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Last night Glen Hansard’s Swell Season (including Markéta Irglová) were at SPAC. Due to technical issues with sound, and presumably power, the band came on over twenty minutes late. During Glen’s first song the sound issues showed themselves, Glen promptly unplugged and walked to the front of the stage. His powerful voice filled the interior of SPAC, although the lawn might have struggled to hear much of anything. As the band joined him the issues persisted; additionally, one of Glen’s strings broke. Glen mentioned, ‘it’s not us that sucks.’ With awful balances, mics cutting, and pops here and there the band played for a very truncated set.

Only true musicians like Glen, Markéta and the rest of the band members, could overcome these mishaps to put on an awesome show. Other acts included Levon Helm and Bob Dylan, but Hansard was clearing the highlight of the night. Maybe it was his Dublin accent, but he rocked my socks.

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While in Saratoga Springs waiting to have lunch with my father I stopped inside Last Vestige and browsed around. Immediately I headed to the Jazz section and started leafing through. I came across this cd entitled A Love Supreme. A great album by John Coltrane, many musicians have covered the suite. Upon further investigation, I realize this quartet is a string quartet. I take a listen (Last Vestige is great about this), and now I own it. Check out the Turtle Island Quartet.

• QuickTime

This is a very interesting performance by someone referred to as Butter Boy, on the Smithers Plantation near Huntsville, TX 1930s.

This is from the album Deep River of Song: Black Texicans, a release of field recordings made fo the Library of Congress between 1933 and 1946. The recordings were:

remastered to 20-bit digital from the original metal and acetate field recordings.

Random library borrowing frequently offers neat finds.

mp3 1mb 2:27

Literally threw this together in about an hour.

mp3 1mb 2:47

I love what the compression did to this.