First Crack Podcast with Garrick Van Buren

Thomas Bohmbach and I discuss DJ Edna, his open source project empowering musicians, and other artists, to take control of the sales and distribution of their creative work online.

DJ Edna - Open Source Website for Musicians [33 min].

I bought Tony Thomas from Minneapoliscast, Andrea Meyers from HowWasTheShow.com, and Justin Grammens from LocalTone.com, and Brian McDonough from MinnieIndie.com lunch to talk about the Minneapolis music scene.

We cover the goal of each of their sites, the challenges of finding good independent music, and Brian makes some band recommendations.

Listen to Lunch with Minneapoliscast, How Was The Show, LocalTone, and MinnieIndie.com [35 min].

Many thanks to AJ for putting together the first Minnesota PodSafe Music Awards and asking the PodcastMN community to help pull it together.

If you haven’t hear my voice in a while…I introduces the nominees and announced a couple of the winners.

Listen to the MN PodSafe Music Awards

Here’s my long-awaited conversation with Jeremy Messersmith talking about his new album, the Alcatraz Kid ($13.00 PayPal, City Pages review, Pulse review), and playing a couple of the songs of from it - two of my favorites (Day Job, Snow Day) and one of Jeremy’s (Great Times).

Listen to Jeremy Messersmith Talking about the Alcatrez Kid [15 min]

This Saturday - Sept 2nd, Jeremy Messersmith is having a CD release party at the Acadia Cafe.

Jeremy and I sat down for a podcast a couple weeks back talking about his new “The Alcatrez Kid CD” ($13 Paypal). Unfortunately, life got in the way of me getting it up earlier this week.

Crap. I’m sorry. It’s coming. Watch this space.

As part of the Dave Slusher 2006 Over-Exposure Tour, Dave and I talked about his AmigoFish and the Uplifter.org projects.

Upfront I talk about:

• Laughing with my son
• The March 25, 2006 Uplifter Minnesota Weblog, Podcast, Videoblog Workshop at the Acadia Cafe from 2-6pm
• Playing a song from Marlee MacLeod
• Podcasting the DEMO LoFi Showcase

Dave and I talk about:

• AlexLit
• AmigoFish’s Rating and Ad-Serving System
• The Bridge of Birds Problem
• MTV’s the State - we agree, it’s best sketch comedy show eva, worthy of a negative 2 star rating

I throw in a song from Jeremy Messersmith and then we talk Uplifter.

Listen to Uplifting the AmigoFish with Dave Slusher [45 min]

Last year, PodcastMN got it’s start over drinks at the Acadia Cafe. This week, I sat down with Ted Lowell - one of the owners.

We talk about:

• The history of the Acadia Cafe.
• The decision to be an all original music venue.
• What it’s like having a Starbucks across the street.
• Riding the 75-cent pony.
• Having one of the best beer selections in all of the Twin Cities.

Listen to Ted Lowell from the Acadia Cafe on Being An Original Venue [23 min]

Dan Carroll and I grab lunch at Joes Garage and we talk about IMP - his music and movie distribution platform currently in beta.

We talk about how it benefits independent artists, how it’s different than iTunes, the decision to go with BiTorrent, and who this platform is intended for.

We start off with a bit about Attention and then get down to business.

Listen to Dan Carroll Talk About the IMP Media Player [18 min]

More about IMP over at the Minneapolis Observer

Steve McClellan’s name is synonymous with and as legendary as First Avenue where he worked for 30+ years. Lately, he’s been working with the Diverse Emerging Music Organization - a non-profit focused on connecting independent venues and new artists. We sat down at the Acadia Cafe, I had a Duval (Acadia has an amazing beer selection) and he jumped right into it.

Keep up and you’ll hear about:

• DEMO
• Developing musicians
• The new 35th Anniversary First Ave Bootleg CD - 16 tracks of bootlegs, just in time for gift giving - all proceeds go to DEMO.
• A run down of Minneapolis clubs
• KFAI
• Twin Cities Metro Independent Business Alliance
• Bringing cultures together through music
• and how committing to independence is a long-term and risky strategy

This is one of my favorite conversations ever. I couldn’t have asked for anything better to end First Crack’s month hiatus.

Special thanks to Bill Boulger from IndieTickets for connecting us.

Listen to Steve McClellan on Developing Musicians and Independence [49 min]

Check out my FastCast for a 10 minutes bonus track with Steve McClellan focused on DEMO, the Bootleg CD, and the December 14th CD release party.

On a cool October day, while on my quest for some independent Twin Cities music, I sat down with John Ostby formerly of SpyMob. He had an acoustic guitar, I had a mic. We talked a little about the Twin Cities music scene, but mostly he played. Enjoy.

Listen to John Ostby and His Guitar [24 min]