Live Albums

Sometimes a band sounds great on a studio recording but even greater live. I've personally always love going to see a band I really like on a recording but being totally blown away by their live performance. What excites me most is seeing musicians extend, add, change differnt parts of the song to make it better. When I see a musician give new life to a song live instead of trying to recreate their studio recording, I'm sold. I honestly hate seeing a band and they sound exactly like their record. The band MUSE is like that at first because their changes are suttle but not really noticeable. But they do add some tasty jams at the end of certain songs and those I like. I sometimes would rather listen to a live album or a bootleg instead of the original because its that good. Some of my favorite live CDs are

Dave Matthews Band - Live at Central Park (Also on DVD)

Coheed and Cambria - Live at Starland Ballroom (Also on DVD)

Corinne Bailey Rae - Live in NY

Paramore - The Final Riot Tour CD + DVD

Dashboard Confessional - MTV Unpluged CD + DVD.

Probably one of my favorite album of theirs. I know the drums note for note in this.

Any Smashing Pumpkins Bootleg. (I have a bunch)

Crazy Drum fills as usual

There's tons of other CDs I can't think of right now. Some artists that don't have live CDs yet but I've seen live or have a dvd of are

Damien Rice

Watch the whole video. He loops his guitar and his voice to mimic drums and tons of harmonies. EPIC

Also the most epic build up of all time in my opinion.

Justin Timberlake - His songs are good but when I saw his DVD, this guy can perform and the live version songs sound better. I like Live musicians. They need to release this on a CD. Check out this song. Great singing, dancing and an awesome guitar solo.

There's so much more that I can't think of right now. I'll post them as I go along. What are some of your favorite bands you love live more than their records?

Record Stores

If you want a CD, go find it. Make it an adventure. It's easy to just click away, have your credit card charge and have it right away but what's the fun in that. Yesterday I wanted to buy two CDs. The White Stripes first album and the Black Keys Attack and Release album. The first place I went to was Freakbeat Records on Ventura and Woodman. This is a small private owned record store where they buy and sell new + used records. Support them! They didn't have what I was looking for but I ended up buying

The Babel Sountrack $7

Scored by Gustavo Santaolalla and which has my favorite song by Ryuichi Sakamoto called

Bibo no Aorzora / 04

Check that out.

Kaki King new album "Junior" $7

Chick Corea Akoustic Band $4

These are some of the most talented musicians I've ever heard. This album has no electronic instruments. Just Drums, Stand up Bass and Piano. I think it's recorded live. Just ridiculous amazing Jazz

I ended up finding The Black Keys and White Stripes album at Second Spin Records. Pretty good record store. Huge selection of used stuff. I also bought the new Dr. Dog Album "Shame Shame".

So please support local businesses. I know it's tough right now to do so and it's easy to just click away and download songs but there are pluses for buying CDs and Records. You can find them used, there's awesome artwork. It's fun to read the liner notes. (Chick Corea was good friends with L Ron Hubbard) and THEY SOUND BETTER!!!