There is a reason that the Live Music Archive is in my blogroll: its amazing. It, along with Last.fm, put nearly all the music I could ever want online at no charge.
In case you don’t know, the LMA is a repository for live recording from trade-friendly artists. Basically, folks record and upload shows of bands that are cool with it. Its all legal, and its all good. There are a lot of bands I already knew about on the LMA, but its also a great place to find bands you’ve never heard of. Here are a bunch of both:
Bands I was already familiar with:
Grateful Dead, String Cheese Incident, Keller Williams, Keller Williams Incident, moe., Umphrey’s McGee, Tea Leaf Green, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Matisyahu, Smashing Pumpkins, Jack Johnson, Ryan Adams, Jake Shimabukuro, Warren Zevon, Brothers Past, Del McCoury Band, John Butler Trio, Mogwai, and Garaj Mahal.
Bands I learned about through archive:
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/pgroove2007-12-31.flac16/pgroove2007-12-31d3t01_64kb.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/pgroove2007-12-31.flac16/pgroove2007-12-31d3t02_64kb.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/pgroove2007-12-31.flac16/pgroove2007-12-31d3t03_64kb.mp3]
Mr Transistor by Perpetual Groove
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/bts2006-05-15.bts2006-05-15.flac16/bts2006-05-15.flac16/bts2006-05-15d1t03_64kb.mp3]
4 O’Clock by Blue Turtle Seduction
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/codename2008-01-03.at4040.sbd.flac16/codename2008-01-03.at4040.sbd.d1t02_64kb.mp3]
Tornado Warning by Codename
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/los1996-03-16.flac16/los1996-03-16d2t10_64kb.mp3]
Ask The Fish by Leftover Salmon
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/dbt2004-07-29.matrix.flac16/dbt2004-07-29d3t07_64kb.mp3]
Putting People On the Moon by Drive-By Truckers
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/moonalice2007-06-02.Moonalice2007-06-02.flac/Moonalice2007-06-02d1t02_64kb.mp3]
This Changes Everything by Moonalice
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/nm2004-03-13.shnf/newmonsoon20040313d1t5_64kb.mp3]
The Cisco Kid > Vickassippi by New Monsoon
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/alo2001-03-31.wav/alo2001-03-31d2t05_honeydripper_64kb.mp3]
Honeydripper by Animal Liberation Orchestra
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/juggling2005-01-29.shnf/juggling2005-01-29d1t07_64kb.mp3]
Wicked History by Juggling Suns
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/tND2004-11-27/tND2004-11-27d1/tND2004-11-27d01t04_64kb.mp3]
Improv from the New Deal
EDIT: bah, the problem with making a post like this, and what probably kept me from doing it for so long is there is really no way to hit all the bands I like on the archive. There are really just so many of them. So I realized I forgot some, and they’re ones worth mentioning, so I’m back here editing this post.
Bonerama, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Assembly of Dust, Disco Biscuits, Railroad Earth and probably many more on this page that I’ve forgotten. But I’ll add them as I remember them, because this is the post I plan on throwing at people if they ask for any recommendations for music.