Sharing the Groove
In a second off-topic post, although related to the music recording post (so, hell, not all that off-topic after all, if you have a rolling sense of topic),
Sharing the Groove provides an amazing resource for downloading out-of-print and live music.
As far as I can tell, this isn't considered "theft" by the artists and labels involved--Sharing the Groove has a very strict policy of pulling any shows or collections for which the artists or their labels object.
The ongoing collection of material (arranged among message boards including live alternative shows, live jazz, video recordings, and other material) has recently included things like a compendium of videotaped Tool shows, Jeff Tweedy live solo concerts, old Captain Beefheart shows, Elvis Presley studio outtakes (fascinating), Mahavishnu Orchestra sessions, tapes of 1972 Little Feat FM broadcasts, some old PJ Harvey shows, Mike Bloomfield live recordings, a collection of Nine Inch Nails videos (which no one would ever show publicily due to their extremely violent content) (I have been permanently scarred by those), a Buckethead show, Shakti concerts, a Drive-By Trucker's (private) party recorded on the Fourth of July on "Tracy's Back Porch" (literally), a Hunter S. Thompson talk, a 1970s Miles Davis shows, some John Zorn unreleased sessions, and much more. (This probably gives you a sense of how eclectic my music sense is.)
The main material is in
BitTorrent format for fast downloading, although they offer some other formats (such as FTP).
Broadband connection is definitely recommended, but if you have it, the site is extremely worth checking out. I won't give any specifics since I
think this is relatively legal (it's probably just a gray area), but I've increased my music collection by 10 or 20 GB in the last six months with some things that are really, really interesting.
Posted by johndan at April 24, 2004 01:56 AM
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