live music

David Byrne on how music works (book review)

I was a huge Talking Heads fan and saw the band many times at shows in New York. That was a long time ago. Byrne is still a vital creative force, recording new music, performing, and writing books. He's worked with various media including film, photography, opera, and non-fiction. He's still searching for new creative challenges, which is more than you can say about most aging rock musicians. Byrne's new book, "How Music Works" reads more like an autobiography than a how-to make it in the music business tome.

Byrne is hyper-aware of how technology … Read more

Five essential Android apps for concertgoers

School's out for summer, which means barbecues, swimming pools, and summer concert tours from many of your favorite bands. There's nothing quite like the experience of live music, so in this post, we've put together a list of five essential Android apps for concertgoers.

Find concerts Don't miss shows from your favorite bands because you didn't know they were in town. Gigbeat is a nice music listing app that can scan your Last.fm, Rdio, and Songkick accounts, to come up with a list of your favorite artists to track. You can also have it … Read more

Live from NYC: Great-sounding live music on the radio

Regular readers of this blog know that bad sound comes from a variety of sources, and not just MP3s; there's no shortage of crappy-sounding CDs and LPs. But I know one place that delivers great-sounding music day after day: Soundcheck on WNYC. Right, it's a radio show, but one that features live music, and I certainly can't name another daily show that's as entertaining as Soundcheck.

I dropped by the WNYC studios this past Tuesday and Wednesday to see the show in person and chat with the show's host, John Schaefer, to find out why … Read more

Tomorrow's Miley Cyrus? A hologram live in concert!

Do you get slightly disturbed when you go to see your favorite performer live in concert and, because of your keen sense of visual synchronization, you see that they are miming?

Well, brush off your negative last-century attitude and get with the program.

In the case of Japanese singing star Hatsune Miku, the program in question is Yamaha's Vocaloid Synthesizing Technology. Oh, there's a real person's voice somewhere at the heart of it. But who needs real people when you can have a hologram that will never be photographed snorting coke in a bathroom stall, never sleeps … Read more

Ticketmaster adds actual prices, return policy

This summer's concert season has been brutal for the music industry, with cancellations and discounting galore. Blame the economy, blame the lack of marketable big-name artists on tour, but whatever the reason, concert ticketing giant Ticketmaster (which is owned by concert promoter and venue owner Live Nation) is responding.

In the inaugural post of Ticketology, the new Ticketmaster blog, the company has announced the end of a longstanding annoyance: service charges that get tacked on to the ticket price late in the buying process. Now, when you select a ticket on Ticketmaster's Web site, service fees are included … Read more

Lollapalooza phone apps integrate with Facebook

Every major rock festival now features an iPhone app to help you navigate the grounds and find out when your favorite bands are playing, but Lollapalooza, which happens this weekend in Chicago, has a couple of unique wrinkles.

The Coachella iPhone app that I used earlier this year had a friend finder and the ability to post photos, but AT&T's network had trouble sending regular SMS messages, so I didn't even bother trying to use these data-intensive features. To try to get around this problem, the Lolla organizers have teamed up with AOL Lifestream to provide … Read more

Bands deliver new material via collectible flash drives

A recent trend among live performers is to record a concert, immediately transfer the recording to flash drives, and sell them as fans walk past the merchandise table on their way out. I first heard of Willie Nelson doing this on a Fourth of July show back in 2007, and I saw the Pixies offer a recording of the Seattle show I attended through EMI's Abbey Road Live program last November.

Aderra, which provides turnkey services for musicians who want to record and sell their own shows on USB drives, is offering a new twist: flash drives that give … Read more

Bonnaroo iPhone app features radio stream

Bonnaroo has a reputation as the biggest and craziest of the big modern rock festivals, and this year's lineup features a typically Bonnaroo mash-up of genres, including jam bands (Dave Matthews, Medeski Martin & Wood), big pop acts (Jay-Z, Kings of Leon), summer festival stalwarts (LCD Soundsystem, Flaming Lips), buzz indie bands of 2010 (Dead Weather, She & Him, Edward Sharpe), and legends from the classic rock era (Stevie Wonder, Jeff Beck, John Fogerty). The fun starts Thursday in Manchester, Tenn. And like every big festival these days, it's got its own iPhone app.

I found the Coachella … Read more

Wolfgang's Vault concert app hits Boxee

Fans of live music and Boxee's free media-streaming software have reason to celebrate today.

No, it's not the Boxee set-top box (though they really should get cracking on that thing before Google spoils the party). Instead, users have access to a new streaming-music app that draws from the cherished Wolfgang's Vault catalog.

With live concert recordings that date from the 1940s to present day, the Wolfgang's Vault Web site has a loyal following of music fans. The Boxee app version of the music service (pictured above) repackages the archives of the vault into an attractive, easily … Read more

iConcertCal concert-listing app comes to Android

I test a lot of iPhone apps, but because I've only got an 8GB iPhone 3G, I end up deleting most of them after a few days or weeks. One of the very few exceptions has been iConcertCal, which helps you find local shows by your favorite artists. Not only has it stayed on my iPhone since I first reviewed it in July, but it made my year-end list of most welcome digital audio products.

Now Android users can get in on the fun with iConcertCal for Android. Like the iPhone version, it will identify artists in the music … Read more