In Search of Indie

In my quest for new music experiences to broaden my musical tastes, there are a few web sites that I repeatedly return to. My top pick which I visit everyday is Daytrotter. They have a new downloadable session everyday and it is a great way to start the day. My favorite finds at daytotter so far are April Smith and the Big Picture Show, Catfish Haven, 22-20's, J.Roddy Walston and the Business, Dawes, Backyard Tire Fire and to many more to mention. Also Bands I knew and liked already doing some raw sessions. The Black Angels, Cage the Elephant, Circa Survive, Death Cab for Cutie, Local Natives, and Social Distortion. Any hoo to get a sampling check out Best of Daytrotter 2010, and Readers Choice 2010 Once you start trotting you'll never surf again.



About Daytrotter: 

Daytrotter -- One band a day, every day, 28 Daytrotter Session songs each week.

As Bands are they’re traveling through America’s heartland – take two hours out of their travels between shows to stop in for a Daytrotter Session at The Horseshack in downtown Rock Island, Ill. The name of the city is not ironic. They use borrowed instruments, play with their touring mates, utilize an often unkempt toilet, eat some food and then cram back into their vans for the last half of the drive. What they leave behind is a pile of ashes, sometimes a forgotten stocking hat and four absolutely collectible songs that often impart on whomever listens to them the true intensity that these musicians put into their art, sometimes with more clarity than they do when they have months to tinker with overdubs and experiments. These songs are them as they are on that particular day, on that particular tour – dirty and alive. We want you to make this your new home as it is ours. We promise that you will love it here.

The Horseshack, Rock Island, Illinois. 
Daytrotter Sessions are engineered by Mike Gentry, Patrick Stolley, Brad Kopplin, Brett Allen or Nick Krill.

The Daytrotter recordings are made with minimal mic’ing, through discrete preamps and with some limiting to the mixing console, where they are printed to 1/4” analog tape running at 15 inches per second (usually BASF 468). The analog master is later transferred to a computer and converted to MP3.

There is no set formula or pattern to the recordings, no specific mic setup, etc. They are all live, no overdubs, straight to tape. What you hear is what happened in the room that day.