From Motown to poetry to just plain weird: obscure audio downloads

Generally under-reported yesterday: some long out of print singles are now available on the iTunes Music Store. Specifically, the first 45 singles ever released by Motown. Hopefully this leads to more deserving out of print material being made available.

Moving quickly from the sublime to the ridiculous: I voted yesterday for KEXP.org in the Radio category of this year’s Webby Awards. Looking in some of the other categories, I came across weirdomusic.com. What sublime weirdness and wonderfulness: links to the MP3 archive at Ubu.com, including tons of readings by Burroughs, Bukowski, Plath, and even William Carlos Williams; to April Winchell Multimedia, featuring the broadest collection of just plain weird music ever (special favorite: “Keep Your Restrooms Clean, Men” by the Red Lion Gasoline Company); and to Dana’s Downloadable Album of the Month. Which, for (I guess) one more day, features Sheldon Allman’s Folk Songs for the 21st Century.

Fugazi live CDs on demand

DC’s Fugazi is the latest band to make a deep catalog of their live shows available for purchase to their fans. It looks like even with only 20 shows, they’re already running into production difficulties. Small wonder, what with the killer pricing (two CDs for $10 for US addresses).

I’m not a huge obsessive fan, but I might have to cough up for a live version of “Bed for the Scraping.” There are some great reactions by more obsessive fans at Technorati.

Some party

I just used the new Party Mix feature of iTunes 4.5 for the first time. The first song was “Son of Sam” by Elliott Smith, followed by…“Sister Ray.”

Man, that’s some kind of party.