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Posted by jrm-veris 10 hours ago

Rare concert recordings are landing on the Internet Archive(techcrunch.com)
457 points | 135 commentspage 2
lastdong 4 hours ago|
This brings back some memories. I often recorded live gigs from the radio. It was the best way to discover new bands and share them with friends at parties. The Internet Archive keeps on giving, what a great project.
lokar 9 hours ago||
Tangent idea: musicians should record every live show, and then put it on a streaming service, only for people who bought tickets to the show (possibly for an extra small fee on the ticket). Extra revenue for the artist, and a cool benefit for the fan (the liver performance you attended).
101008 7 hours ago||
I love going to concerts and I tried pitching this to producers, bands, etc. They just don't care unfortunately.

My mindset was: They already did most of the work, just exporting the audio (that already exists!) would give them extra income. Could be a subscription service, or pay per album, or even for free (it's a marketing channel).

Some bands don't want their live recording out there (multiple reasons: from errors during the live show, or to keep the experience exclusive, or they think some people won't want to go to see them live if they already can listen to it). There is also the aspect of "If we release it for free or in the platform, we can't never make an actual live recording album", which could make some sense.

For years I dreamt about this "Netflix for unreleased live concerts" platform but I couldn't reach anything. Maybe I am really bad seller, and I just needed help from someone with more experience with the industry.

I ended up doing this unofficially for my faovurite artist, with the help of friends and collectors, uploading bootlegs (sometimes amateur recordings, sometimes board sound recording), and catalogued so you can search for all the plays of a particular song, or an album, how many times this song was played, if there was a guest, filter by country, city, year, etc, etc.

pimlottc 3 hours ago||
There is also the legitimate view that a concert is a physical, ephemeral experience shared by the people in the room on the night. That is it fleeting is part of its beauty, in the same manner as live theater.

Which is not to say no concert should ever be recorded, but I could understand why it wouldn’t be a priority for some artists.

buildsjets 6 hours ago|||
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (yes really) do this, but not just for people who buy tickets to the show. They have 444 concerts up on Archive.org for free to all.

https://archive.org/details/KingGizzardAndTheLizardWizard

Plenty of other artists have free concert archives at https://archive.org/details/etree

kanemcgrath 4 hours ago|||
since they have been doing orchestral performances, getting to hear the orchestral versions of their old songs has been amazing.
soneil 3 hours ago|||
Sigur Ros have a surprising number of shows on their ftp, which is delightfully retro.
FatherOfCurses 4 hours ago|||
I wonder if a band could put together a live stream concert published to a private stream sent to a movie theater. A bunch of fans of the band could get together and have the concert experience with fellow fans but not have to pay as much as an in-person concert. Movie theaters would have another way to get people in the door.
itintheory 4 hours ago||
This definitely happens. Last time Dead & Company came to town, it was simulcast in the local movie theater. Tickets to the show were only available on a raffle basis since the venue didn't hold nearly enough people.

Then again, the Dead were also pioneers of permitting and encouraging the bootleg scene.

petetnt 9 hours ago|||
Fugazi released almost 900 shows on CD in the early 2000’s, costing 5 bucks a piece. Some of them are available on their Bandcamp page these days too https://fugazi.bandcamp.com/.
ilamont 6 hours ago||
Not only that, you can listen to many of them for free from the Fugazi online concert archive: https://dischord.com/fugazi_live_series

(See my comment upthread about Fugazi and the unexpected encounter with Ian MacKaye after I stumbled upon an obscure YouTube recording)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47769059

lordfosco 6 hours ago|||
There was a German startup called Bleecker Street [1] about a decade ago that did exactly that. They toured with artists like Chris Rea, Simple Minds, and Mark Knopfler, tapping directly into the FOH desk at each venue. They would mix the audio live, even adding the ambient noise of the crowd to capture the live feeling.

Right after the show, you could buy fancy looking USB sticks, designed with unique elements of the artists, pre-loaded with the recording of the set you had just heard.

I still have a guitar-shaped USB stick from a Mark Knopfler show at a small venue in a tiny town in southern Germany. Honestly, it’s a far better souvenir than any picture I could have taken.

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20150205231438/http://www.bleeck...

ClifReeder 9 hours ago|||
This is very much a among jam bands - see https://www.nugs.net/
lokar 8 hours ago||
That looks like just a subscription thing, right?

I saw David Byrne last week, during checkout for the ticket I would probably have paid an extra $10 to get access to the recording of that show.

epiccoleman 8 hours ago|||
It's not just a subscription thing, you can purchase individual shows ala bandcamp too.

But yeah, jam bands have really embraced this more than any other category of artist - it's quite common even among low-mid tier jam bands that every single show ends up on Nugs. These bands are often pretty friendly to recordists too (a recent show I was at has two recordings on the IA as well as the Nugs version. Everyone's happy!)

hardtke 3 hours ago||||
Phish gives people a code that lets them access the show they attend on livephish.com without a subscription. You can subscribe and get access to all of the shows. I think livephish.com is run by and/or shares the same platform as nugs.net but it's a different subscription.
block_dagger 1 hour ago||
Try https://phish.in
tclancy 7 hours ago|||
Mike Doughty used to sell burned CDs of the show at the merch table (afterwards in case anyone was worried he was using some Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago technique to violate the space time continuum) back in the aughts.
natios 9 hours ago|||
why not have it accessible to everyone so collectors can have a field day with it!
dewey 9 hours ago||
Are you working for free too?
xd1936 8 hours ago||
Available for everyone to purchase*, not just the local venue ticket holders.
lokar 8 hours ago||
I think (I could be wrong), that relatively few people would value the recordings from every show on a tour. But, many more people would value somewhat exclusive access to the recording for a show they attended in person.
maweaver 8 hours ago||
As someone else mentioned above, with jam bands each performance is unique, and people definitely value getting access to every show. For bands repeating the same set as identically as possible on a tour, not sure how much it matters which performance you listen to. Although some people might be into it, for the "I was there" novelty factor.
dhosek 7 hours ago|||
Nihil sub sola novum est.

This has been done. Peter Gabriel, for example, did this on one of his tours (I think Back to Front, but I’m too lazy to dig it up). The California Guitar Trio also experimented with it.

I’m guessing the fact that it’s not a widespread practice is that the return on investment (and we’re talking strictly the additional costs beyond simply recording the show) didn’t justify the effort.

zimpenfish 6 hours ago||
> This has been done.

Yeah, I've been to low double-figure gigs[0] where they were selling soundboard CDs shortly after the gig. If I'm not mistaken, a bunch of them were being done by the same company (but an internet search is unproductive.)

[0] In London, I want to say late 2000s, early 2010s?

MilkLizard 6 hours ago|||
Metallica does or did this. I still have some mp3 of the shows I saw years ago.
tracker1 8 hours ago|||
At the last "That Damn Show" in Phoenix (2001 iirc), a couple of the bands were burning and selling CDs from that show. Was kind of nice/wild to see.
RajT88 9 hours ago|||
There's a niche market for this. Whoever builds it will make a good living, I feel.
dfxm12 8 hours ago||
Why restrict it to ticket holders? I'm sure bands don't want to leave money on the table either. Metallica surely doesn't: https://www.metallica.com/store/live-metallica-cds/
LargeWu 9 hours ago||
For those interested, Relisten is another repository of live concert recordings. It skews heavily towards improvisational music, ie jambands, but there's some indie rock on there as well.

https://relisten.net/

bigfishrunning 9 hours ago|
Cool site, thanks! it seems to also be backed by archive.org, i wonder if there's a way to move more stuff into that interface. the nirvana performance in the article isn't there for instance.
ClifReeder 8 hours ago||
One of the authors/maintainers of Relisten posted that they are working on adding the Aadam Jacbos collection - https://bsky.app/profile/saewitz.com/post/3mjawvvklls2v
switz 4 hours ago||
Oh hey, it's me! Happy to answer any questions

We landed an update on mobile last week that brought all 4,000 artists with a "collection" onto Relisten. That'll be coming to the web and sonos shortly as well.

We've been discussing the Aadam Jacob's collection with the archivists for some time. It comes with its own unique UX[0] and data constraints so we've been iterating on that and waiting for a critical mass of uploads before tackling it. We're getting closer though.

I agree with most of the sentiment in these comments. Archive and share non-comercially all the things!

[0] it's not "one" artist so it requires some custom UI, it should be unified through a single Aadam Jacob's collection, and it has a unique data path/structure on Archive.org relative to other collections

monooso 10 hours ago||
A discussion from six days ago (same story, different source):

https://apnews.com/article/aadam-jacobs-collection-concerts-...

EvanAnderson 9 hours ago|
Here's the discussion from 3 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47687443

I was pleased to find some "They Might Be Giants" in the archive.

standardly 4 hours ago||
Some great commentary in here. I agree all games have loops, so the authors stance against them comes off as a bit confusing.

I think what the author is getting at is when loops are obviosuly "felt" and feel canned.

Strategy games typically have obvious, tight loops. Turn-based games are loop-driven by definition. And so on. This is fine.

But single player games, single player RPGs, etc, can suffer if the loop is really tight and obvious. Early on, you feel "oh, i get it. it's going to be 40 more hours of THIS". Novelty wears off if the loop doesn't really change or evolve. Whereas in turn-based games or strategy-based games, the loop itself IS the game because it progresses as the game state evolves. Nobody complains about the game-loop of chess because that's the game - if you don't like the loop, you don't like the game and the convo ends there, is what is is. But a single-player adventure game, for example, has to do a lot of other stuff right to keep a player incentivized to keep playing the "loop".

Best example would be BG3, where theres clearly a loop - but its massive. Theres a LOT of variation and events between leaving camp and returning later that night. So each "loop" rarely feels samey.

I think the issue is when gameplay loops become transparent and predictable rather than maintaining novelty. A LOT of games suffer for this - the type of game you agree is good, you enjoy it, but put it down after 12 hours for some reason. It's bc of this. The human brain seeks novelty.

pimlottc 3 hours ago|
You probably meant to reply to a different post:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764164

bilekas 8 hours ago||
I have my worries about Internet Archive more and more recently.

I'm wondering though is there any decentralized IPFS or P2P Archive of the entire archive that can be helped with for preservation ?

https://www.wired.com/story/the-internets-most-powerful-arch...

boomboomsubban 55 minutes ago||
IA makes torrents for basically everything on it's site.
sdellis 8 hours ago||
According to the Wikipedia page, it seems that copies of the archive are stored around the world.

LOCKSS is a decentralized strategy for preservation which includes archival copies at remote sites. It has been in use for a very long time. I feel like preservation via IPFS would introduce quite a bit of risk to the goal.

bityard 7 hours ago|||
Yeah, there is some popular misunderstanding about what IPFS is... a lot of people seem to think its essentially free or subsidized distributed cloud storage. But the more you dig into it, the more you realize it's just a fairly inefficient caching system.

LOCKSS looks interesting but it seems like it's exclusively for libraries.

badlibrarian 6 hours ago|||
I can find no current public document from the Internet Archive explaining what is backed up, where, or at what redundancy level.

From a 2016 blog post:

"Do you do backups too, for example to guard against corrupt data getting mirrored across both copies, or accidental deletion?"

John Gonzalez, the author and IA infrastructure lead, replied:

"We have done experiments to confirm that we can back up large portions of our corpus... but this is not a regular practice for us at this time."

https://blog.archive.org/2016/10/25/20000-hard-drives-on-a-m...

criddell 8 hours ago||
> he has to use anachronistic cassette decks to play the tapes, which get converted into digital files

Anachronistic?

It seems like a complicated way of saying "the tapes were digitized".

FarmerPotato 8 hours ago|
Yeah, anachronism means 'not belonging to the time period'. If you made a 1980s movie and had the protagonist transfer cassettes to a laptop via USB interface, THAT would be an anachronism.

I think the author meant "old-fashioned" or "obsolete". Though using a cassette deck to read cassettes, geez, what else are you going to do? Build your own using an Arduino?

cold_tom 3 hours ago||
This is one of those cases where preservation clashes with ownership. Without this, a lot of those recordings would just disappear.But at the same time, they’re not really his to share. Hard to draw a clean line here.
cyanbane 9 hours ago||
Some stuff I snagged the other day when it was posted:

Elf Power Live at Lounge Ax 1998-04-25 https://archive.org/details/ajc01382_elf-power-1998-04-25

Fountains Of Wayne Live at The Vic Theatre 2003-11-19 https://archive.org/details/ajc00691_fountains-of-wayne-2003...

Fugazi Live at State Theatre on 1991-08-06 https://archive.org/details/ajc02237_fugazi1991-08-06.ajcpro...

Godspeed You! Black Emperor Live at Lounge Ax on 1999-09-16 https://archive.org/details/ajc02676_gybe1999-09-16.ajcproje...

Iron & Wine Live at Abbey Pub 2004-07-02 (Late show) https://archive.org/details/ajc01329_iron-wine-2004-07-02.la...

Josh Rouse Live at Schubas Tavern 2004-04-26 https://archive.org/details/ajc01208_josh-rouse-2004-04-26

Midnight Oil Live at Cabaret Metro 1988-04-30 https://archive.org/details/ajc02792_midnightoil1988-04-30

Neutral Milk Hotel Live at Lounge Ax 1997-05-01 https://archive.org/details/ajc00789_neutralmilkhotel1997-05...

OK Go Live at Belmont-Sheffield Music Festival 2003-05-31 https://archive.org/details/ajc01120_ok-go-2003-05-31

Pavement Live at Lounge Ax 1992-06-12 https://archive.org/details/ajc00811_pavement1992-06-12

Polyphonic Spree Live at Metro on 2003-10-07 https://archive.org/details/ajc01050-PolyphonicSpree2003-10-...

Ratatat Live at Abbey Pub 2004-05-14 https://archive.org/details/ajc01220_ratatat-2004-05-14

Rogue Wave Live at Schubas Tavern on 2005-01-30 https://archive.org/details/ajc01227_roguewave2005-01-30.ajc...

Super Furry Animals Live at Abbey Pub 2002-04-19 https://archive.org/details/ajc01144_super-furry-animals-200...

The Decemberists Live at Intonation Fest on 2005-07-17 https://archive.org/details/ajc00642_decemberists2005-07-17....

The Folk Implosion Live at Schubas Tavern 2000-02-29 (Late show) https://archive.org/details/ajc00963_folk_implosion_2000-02-...

The Shins Live at Schubas Tavern 2001-08-24 https://archive.org/details/ajc01131_the_shins_2001-08-24

mesofile 8 hours ago|
Fugazi enjoyers should also know about their own very extensive archive of live shows

https://dischord.com/fugazi_live_series

bguberfain 7 hours ago|
Not to demerit the recording, but I felt more nostalgic for the last sentence of the article "Sometimes, the internet is good" than for the musics itself.
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