Flop Eared Mule A Country Music Death Beast and Worker in the Dylan Industrial Complex | Sydney, Australia | Est. 2004

Major gratitude to Tim for mentioning the Wolfgang's Vault iPhone (and iPod Touch) app.

I was dubious that the streaming would be more trouble that its worth -- watching YouTube on there is fine, but the buffering would get tedious over a concert length experience. Extremely surprised and delighted that on wifi flcking between songs and concerts was no slower than doing so in the iPod where the files are right there. Over 3G its noticebly slower changing songs but still quite alright. So I lay in bed and sampled some Delaney and Bonnie -- with Dominoes trio Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock and Carl Radle, as well as Leon Russell and Rita Coolidge, in the band -- some Bruce from 1977, some George Jones, some Booker T and the MGS. Of course presumably it is a bandwidth hog and so more suited to those unlimited plans Oz telcos decline to give us. But still, four hoofs up.

And of course if you don't have one of them gadgets, you can listen to them all online.

So in two short (but not, alas, sort enough) weeks I am tripping to the USA. Las Vegas (for The Amaz!ng Meeting), Flagstaff AZ where my sister has been exiled since that unfortunate incident in Canberra (don't fret darl, the statute of limitations ends in 2018), Chicago and Memphis (and one day waiting for a plane in Los Angeles.) Obvs the music possibilities in those few short words are, more or less literally, endless. I chucked 18 or so on an 8tracks:

It ends with "a Sydney song."

As a bonus here are some bits from Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour about Memphis and Chicago. The first two are under 1MB each (spoken word atmospherics only), the third about 4MB.

19 Sun Records.mp3
05 Tenessee BBQ.mp3
12 I Used To Work In Chicago.mp3

Tim is doing a series of eMusic posts at Johnny's. He's even speaking to eMusic reps.

Part One
Part Two

Part Three to come.

I'm mostly done on the issue (even if I could bloody log in to Crikey to comment, which I can't), unless something very new happens. I'm trying to focus on the music and let the rest fall where it may.

I stumbled on Moshcam a while back, been meaning to post about it. They film gigs around Sydney -- the Metro, Enmore, Factory, Annandale etc -- and make them available for streaming.

A lot of yer hipster indie types, but they just added Seasick Steve (who doesn't excite me in the least but is all the rage) and some other of interest. The quality is great, with multiple angles. I was close to the front at the JTE and if I noticed the cameras (?) they didn't distract me.

I have been revisiting that brilliant Justin Townes Earle gig.

NB, I assume these are available for viewing outside the Commonwealth, I can't find anything in the FAQ to say otherwise but you never know the way such things go. Perhaps one of my foreigners can let me know.

Here's an embed of one of the tracks to give you a taste. I haven't said anything about his new record Midnight at the Movies not because it isn't excellent because it is. The first album hit me full square in the side of head at a million mph, partly because I wasn't expecting anything from it but you don't get that rush from second albums, no matter how excellent. So here's "Mama's Eyes" from it (misnamed "My Father's Son" although that's understandable since it wasn't released at that time.) And after that, one of my faves from the first record, "Far Away in Another Town." But if your bandwidth can spare it, watch the whole thing.

PS, I also took an interest in their Public Enemy gig at the Metro since I actually had a ticket to it but lost my wallet the day before so didn't have any photo ID (and forgot to bring my passport) so the stupid bouncers would let me in!!!!!!!11111!!!! True story. I had a mournful cocktail at that pub across from the Metro and went home to bed, early. It takes a nation of one to hold me back.

Banjtastic! Pity it's not longer ...

Well, here's an elongated version from a few years back, with Earl Scruggs (pbuh):

And even more years back, The Muppets because why not:

And, ah, Crystal Chandeliers by Buck Owens which is utterly unrelated except I was looking for the Charley Pride version when I stumbled on Steve Martin at the Opry ...

And here's George Jones JUST BECAUSE

I heart Andy Baylor. Be there for sure.

I was moved to confess the other day that I'd never seen The Blues Brothers (a sin of omission now remedied) because I was doing some reading on Naomi Shelton and Gospel Queens and someone on the Internet mentioned her music was in the movie. Further research suggests this is not true, but whatever.

She has an album (her first full length!) from Daptone called What Have You Done, My Brother? There's a mention of a son going to Iraq but apart from that everything about this glorious wonderment of a record, from the album cover to the harmonies to the sacred steel of embarrassing richness, could be straight from 1965.

I included "A Change is Gonna Come" on my last 8tracks. Check out the YouTube trailer ye sinners and melt:

Yeesh. Justin Townes Earle just tweeted this. What a line up.

So after the intial bafflement I got over the eMusic plan changes and was going to hang around, and make a conscious effort to channel the higher per track payments to labels/artists I wanted to support. But then a bigger problem came down the pipe: "in the near future" access to eMusic will be blocked entirely for users outside the USA. Canada, UK and EU. Entirely! Certain labels/albums are already unavailable on a country by country basis. This is a familiar message:

But this change would exclude us entirely.

And so eMusic joins Amazon MP3, Rhapsody, Napster, Lala, Spotify and countless other digital download and streaming services off-limits to us. Now, eMusic do say that exisiting customers will be "grandfathered in" (see FAQ) although of course that's what they said about my current subscription plan, which they just changed. And the grandfathering actually annoys me more, because it suggests the geographic restrictions are not enforceable law, but a voluntary policy decision in deference to their new BFFs at Sony, and future majors they hope to land. If you are doing something illegal and are a company, you don't say "oh well, "in the near future" we will stop doing illegal stuff but people already doing illegal stuff can keep on doing it."

I can go to Amazon.com right now and buy any CD I want and ship it here. But I cannot buy the same album in digital form from the Amazon MP3 Store. How does this make any sort of sense?

I have questions about it logged with customer service, i doubt I'll get a decent answer. Googling the issue of geographic distribution doesn't bring much helpful up.

So now I'm thinking I will just quit eMusic altogether because of it even though I would be grandfathered in, the whole thing leaves such a bitter taste in my mouth. It is no different than DRM to me, right now. What was the point of being so visionary and courageous over DRM for so long, only to capitualte in 2009 with rubbish like this? Should've slapped DRM on the tracks back in '02 and you could've had Sony then.

I see that Sony Australia has its own digital download store, called with a rather hilarious lack of irony bandit.fm. There are some positives about it at first glance, I can actually use it on a Mac, no-DRM MP3s and 320kps (although I'm fine with lower bitrates.) The content appears to be more than Sony stuff, the Blue Note label is there and that's owned by EMI. The artist and genre pages are attractively presented and easy to navigate.

However. I put in the last 10 or so albums I dl'd from eMusic and they had none of them. They had a few of the artists, but not the same albums. I conclude they have no independent labels at all. If someone did an album for Chess it's there because the Chess catalogue is now owned by Universal, but later, say, Alligator recordings by same artist are absent. They are more expensive than iTunes on some albums, and iTunes has a much bigger selection. And for a couple of them I know for a fact I can go to JB Hi Fi today and buy the hard copy cheaper.

Is this where Sony is hoping to channel my money by excluding me from eMusic? Tell 'em they're dreaming.

I have never seen Blues Brothers.

Segue:

Here is my latest 8tracks, a semi-late Friday night and RIP Koko eight songs which clocks in at just over 30 minutes. There are a few mournful eMusic references tucked away in the lyrics too. ;-(

Over at Johnny's in the Basement, Tim directs a question to the blokes about the appeal of "Throw Your Arms Around Me." If I may crash the dudelicious party with some thoughts.

Queen of the Chicago Blues. Sorry to learn she has passed away. R.I.P Koko.

So, the eMusic issue. I didn't jump in and blog here about it for a few days because I wanted to be more measured in my response. It's entirely over the fold so as to not bump the Flatlanders down at the expense of a rant most people won't be interested in. It is long and rambly, assumes knowledge already of the eMu model and entirely about me, me, me. Fair warning...

In Dylan LP years I have two year end best of categories, "Best Dylan Album" and "Best Non-Dylan Album." The best will be Dylan, natch, so like it seems unfair to not even give anyone else a chance at the top spot. This year I will have "Best Dylan Album", "Best Non-Dylan Album" and "Best Non-Cohen Album" because I can't put anything but Live in London up top and that's just the way it is. End of story.

The Flatlanders' Hills and Valleys is currently frontrunner for Best Non-Dylan/Cohen. Anyone with an interest in Texas music, folk-country, alt.country, singer-songwriter music of the last 30 years is going to across each of these three guys -- Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock (although Butch doesn't have the solo profile of the others.) The sound is pure Texas dust -- accordian throughout and unmistakable south west geography and politics -- but with a dazzling richness, each of these three guys have unique voices, vocally and in terms of their stories. The songwriting rises to the occasion. "Homeland Refugee" is a clever reversal of the classic Okie migration story, in this the Californian returns to the dust bowl after losing his house and job. "The Way We Are" kicks it honky tonk, "Sowing on the Mountain" is tex Mex bluegrass. There are a couple that reference migration, notably the jaunty "Borderless Love" and some classic Texas philosophising in "Cry for Freedom" and "Just About Time."

There's not a non-catchy song on the thing. Five stars!

This has been a Bad News Day in my personal music world, which I may rant about after I've processed it a bit.

BUT WAIT!! When Bob slams a window, he swings wide open a door so I am most thrilled to see Tim Dunlop's new music blog at Crikey has gone live. Yay, Tim! Apart from being (or because of being??) one of the world's stand up blokes, his taste in music is impeccable.*

We are not very well served by professional, MSM or semi-MSM music blogs in Oz, so this is red hot orsumness all 'round.

*with the exception of his woeful Randy Newman blind spot.

This was supposed to be in my Folkways 8tracks but to my distress I just realised it was not there, must not have uploaded. So here it is.

Peter La Farge, "Drums" Johnny Cash does this on Bitter Tears, which includes numerous other La Farge covers (including "The Ballad of Ira Hayes.")

Hat tip to Phineas for tweeting this, and then going the extra mile to hassle me in real time about actually clicking on the link he tweeted.

Total Eclipse of the Heart, the Literal Video Version:

Also, Lonnie Johnson is really amazing and I never knew!! Boo @ me. You'll be wanting the Complete Folkways Recordings.

I just recently discovered Smithsonian Folkways has a whole series of podcasts on various aspects of its catalogue, the blues, labour songs, world music, Phil Ochs, several on the Harry Smith Anthology and so on. You can search for them under "The Folkways Collection" and "Smithsonian Folkways" (two seperate things for whatever reason) on iTunes or download them as normal MP3s from their website. They describe the 24-part series as "exploring 20th century human experience through sound" which is rather grand but I can't argue.

I have been really digging them so I thought I would burrow into my Folkways collection and do up a 8 tracks mix in tribute. Along with the early hillbilly and blues and folk you associate with Folkways, the collection includes some of their less well known nooks: some African and Central Asian tracks, a Lithuanian lullaby, some mariachi field recordings and some dude called Blind Boy Grunt.

Listen below or at the 8tracks site.

A reminder the annual Bob Dylan Birthday Marathon is on tomorrow night, Saturday 23rd May 7.30pm-2am on 2SER FM, in Sydney but you can listen online.

Now in it's 25th year of broadcast, 2SER's Bob Dylan Birthday Marathon celebrates the 68th birthday of the rock and folk legend. We will be playing the choicest cuts from Bob's 50 year career and will feature the new album Togther Through Life as well as the recently released Tell Tale Signs. There will be a review of Bob's own Theme Time Radio Hour and selections from Patti Smith's authoritive audio biography of Bob, news, reviews and interviews - and ALL THE BOBSONGS THAT FIT!

You can always find the Sydney Dylan meeting dates at our website ('scuse the dodgy temp site, I'll fix it one day)

In celebration I offer Bruce and the band doing "Like a Rolling Stone" (11MB) live for the first time the other night in Pittsburgh.

And a couple of Bob himself from April in Europe, via Croz. Get the rest there.

Workingman's Blues No. 2
Nettie Moore

Well now, this is interesting. I get a lot of music PR blather, and mostly I have no idea how I got on their lists or why, and mostly I delete without even opening. But occasionally you gets a heads up on something that could turn out to be gold.

And thus this showed up today, news of a collection "unifying American folk ballads and traditional Uzbek instrumentation" involving amongst others John Carter Cash, Marty Stuart and Dr Ralph Stanley called Pale Imperfect Diamond. Colelctively known as the Cedar Hill Refugees. Recorded in part at the Carter Family homestead.Some sample tracks are on MySpace, "Bury Me Not", "Keys to the Kingdom", "The Wife of Usher's Well" and "Wildwood Flower." WOW! It works, friends. They are on Twitter.

Intrigued by the music of Uzbekistan, composer and producer Jack Clift began visiting the Central Asian country to learn more about the music though studio work with Jadoo, a group of musicians who improvise using traditional Uzbek music. Clift's first trip took place in 2004 and, almost immediately, he began to identify the similarities between Uzbek music and the music of his youth; he likened it specifically to Appalachian mountain music that stirred his imagination. Rather than think the rhythms and tones a world away from one another, Clift noticed the parallel construction.