I know a lot of you don't read my second journal,
cosmusic, because you don't live in Boston, and a lot of what I post there is about shows in Boston that you couldn't go to. I have been trying to post some things that would be interestesting to people who don't live here. If you don't read cosmusic, though, you haven't seen these posts, so here are a few links.
Sometimes, I introduce a new artist I haven't written about before, when they have a show coming up near Boston, but I use the occasion to write about the artist (or to get friends to write about them). I did that recently in posts about
Ashley Maher yesterday, and
Dan Bern a few weeks ago. Sometimes I just post about a band I found out about, even if there's no Boston show coming up, like my post about
Need New Body this Monday. I also post about tours of North America by foreign musicians I recommend, such as
Fruit's current tour and
Paco de Lucia's final tour.
If you can't go to a show I post about, but are curious to hear about it, look for an occasional post-show report or review. I wrote about
the Dresden Dolls March 9th show at Axis and about
a night at the Comedy Studio recently.
And sometimes, I just post oddities and tidbits related to music, like
CD Baby's $5 sale, or realizing that the Jill Stein who ran for governor was the same singer-songwriter who used to play at WBRS more than a decade ago
[ posted on March 13th ].Last November, I dug up an old story I wrote in 1997 about a night at the Iron Horse, and a great new band I discovered there, Zuba. The next day, I posted a followup about Zuba, which broke up, and a new band by Liza, the band's former leader:
Zuba was from Boulder, CO, and Liza is still there. She hasn't done any shows in the northeast for years, but I thought it was a good story, and I wanted an excuse to write about Liza's new band announcement. I have some other stories I may rewrite and post, such as one about the Mermaid Lounge in New Orleans, and discovering the New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars.
I'm also working on an upcoming post about some of my favorite community radio stations around the country, "radio for road trips". I'll write about WBER in upstate New York, WORT in Madison WI, WWOZ in New Orleans, WPKN in Connecticut, KZSC Santa Cruz, KKFI Kansas City, KCRW in Los Angeles, WXPN in Philly, WFMU in NYC, and a bunch of others.