toured elsewhere. His live shows sound like so much fun that I hope we’ll get to see him in Europe too. Currently I’m just happy listening to the recordings on the Live Music Archive.
This one is recorded with a pair of small-sized microphones at Recher Theatre in Towson, MD. The sound quality is pretty good and the audience sounds fantastic. The recording is available in Flac, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, or can be played in the onsite player.
Matt Nathanson Live at Recher Theatre on 2008-10-03
The show starts with two songs off his latest album Some Mad Hope, they are Car Crash and Gone. Towards the end of the song Princess we get to the part that the audience just seems to love on Matt Nathanson shows: sing-a-longs with older hit songs. Here the audience is excited singing Rick Springfield’s ’80s hit Jessie’s Girl.
Still and Falling Apart are also from the latest album, that latter being Matt’s own favorite on the record. The cover of the ’90s hit Laid is another big sing-a-long. That’s the one Matt recorded for the movie American Wedding. This show turns out to be such a dirty one. Somebody has thrown a book of erotic stories up on stage, Matt picks it up and starts reading in between songs! Besides that, Matt always likes to joke a lot during the shows.
His song Amazing Again has a verse out of a popular song by R.E.M. Matt does a couple of songs solo, but for the rest of the show he is backed by his band. The audience sings surprisingly well on the AC/DC cover You Shook Me All Night Long. A new song Detroit Waves contains a sing-a-long of Kids of America. The encore has Come On Get Higher, which is currently my favorite song by Matt Nathanson. Then show ends with a nice sing-a-long, an older Matty song called Answering Machine. “I could fall alone if all if I could fall away”, that’s how it goes.
And there’s much more. I feel this was a show with many good moments. Recently a couple of videos of Matt Nathanson went up on ATT Blue Room. That’s three songs and an interview. Go on and and take a look.
12.22.08
From the Archive #6: My Morning Jacket Christmas Special
Continuing the Christmas music theme from a week ago, this week the music goes more in the rock direction. All of the previous recordings have been live concerts, but this time it’s a recording of a radio show, another common way for tapers to record music.
My Morning Jacket performing at Greek Theatre on UC Berkeley campus. (Photo by Joe Lazarus)
The recording is available as Flac, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, or can be played in the onsite player, so all it takes is just a few clicks to listen to it.
My Morning Jacket Live at WFPK 91.9 FM on 2001-12-25
My Morning Jacket is one of those bands that are keen on playing Christmas music. In 2000 they released an album My Morning Jacket Does Xmas Fiasco Style and their later song One Big Holiday has been quite popular. This recording was made on December 21 and it aired on Christmas Day, so it’s not like the band spent the holidays in studio.
Elvis song Santa Claus Is Back In Town opens the show. Next they perform their own song X Mas Curtain, and after that, a beautiful acoustic version of the Christmas carol O Holy Night. Lead singer Jim James gets interviewed by the radio show host, then another song of their own, Xmas Time Is Here Again, is played acoustically.
Silent Night is the only Christmas song left here. Three other songs Old Sept. Blues, I Will Sing You Songs, and Come Closer bring something more than just Christmas music to the show and fit in perfectly.
There’s still many shows in the Live Music Archive I want to cover as part of this series. If you’ve missed some of the six written so far, you can read them all here or click on one of the links below.
12.16.08
From the Archive #5: The Flecktones @ MACC
Béla Fleck fretting a note with his nose! (Photo by Rick Gordon)
Only one week till Christmas, so it’s time for some music to get you in the spirit. And to keep things interesting, in 12 time signatures! This week’s recording is just over two weeks old, and it’s by a band consisting of four musicians with unbelievable talent, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. They released their holiday album Jingle All the Way already in September, and have now been on tour to support it.
This recording is from a show at Maui Arts & Cultural Center on Hawaii. It’s available as Flac, MP3 or Ogg Vorbis, and can be played in the onsite player.
Béla Fleck and the Flecktones Live at MACC on 2008-11-30
The Flecktones have been playing since 1988 and released 13 albums. The band has been in its current form since 1998 when saxophonist Jeff Coffin joined the band. Frontman Béla Fleck plays a range of different banjos. Victor Wooten plays bass, often in highly imaginative and complex styles. His brother Roy “Futureman” Wooten plays percussion, sometimes on an instrument called Drumitar, which he has created himself. Their music is a unique combination of bluegrass, jazz and much else, and it’s usually instrumental.
Futureman with the Drumitar. (Photo by Rick Gordon)
The show starts with their song Throwdown at the Hoedown, next up is a medley of traditional Christmas songs. I like listening to instrumental versions of these familiar songs, not having to hear the lyrics over and over again, just the melody.
Next up is a song written by Victor Wooten, Sex In a Pan, after that Christmas Time Is Here. Linus And Lucy is an old song written by American jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi. Victor Wooten’s solo is great as usual containing some Beatles and Amazing Grace.
Some other Christmas songs on this show are Silent Night, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and Jingle Bells. What’s most fun is Twelve Days of Christmas, which they play in 12 different time signatures. This was an experiment to make playing the familiar song more challenging.
Béla’s banjo solo closes the set. The encore has their popular song, Big Country. If you like this show, you’ll most likely also enjoy their new Christmas album. Here’s a good review.
I’ll be back with more Christmas music from the Live Music Archive next week.
12.09.08
From the Archive #4: O.A.R. @ MSG
O.A.R.'s singer Marc Roberge (Photo by Jason Morneau)
Fourth in the series of introducing recordings from the Live Music Archive is O.A.R.’s show at Madison Square Garden. This is not the same concert as their release, Live from Madison Square Garden. O.A.R. is actually the first band I remember listening from the archive. Usually their music works best for me in the summer, but listening to the show now has definitely brightened up my December.
O.A.R. is also one of the bands whose rise to fame has been largely aided by online trading of recordings, so it’s only fitting to make the band part of this series. This is a soundboard recording mixed with a recording of the audience, so you get the best of both worlds. Great work by the tapers!
The recording is available as FLAC, MP3 or Ogg Vorbis. It can also be played in the onsite player, so listening shouldn’t be too hard.
O.A.R. Live at Madison Square Garden
In addition to your typical rock band lineup, O.A.R. has Jerry DePizzo on saxophone. Their music is a nice combination of rock and chilly reggae sounds. The show starts with a song from their 2005 studio release, Stories of a Stranger. Like many O.A.R. songs, it’s pretty long, letting the guys jam. Most other songs from that album are also played as it was their latest at the time.
The show features hit songs from last years as well as old songs well regarded by the fans. There are O.A.R. classics like The Wanderer, Black Rock, Hey Girl, and that real crowd favorite, City on Down. Recent hits include Love And Memories, Heard the World and Lay Down.
Two guests sit in for a song. On Daylight the Dog, there’s Colin Smith. The warm-up act, Matisyahu joins the band for Program Director in the encore. Matisyahu’s own set is also available as a soundboard recording. The other two songs in the encore are those that the band has been playing for over a decade: About Mr. Brown and That Was a Crazy Game of Poker, the former being my favorite song by the band.
There’s over 500 recordings of O.A.R. in the Live Music Archive. When their album Stories of a Stranger came out, many of their records could be listened to on their website, if not all of them. Currently some tracks from their latest studio release All Sides are available, as well as many videos. This band has realized it very well that letting people listen to the music helps make it popular.
12.02.08
From the Archive #3: John Mayer @ The Pavilion
This week’s recording is from John Mayer’s summer tour with Brett Dennen and Colbie Caillat. It’s recorded by a taper with a microphone, so the sound quality isn’t perfect, but it’s surprisingly good. In addition to FLAC, the recording is also available as MP3 and Ogg Vorbis, or can be easily played in the onsite player.
John Mayer Live at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion on 2008-08-02
The show takes place in the hot Texas summer. It looks like a typical show from this summer tour having many songs off the latest album Continuum, but also lots of others, and the styles of the songs vary a lot.
The set starts with the radio hit Waiting on the World to Change, followed by Why Georgia. The two hit songs get the audience excited when the show takes a turn to a whole another direction. Next up is the old blues classic Crossroads. Another blues song is a very bluesy cover of Mercy, a new song by the Welsh singer-songwriter Duffy.
Another cover is Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’ of which John has a nice slow version. John is one of those singers who like to talk a lot on stage. That brings a pleasant, easy feeling to his shows.
I Don’t Trust Myself (With Loving You) is a great version with a long intro. Another long one is Wheel. In the middle of it John tells a story about his guitar, then teases U2’s ’80s hit I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, then goes back to Wheel.
Three John Mayer Trio songs – Good Love Is On the Way, Vultures and Gravity – find their way into the set (the last two also appeared on Continuum). The horn section in the band nicely brings color to the show.
Towards the end of the set, there’s Stitched Up – a jazzy tune that John cowrote with Herbie Hancock – and Belief. Gravity with Colbie Caillat closes the set. It’s nice to hear a female voice on Gravity.
The encore starts with some beatboxing that leads to Vultures. After that the show ends with Say, a song that was still unreleased at the time. The audience just seems to love the last last two songs, which is no wonder.
If you like this one, there’s also many other recordings of John Mayer from this summer tour, as well as many others, such as his blues shows. And what’s even better is the new release Where the Light Is. It features a concert with three sets: first an acoustic one, then one with John Mayer Trio, and the last one with his touring band.
Where the Light Is available as DVD, Blu-ray, CD or digital download.
11.25.08
From the Archive #2: Jack Johnson @ Kokua Festival
Last week I started covering shows from the Live Music Archive with a house concert by Jason Mraz. This week we go to the Kokua Festival in Hawaii, where Jack Johnson played a two night stand last April. It was a highly popular event, some people stayed listening to the show behind the gates as they couldn’t get tickets.
Last week’s taping was directly from the soundboard, this week it’s by a taper with a microphone. The sound quality isn’t as perfect and sometimes there’s chatter, but on the plus side you hear the audience much better, which is essential to a Jack show, where the audience likes to sing along to almost everything.
In addition to FLAC format, this time the recordings from both nights are available as MP3 and Ogg Vorbis, so you can listen to them in the onsite player or easily with your favorite media player. Just click on one of the links in the “Whole item” section to get all the songs.
Night One – April 19, 2008 at Waikiki Shell
The opener is Hope, a catchy song from his latest album Sleep Through the Static. It’s followed by one of the most popular Jack Johnson songs of all times, Flake. They are actually in the same file on the recording. Furthermore, the song names in the description are often incorrect, but don’t let it bother you.
Many popular songs find their way into the set. For Go On – one of my favorites from the latest album – Jack is joined on the stage by his brother Trent Johnson. Many other friends sit in for a song or more; there’s Paula Fuga, Kawika Kahiapo, Matt Costa, Mitch Townshend and Mason Jennings.
The encore opener is Plastic Jesus, a song from the movie Cool Hand Luke. It is followed by a song called Home. Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds also played their sets on both nights at the festival, and they sit in for the last two songs. First is the Jimmy Buffet cover Pirate Looks at 40, then a fun song to raise environmental awareness, The 3 R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle).
Night Two – April 20, 2008 at Waikiki Shell
The second night is kicked off with What You Thought You Need, another nice tune from the latest album. There are lots of same songs and some of the same guests as the night before. The sound quality of the recording is pleasantly a little better than that of the first night.
Staple It Together is interleaved with Led Zeppelin’s famous Whole Lotta Love. One of my favorites is the Mason Jennings song Livin’ in the Moment in the encore.
Dave and Tim join the “super mellow folk singer” on the last two songs, which are the same as the night before. Speaking between the songs is usually placed at the end of tracks on live recordings, so you can hear the introductions after the previous song, Better Together. They play such a nice version of Pirate Looks at 40. You can hear that Dave and Tim got to practice the songs the night before.
All in all, Jack and the band played good warm-hearted sets on both nights. There were songs from all his albums and some by the guest artists. Take a look at some of the pictures on the Kokua Festival site to get in the mood for the show.
The show from the second night was webcast on the Internet, but it doesn’t appear to be available anymore. However, many videos can be found on YouTube at the moment.
11.18.08
From the Archive #1: Jason Mraz @ Ootmarsum
The Live Music Archive is a great place to check out new music. Lots of music can be found in mp3 or ogg formats and played in the embedded onsite player. Some of the artists only allow distribution in lossless formats, which makes the music a little harder to access, but just a little once you know the drill. The recordings vary much in quality, but many good ones can be found.
I’m starting a weekly series of presenting shows from the Live Music Archive. So I plan to post one every week, let’s see how long I can keep it up. The first one is a very special one:
Jason Mraz Live at Backyard Dagmar on 2007-07-15
Now world famous Jason Mraz was on a backpack trip around Europe in summer 2007, mostly playing shows for small audiences. This one took place at a backyard in countryside Netherlands. It’s a soundboard recording, so the sound quality is very good. The only downside is that audience is barely audible. The audio files are in FLAC format, here’s instructions how to listen to them.
This recording has such an unusual warm feel to it – a big artist playing for a group of dedicated fans in a faraway place on a sunny summer day. Before the show starts, Jason is asking the audience to request songs they’d like to hear. He’s willing to try out songs he hadn’t played in ages, like Did I Fool Ya.
Jason is really fantastic on this show and the setlist turns out to be very good. It has his old hits The Remedy, You And I Both and Curbside Prophet. Included are fan favorites Halfway Home and 0% Interest, which is always so nice to hear because of the different endings. Beautiful songs I‘m Yours and Live High are there from his latest album, which hadn’t come out yet when the show was played.
Interaction with audience is amazing and the recording gives me lots of good laughs. The most brilliant part of the show is definitely Jason first collecting words and phrases from the audience
and then coming up with a song out of them (The Ootmarsum Song)
There are also many other videos on YouTube from the concert.
