Try It Before You Buy It At Large Hearted Boy

18 May, 2010

I've recently decided that not only am I going to post music news, album reviews, tour announcements and random musical thoughts, I'm also going to begin sharing some of my favorite online musical resources, probably about one a week. Some of these sites include ways to be social with your musical tastes, other to organize and discover new music, but most of them are going to be places to find free & legal new music.

The recent ruling on the legal battle involving one of the last surviving peer-to-peer networks, LimeWire, got me thinking about music ownership and copyrights. The lawsuit against LimeWire, started in 2006 by the RIAA finally ended with the p-2-p provider being found guilty of inducing copyright infringement, amongst other charges. I'm torn on the subject. I've never used LimeWire and I do feel an artist has right to own their own music (insert large diatribe about corporate label's and indie music ownership). At the same time I love finding free new music and respect bands that understand that their music is not just a product to sell, but a powerful way to introduce themselves to and connect with new music fans. This is where largeheartedboy.com comes in.

Large Hearted Boy is a music blog run by David Gutowski, out of "the deep American south" that brings together a wide variety of Gutowski's indie interests, both musical and literary, ranging from the unique Book Notes where young and upcoming authors choose playlists that relate to their latest books and it's intellectual doppelganger Note Books, where musicians discuss their literary side. Gutowski, who refers to himself on the site only as "boy" is able to treat a wide variety of musical styles without respect of genres and somehow manages to retain a unity that can only be attributable to his personal investment in everything he posts. But by far my favorite regular feature of Large hearted boy is it's "Try It Before You Buy It" that features legal downloads from new releases coming out each week. Many of the albums also include links to websites where they can be streamed in their entirety.

This week's Try It Before You Buy It features a large range of tracks form a chill spoken word blues track off of Andre Williams' new That's All I Need, to Daniel Higgs art-synth Footprints on the Ceiling Of Your Mind, stopping by Glee's 3rd volume of 'showstoppers' and remastered Duran Duran and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion albums being rereleased this week. If you drop by this week's TIBYBI I highly suggest checking out Keepaway's Yellow Wings for an upbeat and easygoing lo-fi sound somewhere between the Shins and The Flamming Lips as well as the melancholic and cleaver "Oh, The Divorces" by London songstress Tracey Thorn.