Paul the music lover’s blog

Anytime I get a chance to hear Steve Sporre play his music, I’m there! Saturday, November 8, 2008, he played Hillsboro’s Insomnia Coffee company, doing a mixture of original and cover tunes. Steve was the backup music minister at my church for a couple of years, then he and an associate pastor were planted in a new church. Economics didn’t permit Steve to stay on in that capacity, so he’s got a “real” job again and continues to play his music. You’ll find Steve on MySpace at http://myspace.com/stevesporre and be sure to check out his album “I Am ready“. Also, be on the lookout for new material from a reincarnation of a Christian rock back he was in a few years ago. Good stuff!

Carlyle, found online at http://www.carlylemusic.com, is a four-piece band I’ve come to really appreciate. I’m generally not crazy about cover bands, but their sound and interpretations are interesting enough to keep my attention. The band got their start when friends Sunny Andersen (Lead Vocals) and Mitch Ward (12-string guitar) found they were having a great time entertaining at small functions like weddings. In fact, is was at one wedding they met drummer Galynne Davis who was performing at the same wedding with another band. She sat in with them that day and found a new musical home.

I have seen Carlyle several times at places like Border’s Books, Dessert Noir and Rock Creek Tavern. When I saw them at Hillsboro’s Venetian Theatre on Saturday night, November first, the fourth piece was a fella who played mandolin and sadly, I didn’t catch his name. My hope for this band is they record some original material soon so I can have them on my program. That would be a great honor for me.

Before I begin - this is not a paid endorsement. Over the weekend, I took a real good look at the Jamendo (http://www.jamendo.com/) music service. If you are an independent music hound (like me) you should check this place out. Most of the time, I listen to the “Pop Songwriting” radio station which plays an automatic stream of music for me in an external player. From the player, I can easily get more information about the artist and download their music (often a full album). This is pretty-much all I do, but the quality of music and the interface are so good, this is going to be a very useful tool for me as I find music to play on my podcast. On the site, you can also create lists of favorite artists and playlists. Of course it is social so you can share music with others and send them messages. Feel free to look me up - I’m PTML (for Paul the music lover).

What a difference a venue makes. I heard Harrison at (what was then) Taylor’s Back Room in Hillsboro. (Since then, it turned into Taylor’s bar, and is now closed.) During that show, most of the music he did was original. I enjoy the music so much I bought a CD played a track on episode 59 of Indie Music Sampler. For the show I saw at the Venetian Theater in downtown Hillsboro (which is almost directly across the street from Taylor’s) Harrison did mostly covers, including “Stayin’ Alive” (help me).

As I walked in the door on the evening of Friday, October 24th, I didn’t actually recognize him, but the opening song was an original and I had him identified in my mind in about 15 seconds. I may forget a face, but never a song! While I didn’t enjoy the cover show nearly as much as hearing his original material, I am probably not typical in that regard. Never the less, the show was brilliant and I’m glad I just happen to drop in.

On June 27th, I played “Lost In Love” by singer/songwriter Kay Rose (http://kayrose.com/) on episode 102 of Indie Music Sampler. Kay is from Eugene, Oregon, about three hours south of me. During our email exchange, we discovered that we were both vacationing in the same town at the same time a short time later. It was a small-world moment indeed when our families got acquainted in a restaurant far from home.

After much anticipation, I got to hear Kay play live at the Insomnia Coffee Company (http://www.myspace.com/insomniacoffee), and I was not disappointed. Having heard the studio version of most of the songs she played, it was very cool to hear the one-woman, acoustic versions. Kay is a solid performer who takes command of the keyboard and produces lovely songs about loves and losses and everything in between. So, if you like poignant music and/or pictures of oak trees, you should check out her debut CD “Words Left Unsaid”.

Self-professed not-very-nice-guy Tristan Ellingsworth made a return visit to Insomnia on Saturday, October 11, 2008. Find his MySpace page at http://myspace.com/tristanellingsworth. In his hour-long set (shortened because the additional artist who was to join him bailed) he played played both serious, introspective songs as well as the frivolous. He also did my favorite, Margo’s Song, which will be featured on a podcast near you soon. If you’re in the neighborhood as he’s playing, do yourself a favor and stop in. And as for not being a nice guy, I think he’s a step ahead of most of us - he actually knows it!

Friday, October 10th, a Portland band with a bit of an identity crisis played Insomnia Coffee. They introduced themselves as “The Remnants”, though they were previously known as “Plaid Violin”. Why the change? It’s not clear but it’s partially because the password to the Plain Violin MySpace page was lost, so they are unable to make updates to it.

The Remnants, if the Plaid Violin page is accurate, is a husband and wife team with friends. On the tiny stage last night I saw at least three guitars, a bass guitar, keyboard and a stand-up drum. They were pretty cozy up there! They seemed a bit rusty, eplaining they were back on stage after taking some time off to make another baby and other cool stuff. I look forward to hearing this band again.

Tonight I’m back at Insomnia to hear Tristan Ellingsworth again. Next week, I will hear (for the first time) my friend Kay Rose play for an evening, and a few weeks after that, the amazing Breanna Paletta returns.

If you subscribe to the podcast via the RSS feed, your podcatcher needs to fetch a file nearly half a megabyte in length every time. That file contains descriptions of the podcast, show notes and links to the audio files. I’ve decided to reduce the amount of bandwidth for both you and me, I would limit the active feed to 25 episodes. If you want to fetch a boat-load of earlier episodes (why not?, they are timeless!) I have included a link to a static feed which contains information for the first 101 (episodes 0-100). Each time I release 25 episodes, I’ll add the last 25 episodes to the archive. If you have a better method of handling huge RSS feeds, let me know! Otherwise, I think this plan will work fine.

How excited and proud I am to have released episode 100 of Indie Music Sampler. That represents 50 hours of music, having played over 600 unique titles. I just wanted to take a minute and thank all the artists who have given me permission to play their music, and to you who take the time to listen. The program is a part of who I am, and is a total labor of love for me. I figure I’ll stop doing it when people stop making great, independent music.

At the same time, the amount of time the program requires is greater than I want to spend. There are other activities I would like to add to my life. The two options for the program are to (1) shorten it to 15 minutes (2) go to an every-other week release. I listened to the “intro” episode recently and was reminded that my original vision for the program was for a release every-other week. This (referring to the previous post) would give me one week to select the music, connect with the artist/label, and start making my notes. The second week would be for writing, recording, producing, publishing and reporting.

With this new schedule, I will continue to be excited about seeking out and presenting new music to you, plus enjoy additional activities in my life. Indie Music Sampler represents a win-win situation for everyone. The artists get a little of exposure, you get to hear new music, and I am honored to be the connection. Thank you for your continued support!

When I was a DJ, playing music for folks was pretty easy. The music director had already told me what to play, and the program director had already told me what to say. Very little preparation was required.

Music podcasting is different — at least the way I’ve chosen to do it. First I go through my music sources (Podshow, Ariel Publicity and MySpace) to find the 6-8 songs I want to play. Then I contact each artist to let them know they will be featured. Often I need to ask questions like, “How do you pronounce your name” or “What album is that from?”.

I gather up the information I need about each artist and song, and assemble the show notes you see online every time I release a program. Then I write a rough draft of a script. In the script, I have the intro time (time before the vocal starts), playing time and how the song ends (cold, fade, natural). Any songs played from CD, I rip into WAV files. Any MP3 files are converted to WAV files, then I normalize (make the volume equal on) each song.

At this point, believe it or not, I have about 4-5 hours invested in the program depending on the number of titles I’m featuring. Once it is time record the program, all the pieces are together. The program is recorded in real time, and very little editing is done in post production. I run a non-agressive leveling process on the program to smooth out the levels.

The program is encoded to an MP3, making sure the tags are correct. The resulting file is uploaded to Libsyn and to a backup server I have waiting in case something happens to Libsyn (or my agreement with them). Then I download the MP3 and compare it to the original. If they are a match, I’m good to go. Then, I go to my home page, paste in my show notes and release the program. Oh, then then I publish the program as a MySpace blog and also release it as a bulletin.

After the program has released, I need to log into Podshow. For each track from there I featured, I fill in the date, program title and episode number. With artists I was introduced to by Ariel publicity, I need to write a small review of the song. Finally, I write every artist (usually with a MySpace comment) confirming they were featured, and providing a direct link to the show for their fans.

I’ll bet you had no idea all that went into one, little 30-minute music show!