New technology brings live concerts home
There was the 78, the 45 and then the MP3 -- all heralded as great innovations in music recording technology. Fast forward a bit and now, minutes after your favorite band sounds its last note, you can load a live recording onto a cigarette-lighter-sized hard drive hanging off your keychain.
Take it home, toss the digital files onto your computer and then e-mail it to all your friends with the message "Dude! These guys are awesome!"
Oh, how far we've come.
On May 21, the first of the interfaces -- digital kiosks really -- will be installed at Maxwell's, a small indie-rock club in Hoboken, New Jersey. At $10 a pop for the recording, and $20 for the reusable, keychain pen drive, let the downloading begin.
"This is a tool that allows fans to take home and share some of the best independent music from small live venues around the country," said Daniel Stein, CEO of Dimensional Associates, a private equity firm which owns eMusic Live, which created the machines.
For Scott Ambrose Reilly, president of eMusic Live, the idea is to let fans have a legal copy of the show, which gives smaller artists and their labels creative control over the quality of the recording and a commercial stake in its distribution.
