As an amateur music aficionado (with my paltry 4G iPod, stint as a college radio DJ and my eMusic subscription serving as qualifications), I have a proclivity towards those things which MTV and the local radio stations haven’t pounded into overproduced oblivion and accompanied by images of butt-shakin’ dancing girls or cars driving really fast. It’s not an intentional movement towards the obscure, and I’m not one of those people who’ll lord it over you if you’ve haven’t heard the newest Pantherteeth Escapade album… especially ‘cause I just made them up.

There are few events more inspiring that a live musical performance – where people actually play instruments because it’s what they love to do, and not because it’ll mean another swimming pool for their hilariously undersized dog. The energy, the mistakes, the ambient noises and the improvisations. Which is why I love Daytrotter.

Daytrotter is a fiery little music website run by Sean Moeller, veteran music enthusiast and writer. On a bi- or tri-weekly schedule, Daytrotter releases a set of four live music performances from a band or performer, recorded by some dedicated sound engineers at Futureappletree Studios in Rock Island, Illinois, all by indie bands who happen to be passing through. If there’s any ambiguity about the term ‘indie’, allow me to clarify by saying that it refers to musicians who are not beholden to major labels. These recordings are everything that music is about – energy, the artist, and using whatever you have to make something powerful because it’s all you know. At this point, Daytrotter has a year’s worth of musical content available for free download (or streaming directly) from their website, all archived by date and artist. With Daytrotter’s recent visit to SXSW, a multimedia fest held annually in Texas, they’ve added a whole new assemblage of bands to their repertoire from the acts scheduled to perform there also.

What all of this amounts to is a vast collection of music, each unique artist a jumping off point into other branches of independent music, which can be a labyrinthine pursuit into small, local venues and MySpace pages and potentially fraught with peril and permanent cochlear damage. I’ve come to respect Daytrotter as a wise filter to separate the good stuff from the musical garbage, and they haven’t failed me yet. With the recent attention that Wired and Rolling Stone have directed towards them, they’re poised for exponential growth. If you really, really need it, adding Daytrotter’s collection to your own is also worth some serious hipster cred.

I need to disclose that part of my affection for Daytrotter is that I’ve also been allowed to illustrate a few musicians for them, thus fulfilling my lifelong dream of doing musical portraiture. I’m not on the payroll though, so my love of what they do is genuine, and I’d be a loyal downloader even without a personal involvement. Is there anything more awesome than a free collection that you can instantly duplicate and add to your own?

I say thee nay.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 5th, 2007 at 2:00 am and is filed under collecting fyi, reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.