Software Soapbox

Happy 80th, BB!

Link: BBKing: 80

What's surprising is how well King's singing and playing continue to resist the years, especially when he unfurls his hearty voice on "All Over Again" as Mark Knopfler's guitar plays equally soulful foil. And Gloria Estefan is richly colorful duetting on "There Must Be a Better World Somewhere." What's disappointing is the perfunctory quality of King's match-ups with Roger Daltrey ("Never Make Your Move Too Soon") and Elton John ("Rock This House"). Van Morrison, Glenn Frey, Sheryl Crow, and Bobby Bland complete the guest list

SXSW's Torrent of Free Tunes

via Wired

For added convenience, the music is integrated with a new application called CitizenPod. Instead of carrying around the schedule of SXSW bands and venues as a dog-eared brochure, festival-goers can download the lineup electronically and transfer it to an iPod.

At the festival, which starts next week, fans can search for shows by time, venue, genre or band name, and then listen to a full-quality MP3 of the band to see if they're any good.

The SXSW website is also providing a smaller BitTorrent file (345 MB) of 30-second song clips.

More great music: When Klezmer Met Salsa

Highly Recommended.....

via washingtonpost.com

Rodriguez would go on to a busy career -- he's worked with Julio Iglesias, Miami Sound Machine, Joe Jackson and Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos -- but he also continued to dream about a link between Cuban and klezmer music. He finally found a forum with John Zorn's Tzadik label, which champions Jewish music, jazz and avant-experimentalism. It was Zorn who suggested Krakauer for the project.

Great Music: Marta Topferova - Sueno Verde

via Global Hits.

It's like a cross between all the latin music that I love - latin being a very broad word. You know, I like trova from Cuba, and bossa nova from Brazil, and this music from the Andes. And the influences I grew up doing when I was little, which is singing folk music in Czech and in other European languages.

Beck's new album: Guero. First song: E-Pro. And he has a blog.

The first song is called E-Pro.  Sounds good so far.  Will probably buy it this weekend.  Heh.  Libby?
The blog is here.  But no comments and no RSS. Scoble would fire him.  And can anyone see the pictures?  I can't.

via beck

For Guero's US release, we will be releasing two versions: The standard 13 track release, and a deluxe 2-disc set that features the 13 tracks plus 3 bonus tracks and 4 remixes by Boards of Canada, Dizzee Rascal, Royksopp, and Octet. The second disc will feature the DVD-A 5.1 mix of Guero, along with two videos. D-Fuse will be doing all the DVD content, including slideshows, and navigation.

The UK Guero will be the standard release with 2 of the bonus tracks, while Japan standard will have all 3, and the rest of the world having 1.

Beck charity event tonight in Hollywood

via beck

Beck and Filter Magazine have teamed up for a charity event to benefit the International Foundation for Human Rights and Tolerance this coming Thursday, February 24th at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood. With Special Guest Cat Power.

100% of all net ticket proceeds will go to support the International Foundation for Human Rights and Tolerance efforts for the Orphans of the Tsunami.

Tickets will be $25 each (plus applicable charges).

Jazz History Artifacts Set for New York Auction

via Reuters

Jazz memorabilia ranging from Charlie Parker's saxophone to Ella Fitzgerald's evening gown are headed for the auction block next month in New York, an auction house said on Thursday.

Other items at the Feb. 20 sale will include unreleased tape recordings of music by Parker and handwritten compositions and arrangements by composers John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk, representatives for Guernsey's Auction House said.

Parker's saxophone could fetch as much as $1 million, as could a tenor sax that belonged to Coltrane.