Jesse Malin - Legal Music Downloads

This week I want to take a look at Jesse Malin's performance on World Cafe on March 1st. I found this podcast on iTunes and...unfortunately, it isn't worth the download.

The tracks I have heard from Jesse's new CD are great and he gives a good interview BUT the World Cafe podcasts are heavily edited. For instance, Jesse starts into a great live version of Don't Let Them Take You Down and it fades out after a minute. I didn't realize (until the end of the podcast) that World Cafe podcasts are just teasers to get you to stream the full show from NPR's website.

This has nothing to do with the podcast but I find it interesting that most of the current interviews with Jesse skip over his post-D Generation bands PCP Highway and Bellvue. (From NPR's site -- D Generation broke up in 1999, and Malin launched a solo career). I thought both bands were great and saw Bellvue many times.

After listening to a great Robyn Hitchcock podcast last week which originally aired on WNYC, the World Cafe podcasts are a disappointment.

Yoko Ono on World Cafe, Feb. 16, 2007 Legal Music Download

Yoko Ono's interview on NPR's World Cafe has to be one of the more interesting things that I have run across on iTunes this past week. I am somewhat amazed that Yoko is in her early 70s as she remains current in today's music scene. The interview focuses on Ono's new release Yes, I'm a Witch on which 16 artists reinterpret and remix songs from Ono's back catalog. These artists included Flaming Lips, Cat Power, Peaches and many more. I haven't heard the CD but was impressed with the clips that were played during the interview (the Cat Power clip was especially compelling).

The full interview is available (for free) on iTunes and can also be streamed over the web from National Public Radio's website.

Yoko Ono's new CD was just released by Astralwerks and there are links to the Flaming Lips (covering Cambridge 1969) and Cat Power (covering Revelations) tracks from Ono's page on the Astralwerks site.