Online Archive
Courtney Barnett Launches Expansive Live Archive
With concerts currently on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, Courtney Barnett is one of many artists forced to wait to perform live again until it’s safe to do so. Instead of letting that get her down, though, Barnett has just done the next best thing: start an online archive of her touring and performing history. Best of all, it’s completely free to view. Inspired by the legendary digital archives of Neil Young and The Grateful Dead, Barnett decided to organize her past live performances as a way to give back to her fans during the pandemic and immortalize her progress as a live artist. Since playing her first-ever set at The Lark Distillery’s open mic night back in 2007, the Tell Me How You Really Feel singer has gone on to play nearly 800 shows, including solo concerts, gi...
Sonic Youth’s and PJ Harvey’s From the Basement Sets Uploaded to YouTube: Watch
The deeper we get into the From the Basement archive, the better and better it gets. The latest uploads include full performances from Sonic Youth and PJ Harvey. Ever since it was announced that Nigel Godrich’s independent music performance program was uploading its entire archive to YouTube, music fans have been blessed with high-quality footage of iconic bands every week, including legendary Radiohead clips and previously hard-to-view performances. These new videos continue that trend. Sonic Youth’s 2007 performance on From the Basement feels like an actual concert. Although the setlist only consists of five songs, the runtime lasts well over half an hour and the band is totally in the zone. After they open with an impassioned version of “The Sprawl”, Sonic Youth then bust out a par...
Full From the Basement Archive Coming to YouTube
From the Basement, he independent music performance program created by Nigel Godrich, is uploading its whole glorious archive to YouTube. As befits a project run by Radiohead’s producer/secret weapon, the series is mostly remembered for a pair of Radiohead concerts: 2008’s In Rainbow: From the Basement, and 2011’s King of Limbs: Live from the Basement. But the show, which had a brief run on Sky Arts in the UK and IFC in the US, featured dozens of established and up-and-coming artists playing intimate, audience-free sets. While From the Basement was at times more informal than not, Godrich seems to have produced it off-and-on between 2006 and about 2012. He announced the archive unlock in a thread on Twitter. “We did it against all odds,” he wrote, before rattl...
