Thursday, December 10, 2009

Video : The Music Tapes, Live from My Living Room

The Music Tapes, the wonderful current project of Julian Koster whose multi-instrument work you know from Neutral Milk Hotel, made a stop in my living room in East Nashville to play some Christmas songs as part of their surprise Caroling tour. It was fantastic.



The Music Tapes - Levitating Bow / Oh Christmas Tree from Hard to Find a Friend on Vimeo.


The Music Tapes - Freeing Song For Reindeer from Hard to Find a Friend on Vimeo.

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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Hard to Find a Friend's Backstage Sessions : Centro-matic

Centro-Matic
June 24, 2008
Mercy Lounge
Nashville, TN
When Centro-matic frontman Will Johnson started singing his songs for us backstage at the Mercy Lounge a very fitting scene began to form. Situated on a hand-me-down sofa in front of a cracking brick wall, Will sang a song about loss and frustration as the sun set and a coal train slowly churned along behind him. Perfect.




Buy Centro-matic's new double disc LP featuring side-band South San Gabriel here.

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Monday, July 07, 2008

Backstage Sessions : The First Ten Episodes - An Audio Recap

I realized today that the posting of the second installment of our session with Ingrid Michaelson marks our tenth episode of The Backstage Sessions. I know some of you have not yet hopped on board, so I wanted to post a little easy to download sampler zip. The zip contains my favorite performance from each of our sessions, and for your convenience you can also download each track individually. Of course you can see the HD video of these performances and grab the mp3's not included on the mix by clicking on that shiny "Backstage Sessions" tab above you.

Don't worry, we're still in full-swing, I'm actually working on editing the wonderful Centro-matic session as we speak for your consumption.


What do you think of the series so far?

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Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Hard to Find a Friend's Backstage Sessions : Sea Wolf

The Exit/In was a less than desirable place Friday night. It's our favorite venue in town for sure, but we'd never ventured backstage during the summer months (we only started Backstage Sessions in February) so we weren't prepared for the lack of air conditioning in the all concrete space on an 89 degree day. It was excruciatingly hot. Thanks for being good sports.

Sea Wolf - Middle Distance Runner


Stream the HD Version Here!

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Monday, May 12, 2008

Via Audio & Someone Still Loves you Boris Yeltsin : Hard to Find a Friend's Backstage Sessions


Via Audio & Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
The Hi-Tone
Memphis, Tn
April 29, 2008

This was the funnest session we've ever done. We spent 2 days in Memphis: seeing movies, trying to find vegetarian food (apparently hard to do in Memphis - one girl responded with "yeah, we have salad...and chicken), going to the park, Stax, and watching music. The sessions were crazy, Via Audio & SSLYBY performing each other's songs together as a super group of sorts, banging on pots and pans, cheese graters, basketballs, guitars, and singing into fans. We shot a lot of footage which we'll edit into a mini-doc of sorts soon. There are also some fun covers to enjoy below...

Lizard [Via Audio - unreleased]

Stream the HD version here

[mp3] Via Audio & Someone Still Loves you Boris Yeltin- Lizard [Live - Backstage Session]


I Can't Focus [Via Audio]

Stream the HD version here!

[mp3] Via Audio & Someone Still Loves you Boris Yeltin- I Can't Focus [Live - Backstage Session

Oceanographer [Someone Still Loves you Boris Yeltsin]

Stream the HD version here!

[mp3] Someone Still Loves you Boris Yeltsin & Via Audio - Oceanographer [Live - Backstage Session]

The Beach Song [Someone Still Loves you Boris Yeltsin]

Stream the HD version here!

[mp3] Someone Still Loves you Boris Yeltsin & Via Audio - The Beach Song [Live - Backstage Session]

Heart Shaped Box [Nirvana Cover]


Stream the HD version here!

NOTE: Vimeo seems to be confused and saying the video does not exist: it does. Click on the HD link to watch it.

[mp3] Someone Still Loves you Boris Yeltsin & Via Audio - Heart Shaped Box (Nirvana) [Live - Backstage Session]

Bonus mp3:
[mp3] Via Audio & Someone Still Loves you Boris Yeltsin - Weird Fishes (Radiohead)

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Buy Via Audio Records
Buy Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin Records

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Wednesday, March 26, 2008

John Vanderslice : Hard to Find a Friend's Backstage Sessions

If you'd have asked me at 8:00 pm last night if the planned Backstage Session with John Vanderslice was going to go down, I'd have told you without a doubt, "No." John didn't realize how early he was playing, and he's too kind to monopolize the backstage area, so to avoid inconveniencing Malkmus & The Jicks we set up shop in the back billiard room/secondary bar of the Mercy Lounge / Cannery Ballroom. As if that wasn't enough, it seemed a few select members of the staff (specifically a cranky & rude doorman) didn't want things to go down as planned, but John would not be stopped. With the clock ticking down until his set time, John chose to forgo eating dinner to play some songs for us in a pool hall with his absurdly talented violin player/backup vocalist Daniel Hart. He really is the nicest guy in Indie Rock.

Please, buy a record & see a show!


STREAM THE HD VERSION HERE! (Latest version of flash required)

[mp3] John Vanderslice - White Dove (Live - Backstage Sessions)
[mp4] John Vanderslice - White Dove (Live - Backstage Sessions - video)

STREAM THE HD VERSION HERE! (Latest version of flash required)

[mp3] John Vanderslice - Numbered Lithograph (Live - Backstage Session)
[mp4] John Vanderslice - Numbered Lithograph (Live - Backstage Sessions - video)

Watch more Backstage Sessions here.

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