Free Summer 2011 Concerts: Celebrate Brooklyn

The free summer concert season is almost here, and I'll be posting info on the schedules for them as they become available. Celebrate Brooklyn recently posted its full schedule for the summer of 2011 on its website (it was previously only in a PDF of a press release). As usual, there's a strong and varied slate of musicians (I've posted some highlights below), as well as a few money-raising paid shows. (Most of the benefit shows have already sold out, although there are still tickets available for Sufjan Stevens on Aug. 2nd and for Cut Copy with Foster the People and Midnight Magic on Aug. 11th.)

The sad news is that Brooklyn is losing two fun, free events. The one-day Village Voice Siren Festival on Coney Island is no more; the Voice has announced that in its place is it starting up a similar all-day event called 4Knots, to be held in the South Street Seaport area.

Also in Coney Island, the Seaside Summer Concerts series is no more. It had been the focus of noise complaints by a nearby synagogue, and apparently it lost its right to use the park it had used. Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz has vowed to relocate the series elsewhere in the borough, though I'm not sure that will mean any free shows for this summer.

But to keep things focused on the positive, here's a listing of some of the rock/pop highlights from the 2011 Celebrate Brooklyn schedule. Some of the ones I'm most interested in seeing are the Freedom Rides Project with Rosanne Cash and others; Court Yard Hounds (Marty Maguire and Emily Robison, two of the Dixie Chicks); the Latin bill of Los Lobos, Hello Seahorse!, and Zigmat; the show featuring New Jersey bands The Feelies and Real Estate as well as Times New Viking; and Ra Ra Riot.

• Fri., June 10 - Andrew Bird (Opening Night Gala)
  
• Thurs., June 16 - Hal Willner’s Freedom Rides Project featuring Rosanne Cash, Toshi Reagon, Steven Bernstein & many more
  
• Fri., June 17 - The Books, Junip, and Doveman
  
• Sat., June 25 - The Heavy, The London Souls, and Superhuman Happiness
  
• Thurs., June 30 - Justin Townes Earle, the Punch Brothers, and the Hackensaw Boys
  
• Thurs., July 7 - Court Yard Hounds and the Abrams Brothers
  
• Fri., July 8 - Los Lobos, Hello Seahorse!, and Zigmat
  
• Sat., July 23 - The Feelies, Real Estate, and Times New Viking
  
• Sat., July 30 - Dr. John & the Lower 911, Chuck Brown, Red Baraat
  
• Fri., Aug. 5 - Ra Ra Riot, Delicate Steve, and Buke and Gass
  

Later on I'll have information for other free summer concerts in NYC including SummerStage, the downtown River to River Festival, and others.

Free Album Streaming: New CDs from The Antlers, The Cars, Sloan, Warren Haynes, More

The new album by the Antlers (shown here playing NYC's River Rocks series last summer) is available for free preview.

There are a lot of good new albums for free preview right now, especially from AOL Music/Spinner (AOL seems to have merged its Spinner album previews into AOL Music).

Of particular interest: the new Danger Mouse album, which features vocals by Jack White and Norah Jones; the Broadway cast recording of "The Book of Mormon," the no-holds-barred musical from the "South Park" creators; new albums from indie favorites The Antlers, Sloan, and Okkervil River; and the first albums in many years from new wave bestsellers The Cars and from Warren Haynes, guitarist for the Allman Brothers Band and Gov't Mule. Oh, and a greatest hits album from the Beastie Boys and new albums by Sloan, Booker T. Jones, and Kate Bush. (Note: I just realized the Warren Haynes Band is playing at NYC's Beacon Theatre Thursday, May 12th; you can get tickets here.)

As always, there are more offerings available than the selections shown below.

NPR First Listen:
"The Book of Mormon" Cast Recording
"Feel It Break" by Austra (Canadian band blending classical music and electronica)
"Director's Cut" by Kate Bush
"Follow Me Down" by Sarah Jarosz

KCRW Album Preview: 
"Rome" by Danger Mouse And Daniele Luppi (streaming until June 7)

AOL Music Listening Party: 
"Burst Apart" by The Antlers
"I Am Very Far" by Okkervil River
"Move Like This" by The Cars
"The Road From Memphis" by Booker T. Jones
"Solid Gold Hits" by Beastie Boys
"Celebration, Florida" by the Felice Brothers
"She Was a Boy" by Yael Naim
"The Double Cross" by Sloan
"Man in Motion" by Warren Haynes
"Life Like" by Joan of Arc
"Collider" by Sam Roberts Band

Music Notes: Google Music Beta Announced; Groupon & Live Nation to Offer Discount Concert Tickets

Google Music is now in beta, and you can apply to be part of it.

The music landscape continues to shift and change, the last couple of days have seen several big companies jockeying for position.

* Google announced its music streaming service today at the Google I/O conference (a meeting of Google software developers). The service, currently called Google Music beta, is in limited use now, but when it goes live it will be interesting to see how it stacks up against Amazon's cloud player and cloud drive, which the online store launched last month. Ironically Apple, which is the 800-pound gorilla in selling music online, has yet to stake its claim in the streaming/music cloud turf.

The Google music service is similar in some ways to Amazon's cloud player. It will let users stream music and rent movies over their Android devices. According to the L.A. Times, users will be able to upload up to 20,000 songs to their computers and mobile devices. Unlike Amazon, however, users will not be able to buy music from Google's service. Amazon allows customers to buy music and other digital content and immediately store it on their cloud account. Users of Google Music beta will have to manually upload the music they already own to the service.

An interesting note is that Google, like Amazon, does not have licensing deals with the music labels for streaming the content, and decided to proceed without it. This could raise certainly some legal issues. You can sign up for the Google Music beta at music.google.com/about.

The Times article says that at first the Google music service will be available by invitation and only in the U.S., and will be free in beta. It's not clear what charges there may be when the service comes out of beta.

* Groupon and Live Nation are teaming up for discount concert tickets. The group-buying concept of Groupon and LivingSocial has been a huge hit for all kinds of products and services, and now it's coming to concert tickets. The service, called GrouponLive, was rolled out on Monday, and will officially launch in the summer, according to an article in the L.A. Times — just in time for the outdoor concert season. "GrouponLive will sell tickets to Live Nation concerts, as well as for companies that sell tickets for concerts, sports, plays and other events through the Live Nation-owned Ticketmaster," the article says.

You can sign up for GrouponLive at www.groupon.com/live.

The live music industry has been clobbered the last few years. While some big-name acts have done well, many others have had to pare back or cancel their tours. Live Nation is no doubt hoping to use discounts to boost sales that have slowed in part due to what's perceived as ticket prices that are too high in a soft economy. There was widespread discounting at outdoor venue shows last summer, with places such as New Jersey's PNC Arts Center offering $40 lawn tickets for $10 for some shows.

Alejandro Escovedo & Jesse Malin Rock Maxwell's

Alejandro Escovedo playing at Maxwell's Friday night.

For a great rock show with veteran musicians playing in a small venue, you couldn't do much better than Friday night's show at Maxwell's in Hoboken. On the bill were Jesse Malin and the St. Marks Social and Alejandro Escovedo and the Sensitive Boys, two bands led by men who have gone from punk rock to singer-songwriters with an edge. Both are artists who I've seen at Maxwell's before.

Malin, who was in the punk band D Generation in the 1990s, has been headlining shows for some time, and his new band St. Marks Social sounds great. To see them as the opener for a talent like Escovedo is a real treat. Escovedo's punk pedigree goes back to the 1970s in San Francisco with bands like the Nuns and Rank and File; he began his solo career (which now includes 10 albums) in 1992.

David Pulkingham and Alejandro Escovedo.

Even before he began his solo work Escovedo has blended styles including punk, folk, and country, and he continues to mix things up — perhaps not surprising, since he grew up in a musical family and has lived in places ranging from Texas and California to New York and back to Texas. I last saw Alejandro Escovedo several years ago when his album 2006 "The Boxing Mirror" came out, which featured a string section.

His current band includes drummer Hector Munez (who has been with him 28 years, Escovedo said) and guitarist David Pulkingham, both of whom play on his latest album, "Street Songs of Love."

Escovedo and the Sensitive Boys played songs from throughout his career, including "Castanets," "Down in the Bowery," "Five Hearts Breaking," "Always a Friend," and "Pissed Off 2 a.m."

Jesse Malin and Alejandro Escovedo sharing vocals during an encore.

After Escovedo's set Jesse Malin and his band returned to the stage and the two bands performed a short encore set of covers, including Whiskeytown's "Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight," Johnny Thunders' "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory," and the Rolling Stones' "Miss You."

This was a great chance to see two great artists on one bill, and Maxwell's has some more well-regarded acts playing in its intimate confines: NRBQ on June 10th, James McMurtry on June 17th, The Feelies on July 1st and 2nd, and Fountains of Wayne on July 21st and 22nd. See the Maxwell's website for links to tickets.

Free Live Music Podcasts: PJ Harvey, Land of Talk, Great Big Sea, & More

Here are some recent live music podcasts for your listening enjoyment. These free, fun performances span a wide range of musicians and styles, but all of the artists are veterans at the top of their game.

* PJ Harvey live in San Francisco — this excerpt from a recent concert has the British singer-songwriter playing songs from her acclaimed new album, "Let England Shake."

* Land of Talk live in Toronto — Liz Powell leads the Montreal-based indie-rock trio in a set at Canadian Music Week, including tunes from its latest album, "Cloak and Cipher."

* Great Big Sea live in Edmonton, Canada — the Celtic-influenced rock band always gets the audiences up and dancing with its guitar, mandolin, and fiddle party music.

* Booker T. Jones live in the NPR offices — the legendary leader of Booker T. and the M.G.'s performs a 17-minute set in the radio network's offices.

Cheap Music Bonanza: Amazon.com has 1,500 $5 MP3 Albums for May

The acclaimed album by Mumford & Sons is one of Amazon's 1,500 $5 MP3 albums for May.

This may be a serious strain on my music budget: Amazon.com is offering 1,500 MP3 albums for $5 for the month of May, way up from its usual selection of 100 titles. As usual, most titles are in the rock or pop genres, but the expanded number of number of titles means there's a much larger choice in genres like jazz (which has 500, Amazon says).

Here's just a hint of some of the titles available in May's 1,500 MP3 albums for $5 (some titles appear in multiple categories):

Indie & Alternative Rock:  
Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons * Civilian and If Children by Wye Oak * The Suburbs, Neon Bible, and Funeral by Arcade Fire * The King of Limbs by Radiohead * Fleet Foxes by Fleet Foxes * Dye It Blonde by Smith Westerns * Swoon and Pikul by Silversun Pickups * North Hills by Dawes * Sound Of Silver by LCD Soundsystem * Monster by R.E.M. * Transference, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, and Gimme Fiction by Spoon * Majesty Shredding by Superchunk * The Stage Names by Okkervil River * You're Living All Over Me by Dinosaur Jr. * Eureka by Mother Mother * Love Notes/Letter Bombs by The Submarines

Classic Rock:  
Music from Big Pink by The Band * Shape Of Things - The Very Best Of by The Yardbirds * Zuma by Neil Young and Crazy Horse * Band Of Gypsys (Live) by Jimi Hendrix * Hunky Dory by David Bowie * News Of The World by Queen * Buffalo Springfield by Buffalo Springfield * Black and Blue by The Rolling Stones * Fool For The City by Foghat * Live at Leeds (25th Anniversary Edition) by The Who * Nobody Can Dance by Big Star

Some other titles you might be interested in: Fight For Your Mind by Ben Harper * Magnolia Soundtrack by various artists * Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? by Metric * Ellipse by Imogen Heap * Innervisions (Reissue) by Stevie Wonder * Insomniac by Green Day * It's Blitz! by Yeah Yeah Yeahs * Behind The Sun by Eric Clapton * Pieces Of The Sky (Remastered) by Emmylou Harris