People know me from many worlds. Many from a shared love of roots Americana music (including putting up with my microphones in your face or letting me clamp to your stand), Rail potlucks, tapers.org, from the campground at Planet Bluegrass in Lyons or Telluride, from work at Earthnet in Boulder, neighbors and old friends spread throughout the world now. I consider myself to be SO LUCKY to get to have the fun I do with so many fun, diverse, and talented people.
As I make these posts I hope you get to enjoy some new art, maybe even a new kind of art. I also hope you are encouraged to go see some live music, be it in a club or a campground or a festival or a living room. Get some live music in your life!
The Steam Powered Preservation Society & Bruce Molsky
I work with this 501c3 non-profit for I think 5 years now. The SPPS does preservation of Americana music. We take decaying reel-to-reel, casette, or other distressed media and digitize, master, and research the material. The worthwhile, non-commercial material is shared in an electronic library for students of Americana, musicians, and music lovers to enjoy.
The SPPS shares the music with folks who don’t know about this beautiful music and those that do stay excited. Getting to follow an artist’s live work keeps people excited, and leads to sales of tickets and cds for these often under appreciated American treasures. The SPPS is in the works with some interesting opportunities to partner with events and other like-minded organizations. We’re seeing more people get involved everyday as the website has gone from a static webpage to real Americana news source with a growing and talented staff of writers. Check it out, and see the exclusive story on KC Groves written by Sarah Hagerman, just published today.
You can become a fan of the SPPS on facebook. You’ll hear about more great tunes!
I do the ‘backend’ server stuff & used to do the web page but luckily found Chris Coyier – a real webmaster and CSS guru who gave our site a nice overhaul a couple months back. Now all I have to do is add content to the wordpress installation he did, and it’s beautiful. I also do onsite archival/recording mostly around Boulder County, Colorado. (Because, I’m super lucky.)
No matter which world you and I share already, I want to share with you the SPPS and a great musician: Bruce Molsky. Bruce is an amazing Americana musician. Call it Old-Time or Americana or Folk or whatever you will, he’s a living treasure and not enough people know about him.
You may wonder why the heck would an artist like Bruce let us record him and share this music for free? I can’t really speak for him, but here’s my take on it. Many hard working super talented musicians are out there that you will never hear on the radio (well, maybe on KGNU). Many people have never heard of these great musicians & many have never had the chance to appreciate this kind of music.
In talking to artists over the years of recording them, the ones that ‘get it’ understand that more fans is a good thing. Real fans buy tickets and commercial releases, so if a great recording like this helps you get to know this kind of music and Bruce in particular, then it works and it works well. It works really well when a listener is inspired to go an buy a CD or two after falling in love with the music.
After you check out the show below, if you feel inspired, give a virtual thumbs up here. it’s just like applause.
This is a fantastic set of music. just beautiful. It was recorded by David Avery who does a great share of the reel to reel digitization for the spps.
some free-to-share music follows. download it, put it on whatever you listen to music on, give it to a friend, but never, ever sell it : ) Keep scrolling to see the setlist near the bottom of this note.
instant stream
individual mp3s
entire show mp3 in a zip file
flacs (if you don’t know what they are, use one of the links above)
grab at thespps.org via ftp for flacs.
server – thespps.org
user – thespps
pw – thespps
(in the partners/brucemolsky/flac folder)
Bruce Molsky with Brittany Haas
January 16, 2009
Princeton Folk Music Society
Christ Congregation Church
Princeton, NJ
Recording: Whirlwind stage splitter > Reutelhuber custom mic pre-amp>
Alesis HD24XR
Inputs: Bruce Fiddles – DI, Vocal – Shure SM87C, Brittany fiddle -
Schoeps MK4, Guitar/Banjo – Audix condenser, ambient – Schoeps MK2
Set 1
1. The Scolding Wife > Sandy River > The Lost Indian
2. Peg An Awl
3. Bimini Gal
4. Fare The Well Blues
5. Fortune
6. Wild Bill Jones
7. Lady Hamilton
8. The Forked Deer
9. The Poor Cowboy
10. Cotton Eyed Joe
Set 2
1. Lazy John > Medley of Metis-Style Canadian Fiddle Tunes > Whiskey
Before Breakfast (Spirits At Sunrise)
2. Lotus Blomen > The Holling
3. The Brass Band Rachenitsa
4. The Lost Indian
5. The Blackest Crow (w/ Brittany Haas)
6. The Red Steer (w/ Brittany Haas)
7. On My Street
8. Solly’s Little Favorite > Old Sledge
9. Grigsby’s Hornpipe > Pickin’ The Devil’s Eye Out (w/ Brittany Haas)
Paul Rennix Live Music and Archival