SXSW is an annual music and arts festival that takes place in Austin Texas. For the past 8 years the festival has released songs by the groups featured at the event. These songs can be downloaded in bulk from the unofficial SXSW torrent site at – http://www.sxswtorrent.com/
This year’s collection alone includes 1,219 files totaling 7.52GB. Over all there is over 35GB of free music available, one of the largest collections of free music on the net. I particularly like that there are so many unknown artists in these collections. So there’s a good chance to discover some new favorites you haven’t heard before. It’s a lot of music to sort through to find the jems. I like to make a playlist of the years collection, and while listening, use the rating system in itunes to mark the keepers.
Strangely, I have never played through an actual Tubescreamer, so I’ve been looking at correcting that recently. While poking arount the net I heard some buzz about the Joyo Vintage Overdrive being a perfect clone for an Ibanez TS9 Tubescreamer. Apparently the infamous GearManDude had also heard this and did a shootout between the two.For about half the price of the TS9, I’d say the Joyo is certainly close enough.
Here’s one for all the tone nerds. These guys are attempting to show the difference between woods in acoustic guitars. However, each guitar is built so differently, that it’s not a good comparison. Still, if your into the finer points of what makes your guitars sound the way they do, it’s an interesting video. Supposedly this is the first in a series. I’m looking forward to the next one.
I’ve always liked this song, and this is a really nice solo guitar arrangement of it. I really like what Eastwood does, bringing back the cool funky guitars I’m always looking at on ebay. But I’ve had a chance to play two different models, an early Hi-Flyer and a hollow 12 string called the Classic 12. The classic 12 played very nicely and seemed very well put together. But the sound was flat and uninspiring. Of course I was at a vintage guitar show which was noisy, but I was plugged in to a nice Fender amp(forget which one). When I immediately then played an old 60’s 12 string Univox through the same amp, I instantly heard that cool jangly 12 string tone I was looking for.
I played the High Flyer at the same show, but it was through a small Vox modeling amp. Again, it seemed OK, but in the way a Fender Squier is OK. Very usable, but unremarkable. However, this Eastwood Tuxedo sounds amazing through this (expensive) Swart amp. So I certainly haven’t written off Eastwood yet.
