Live Music Archive

I received the following email today.

Dear Live Music Archive uploaders,

Thanks to your efforts the Live Music Archive is approaching a couple of major milestones. By October 2011 there should be 100,000 shows on the archive from 5,000 bands. There are already over 1.5 million tracks in the LMA.

We'd like to thank you and celebrate these achievements with a bit of swag!

Everyone receiving this email has uploaded at least 10 shows to the LMA, and we'd like to say thanks by sending you an official Internet Archive baseball hat (see the attached photo below) and maybe some other goodies.

If you'd like an Internet Archive hat, rsvp to swag@archive.org with your name and mailing address and we'll send one to you. 




Thanks for your support and your contributions to the Live Music Archive and archive.org.


To which my reaction was, "whoa, I've uploaded 10 different live recordings to the Archive?!?!"

I guess I should rewind a little bit. Back in the days of 2004-2007 (ish), I was going to a lot of local concerts, which introduced me to the taper community. Certain bands and artists gave their explicit permission to have their live concerts recorded (audio) and uploaded to the Live Music Archive so that fans around the world could get to experience shows they wouldn't otherwise be able to attend, or for those fans who were at the concert the ability to relive those good times.

I met a few tapers and became friendly with a few of them - they were known for taping live shows of Jason Mraz and John Mayer, both of whom were taper friendly, and being a fan of both, I wanted in on the action. Which led to me investing in the equipment, wiring myself up before heading to a concert, and stealthily recording these shows. And I say stealthily, because while the artists themselves might be cool with it, the venues and their security wouldn't always be quite so friendly.

I'd recorded a few local musician friends of mine, like Pete Thurston and Saba, but I'd also recorded sets from Switchfoot, John Mayer Trio, Tristan Prettyman, Future of Forestry... but I wouldn't necessarily upload them. The whole process was kinda long, because you'd have to go back and edit the recordings, and I'd get all perfectionist about the sound and not want it out there. So I haven't taped in a long time... I'm not opposed to trying again though, if there's new equipment I can get my hands on that would pair well with my iPhone, for example...

Anyways, I was taken by surprise when I got that email with an offer for a hat... because I don't think I'd uploaded that many shows (and when I search for myself, I only see 4 shows that I officially uploaded)... but it was a neat reminder of fun days in my early 20s.

(Oh - and here's a link to the shows I did upload... http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=taper%3A%22Ryan+Prades%22 )