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Featured Archive 2005
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July 2005


Edison National Historic Site

from the official website: "For more than forty years, the laboratory created by Thomas Alva Edison in West Orange, New Jersey, had enormous impact on the lives of millions of people worldwide. Out of the West Orange laboratories came the motion picture camera, vastly improved phonographs, sound recordings, silent and sound movies and the nickel-iron alkaline electric storage battery.

"Edison National Historic Site provides a unique opportunity to interpret and experience important aspects of America's industrial, social and economic past, and to learn from the legacy of the world's best known inventor."    [visit the audio collection]

The Edison National Historic Site even has a radio show on the magnificent WFMU hosted by the museum's curator. The show Thomas Edison's Attic alternates weekly with Antique Phonograph Music Program. Both present early recordings played on early machines. These hosts drag in their equipment every week just to share the rare gems that might otherwise never be heard. Podcasts are also available.

June 2005

RagingFamily.com

The Raging Family
is centered around three brothers and a rotating group of artists and musicians. The story goes that the brothers Cosmos, Freeman, and Eden Corbin grew up on an organic farm, and were home schooled by bohemian parents. In the mid nineties oldest brother Cosmos, moved to Eugene, Oregon for high school, and was soon joined by his brothers.

"This began an era which culminated in the creation of the Raging Family, a production company, a series of all night events, and the 'Raging Family House' on E 13th which served as a home base and recording studio... until the constant loud noise and general mayhem caused the city of Eugene to threaten to condemn the building unless the situation was resolved." Operations were later moved to Corbin Valley Ranch, "a hidden country compound where they are focusing on making music, art and living life."

That's the story, here's the music! The Raging Family make gorgeous music flowing through the downtempo, turntablism, and trip hop veins, and they share it online for your review. Their latest release is, Black Holes, a fun concept album taking you along for a trip through space and time. Cosmos writes that it is "sort of an electro space rock opera." It is described as being "reflective of the Raging Family's live shows over the past two years," with Cosmos on laptop and bass, Eden on keyboard, and Freeman on electric guitar.

The release spinning most here at Oddio Overplay in May was The Speed of Life. Tracks Microscope listen and Outsiders listen won hearts. Their Everywhere Is Zoom release was a close second showcasing real skills.

However, these two releases from the Raging Family are only a fraction of those available for your pleasure. Fans of straight up hip hop will love Genus Pro "Grow". You can also enjoy a release under another of their monikers, the International Men of Leisure, and the The Talk Sick Buffet CD is a captured hip hop party.

The brothers also share solo works on their site. Cosmos has a cool mash up album with the equally cool title, If I Remix You Tonight, Will You Still Love Me in the Morning? Eden shares a downtempo CD, Ultrasur Moon Sessions, recorded en Español when he went to Chile and started up a studio within sight of the beaches. Free offers up a turntablism album featuring pre-1950s vinyl, The Old School Project. That one is sure to be popular with the Vinyl Sharity crew.

Once you have spun them and they are looping in your head, you can easily purchase the Raging Family CDs for a few bucks. Supporting the arts is what this is all about. Enjoy the beats, y'all!

April - May 2005

ipodder

At this point in the game, most folks have heard about tiny portable machines that will play mp3s. Apple's iPod has made a huge splash, and there are hundreds of other mp3 players available.

What is not yet common knowledge is the online world supporting the mp3 players. Oddio Overplay and similar sites offer you years of downloadable audio to load onto your portable doodad. There are also free programs available that automatically collect new audio content and even load it onto your player, so that it is ready for you when you want it. You tell it what content you want - music, documentaries, news, and so forth - and it quietly downloads the new feeds in the background.

These programs are referred to as podcast receivers. Don't let all the jargon intimidate you when folks talk about podcasting. Podcasts are just audio files, typically mp3s that are posted as enclosures to RSS documents, meaning attachments on update pages. Thanks to podcast receivers, one no longer has to be anywhere near the computer to download new audio. One no longer has to scroll through favorites, bookmarks, feeds, or blogrolls to see who has new content. Leave the computer running, and the podcast receiver does the rest.

I have only tinkered with a few of these programs, and was most happy with the cross platform [Mac, Windows, Linux] iPodder [aka iPodder Lemon]. It downloaded my choices for audio books, radio shows, exercise programs, news programs, music sets, and new netlabel releases while I was busy elsewhere. Rather than load them into an mp3 player, I left them on the computer to play while I work. No more waiting for downloads.

iPodder.org, PodcastAlley.com, and Podcast.net offer directories of sites offering audio files. With ipodder, users of blogrolls or subscription aggregators [like Bloglines] can also import their OPML list of blogs. Click here for my list, if you would like to get started by importing an OPML list. Save the link, and import the document into your new podcast receiver. It will load all of the subscriptions and begin monitoring them for new content. Most of my subscriptions do not have the rss + enclosure format that podcast receivers prefer, but there are enough to get you started.

So, there you have the basics of podcasts and podcast receivers in a nutshell. Enjoy your downloads!

March - April 2005

John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip

This invaluable collection is one you won't want to miss. It is hosted by the Library of Congress [USA], along with many other large audio presentions.

"The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip is a multiformat ethnographic field collection that includes nearly 700 sound recordings, as well as fieldnotes, dust jackets, and other manuscripts documenting a three-month, 6,502-mile trip through the southern United States.

"Beginning in Port Aransas, Texas, on March 31, 1939, and ending at the Library of Congress on June 14, 1939, John Avery Lomax, Honorary Consultant and Curator of the Archive of American Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center), and his wife, Ruby Terrill Lomax, recorded approximately 25 hours of folk music from more than 300 performers.

"These recordings represent a broad spectrum of traditional musical styles, including ballads, blues, children's songs, cowboy songs, fiddle tunes, field hollers, lullabies, play-party songs, religious dramas, spirituals, and work songs. Photographic prints from the Lomaxes' other Southern states expeditions, as well as their other recording trips made under the auspices of the Library of Congress, illustrate the collection, since no photographs from the 1939 Southern States Recording Trip have been identified." - from the official site

For more great blues, check out Oddio Overplay Showcase, Volume 2, Blues Done Got A Hold Of Me. It is a blues collection with tracks predominantly from the 1930s and '40s and including some bluesy jazz. [Tracks: 22, 63 minutes]

February 2005

postmoderncore

Netlabel postmoderncore is this month's featured site. postmoderncore is based in and documents the fringe music scene of Wellington, New Zealand. It celebrates it's fifth birthday this year as a netlabel.

Sensory Research Network, a community and media lab for avante garde musicians, engineers, and artists, hosts postmoderncore. SRN also hosts the Negativland fan collective called Snuggles.

Sam Stephens, postmoderncore creator and curator writes, "Snuggles has been a big influence on the philosophy of postmoderncore. I came to the conclusion that copyright was a tool used by corporations to make profits, and control artists and their music. The more I heard about sample music being squashed by copyright law, the stronger my decision that I should ignore copyright law in my own artistic creation.

"postmoderncore is the flip side of my protest against copyright and the idea of music as a commodity. I decided that the best method for sharing the music and accompanying art with its audience was to offer free downloads over the internet. I also wanted to reach a wide and international audience."

postmoderncore shares a large catalog of recordings, featuring such New Zealand celebrities as improv saxman Jeff Henderson. Two full albums capturing the creativity and power of Jeff's live baritone saxophone performances are available. Before leaving for a year in Korea, where he will still operate the netlabel, Sam posted 10 new releases.

The catalog also features a wide spectrum of musical genres including free jazz, country, spoken word, noise, experimental electronics, drone, instrumental, and trash rock.

"postmoderncore will keep following its own trajectory, and I look forward to being surprised by how it all turns out." -Sam Stephens, postmoderncore

December 2004 - January 2005

Mark Harp

With profound sadness for the sudden loss of Mark Harp, the following entry from the archives is presented once more. Please enjoy Mark's musical legacy. Tribute Gallery

Mark's band, Chelsea Graveyard and the Screams at Midnight will be performing a show to raise funds for Mark's funeral. [info] You can also donate to the Mark Harp Memorial Fund. [info in obituary]


On page one of his site, you learn that Mark Harp is "a Baltimore, Maryland, USA, Earth based musician, guitarist, web geek, theater sound designer, sampler musician, songwriter and composer, nutbar, website and graphic designer, bass guitarist, producer, director, arranger, bon vivant, unemployable dirt eater, Clark Bar enthusiast, ex-IMAX projectionist, actor, retired paperboy, SubGenius Pope, AND The King Of Peru."

Know what? It is all true! Well, the King of Peru bit is sketchy, but he certainly is one super duper cool musician. Mark is so cool, in fact, that he is currently offering you, yes you, 24 hours of his music for free. Goodness gracious! No fooling!

In addition, Mark has work available online with his current bands. Those include the Motor Morons, a long-time Baltimore standard you have to see to believe, the experimental band Kunigunda....

WCVT was once my lifeline, so 6PM is one of my favorite hours of recordings, so is 12AM, the Cabal EP. Sinking teeth into all his more experimental material these days.

Oddiophiles will love love love this man. Thank you and hats off to Mark Harp. Baltimore sure is lucky to have him and so are we!

Mark Harp created two pieces for the Oddio Overplay site - John Leslie and Oddio Overplay Theme.


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