Free (Free) Music

I don’t really think of the Internet Archive as a source for music. But a post on their blog is a great reminder that the Archive is more than just the Wayback Machine; there’s a  whole bunch of music there too! The collection that interested me the most was the Live Music Archive. This  audio collection consists of over 100,000 live concerts. A quick glance showed that most are bands that I at least, have never heard of.  But the core of the collection is the 8000 concerts of the Grateful Dead. And I took note also of Smashing Pumpkins (919 shows), Justin Townes Earle(68), Warren Zevon (100), OAR (623), and Little Feat (463), plus 5000 other bands. No doubt you will find some great live music to fit your tastes.  But there’s more at the Archive:  the InternetUnderground Music Archive, Netlabels, Jamendo Albums Collection, recordings from the DNA Lounge in San Francisco  and a collection of 78rpm and cylinder recordings. One note of caution though: The search interfaces are limited and the cataloging shows need of a librarian or two. (Thanks to ResearchBuzz for pointing out the Archives blog post.)

--RL