Root Down in the Shadow

Dave Matthews & Co stole a page from the Perry Farrel book of festivals (Lollapalooza) and did him one better.  This year, Dave Matthews Band is hosting four three day weekends of music across the U.S. Rather than tour across the country and only get to have one or two openers, he's bringing the country to him and sharing the stage with many deserving acts.  The A.C. and Chicago dates are completely booked up with the bands, the Governors Island NY & the Gorge (George, WA) shows are still being filled out.  Both Chicago and Atlantic City have G. Love, Ray LaMontange, Dave Matthews Band 3x, Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds, Michael Franti & Spearhead, O.A.R, Amos Lee, and David Gray. Atlantic City seems to be the bigger party, with Fitz & the Tantrums, Guster, Damian Marley, Dr. Dog and Carolina Chocolate Drops,  While also having a folk side with the Head and the Heart, Delta Spirit, and Lisa Hannigan, However, Chicago seems to have the heavy...

*** Part of an ongoing series of TOOLS TO ENJOY MORE MUSIC ***** I will attempt to profile great avenues of finding, listening to, and downloading new music, to help you , the music fan, get more out of your listening experience. This week's entry further explores the Smart Playlist.  I started into this topic back at the beginning of the blog: Check out  the smart playlist - tools to enjoy more music.   Today, however I will go deeper and give a specific example that many of you can take advantage of. Let's start off with a refresher.  Playlists in iTunes are just like making an old school mix tape.  A SMART PLAYLIST is based on variables that you set.  They can be live updating, to allow it to change as you are using your device, but they are meant to be updated as your music collection updates.  So, for example."My Top Rated" will be any number of ***** songs, rather than what you added into the playlist on day one! Today's playlist is a two ...

Way back in the day, I was pretty savvy with the computer and accompanying music software.  I had my stereo system complete with turntable hooked into my computer.  I could take vinyl and cassette and turn into a digital form.  Before I left college, I was lucky enough to help digitize some live music for my favorite band from college Disco Bitch and the Funk Machine .  But it was annoyance of not having a VCR after college that turned out my biggest "recording" success. I sat down with a borrowed VCR and my friend Greg's VHS copy of VH1 storytellers, Dave Matthews episode.  I laid it down into larger than necessary .wav files, and soon started the editing process.  I laid the 44 minute episode down into tracks.  Now there were only five full songs plus parts of two others mixed with stories about the songs and other various stories, but I ended up splitting it up into 16 complete tracks.  Doing it this way, I split out each song from story, eve...

In '95 during my freshman year of college, back at IUP, I had a visit from a great childhood friend Jim.  He came to watch the Clarks play live, and to see what trouble we might get our selves into.  Before the show, we did what any self respecting concertgoer would do.  We hung out in my dorm room and listened to the Clarks.  This was the first time I had heard the Clarks in captivity.  I had heard them once or twice on the Pittsburgh classic rock radio station 'DVE 102.5, but I had no idea it was new or local.  Little did I know that most of the band had hailed years prior from the same University, and while I was in college would rise to new heights of popularity.  I can still to this day remember the first time I listened to 'Penny on the Floor'. I have lots of memories associated with music, but rarely do you remember hearing a song for the first time.  The only other such recollection I can muster at this time, was the first time hearing ...