Projo Subterranean Homepage News

Wolfgang's Vault lets you listen free to more than 3,000 live concerts and interviews from hundreds of groups and musicians -- Bill Graham's West Coast concerts as well as, as of yesterday, 27 acts from the 1959 Newport Jazz Festival, with more to come. Oscar Peterson's in my headphones now. (The Times last week wrote about this: Historic Sounds of Newport, Newly Online)

It's easy to poke around here, to dip in. It's a simple interface, and you can quickly skip around from one great performance to another, from music and bands you've never heard before to bands you know and songs you don't. It's not comprehensive -- there's the Incredible String Band but not Fairport Convention, for instance -- and the emphasis is on the older stuff, although there are contemporary bands such as Black Lipz, The Jealous Girlfriends, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. Its a giant jukebox.

You may have been at some of these concerts -- Cheap Trick or Styx at the Civic Center, Bonnie Raitt, The Kinks or Roomful of Blues at the Palace, Psychedelic Furs or Translator at the Main Event, Throwing Muses at Club Baby Head, Mason Ruffner at The Living Room.

In the Downloads section there are four songs by Carly Simon and her son Ben, whose dad is James Taylor, "recorded quaintly and privately in her living room in Martha's Vineyard with super-engineer Paul Q. Kolderie." Then you can flip to Al Kooper in the studio alone playing keyboards and singing, "I Can't Quit Her." Or check out three songs recorded last year by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. After briefly listening to Hamza el Din (I'm not in the mood for oud), I've moved on to Halloween, Alaska -- a modern band from Minneapolis. Like some, learn some.

Love some: Muddy Waters, Johnny Winter & James Cotton together at New York City's Palladium in 1977.

You need to offer up an email address, but then you're in and can listen to playlists free. Downloading sometimes costs, sometimes it's free. (Posters, shirts and memorabilia are for sale.)

Its Wikipedia entry describes the Vault as "dedicated to the restoration and archiving of live concert recordings and music memorabilia in order that music fans can access the complete live music experience of the past fifty years."

The site's name derives from Wolfgang Grajonca -- rock impresario Bill Graham's real name

Later: a treat from the Concert Vault: Fleetwood Mac 1968 (long before Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined the group in 1975), a week into their first visit to the United States from England. They're a heavy blues band doing Elmore James ("Dust My Broom"), Freddy King's "Have You Ever Loved A Woman" and the like:
Peter Green - vocals, guitar
Jeremy Spencer - vocals, guitar
John McVie - bass
Mick Fleetwood - drums

 Tags  free music Wolfgang's Vault

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