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 )

TOW The Cowbell

Back in the days of 2005, I frequented Lestat's Coffee House for concerts on a pretty regular basis. A musician friend of mine, Pete, played a monthly show there and eventually I started getting called out from the stage. Whether that was to bring my camcorder up to him so he can play around with it, or to sing backup to Little Red Corvette ("whooo hooo hoooo!"), I was always extremely nervous to get up there, yet always game. (Such is me - always nervous, but always game. Maybe that should be my motto.) Anyways, on one of his monthly shows, a group of us got called up. Actually, I forget the setup, but we knew we were going up there to join him, which is why I brought my cowbell (which I still have, thankyouverymuch) and Tyler brought a toy trumpet. Luckily, Chris brought his camera and managed to tape this "faceoff" performance of cowbell vs. trumpet during Little Red Corvette.

Thought I'd share this here. :)

Starbucks Time + Old Memories

It's Coffeeshop Saturday!

I had to bring in my car to the Hyundai dealership to get some work done, and was told it would be a few hours. Knowing this in advance, I brought my trusty laptop, a book, homework, study aids, and water bottle and planned to just sit in the dealer's wait area and attempt to be productive.

And then as I drove to the dealer, I spotted the Starbucks directly across the street and thought "jackpot!" I needed food anyway, AAAAANNND (TM Jordan) I've been craving their caramel apple spice. As my cousin once stated (and I agree), "it's like melted Cinnabon in a drink!" Now if only there was a shot that fit this bill too...

Going through some old files on my laptop, I found old scripts I'd written back in high school. My senior year was 10 years ago - I still can't believe that... it's such a trip to read through things I'd written back in the day. I was a fan of the parody, apparently. This one script, for example, was for Drama class, and it was a group project. We needed to adapt a Shakespearean play, and ours was "As You Like It", and we ended up modernizing it and changed the names of the girls to "Romy" and "Michelle". It's very hilarious to read now, in that it's both intentionally funny but strangely juvenile from the perspective of a 26 year old, but the scripts I wrote always got A's. :)

Junior high English (8th grade specifically) was one of my favorite years though... My "big" script that year (which I no longer have, sadly) ended up being a kidnapping caper, but still had the parody aspect to it because it started off with a rip on "Unsolved Mysteries". That show freaked me out as a kid. I remember coming home from AWANA, and it'd be on TV with it's mysterious music, dark tales, and creepy host, who I named the narrator of my script after -- "Robert Pancakestack". The plot details escape me, I just remember they were preposterous but made for a fun time when the teacher assigned parts and we read them aloud in class. As the writer, I was always really nervous, but they always went over well with everyone - and the teacher, who gave me an A+...

Speaking of 8th grade memories, Brian McKnight's "Anytime" has been looping through my headphones. Loved that CD back in the day too!

Anyways - I think maybe I'll sign up for a playwriting class at Grossmont this semester. Depends on what the class schedule looks like, but mostly because the anatomy/physiology classes I want are already full. (The daytime ones aren't, but those won't fit with my work schedule, sadly.)

Random - Movies

A few days ago, I started thinking about the movies we used to watch as kids. I don't remember what triggered these memories in my head, but I started to reminisce. In my childhood, a staple for me and my cousins was to watch those Disney sing-a-long videos, where you'd follow the bouncing Mickey Mouse head to the lyrics, over scenes from Disney movies or the Disney parks (...land, ...world, ...which makes me wonder why there's no Disneyuniverse Park somewhere). And of course, the regular Disney movies, like "The Aristocats", "Beauty and the Beast", "Aladdin", and so on.

But what I was really reminiscing about was what I like to think are the top 3 movies of my youth - the ones I'd watch over and over with my cousins, and we'd have our favorite scenes, know the lines, etc. The short list may surprise you.

In no particular order --

1) Sister Act 2.

Not only did we have the movie (VHS y'all), we rocked the (cassette) soundtrack in my aunt's minivan all the time. It wasn't as successful as the original, but it was so much more fun! Now that I think about it, the high school setting of kids who could really sing and the teacher who tried to pull it all together totally reminds me of "Glee". The songs were hella catchy. I mean, "if you wanna be somebody, if you wanna go somewhere, you better wake up and pay attention"... yeah, I can still sing along. And the "Joyful, Joyful" medley that brought St. Francis Academy the state championship always had us singing and dancing along in the living room. Our favorite was the song over the closing credits, where the credits rolled over the cast singing and dancing to "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". Man, I wanna watch this movie again. Oh, and it's what introduced me to Lauryn Hill - whose music I still enjoy today. "Some girls/guys are only about that thing, that thing, that thiiiiiiiiing..."

2) Hocus Pocus

Yup, the Halloween movie with a young Thora Birch, Sarah Jessica Parker, and a talking cat named Binx. I never really celebrated Halloween (dang my parents and their overly conservatism), but my cousins and I watched this one alot no matter what season of the year. I don't remember too much of the story now - I know three witches came back from the dead because a virgin lit a special candle, and they needed to absorb the soul of a young girl before sunrise in order to remain alive again. Kinda ridiculous, but it worked. It wasn't scary, it was Disney-ish without being under their umbrella, and it had a fun musical number... that my cousins and I knew the moves. Moving on...

3) Ghost

I know, right? Why are a group of kids under the age of 12 enjoying this movie? Maybe we had a thing for Whoopi Goldberg because of "Sister Act"? Actually, that did have a lot to do with it. She was the comic relief in the movie (and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress that year), and her relationship with Patrick Swayze's character was very endearing. She was the fraud psychic who all of a sudden could communicate with this ghost trying to send a message of warning to his love, and while the movie wasn't a comedy, their interactions provided a deal of humor to the dark yet romantic yet suspenseful film. Our favorite scene that we watched over and over and over was Oda Mae (Whoopi) first starts hearing Sam's (Swayze) voice and she starts freaking out when she realizes she can actually hear a ghost during the fake seance she was conducting. We just found the scene incredibly hilarious ("Sam Wheat???") - what can I say, we were young.

And thus ends my random trip down memory lane. [bows]