Hummable Brag

This post is mostly about my victory against the man!  In this case, the man is fictional, but that doesn't matter.  A little history:

On Wednesday night, my wife, my friends and I shuffled off to Port Chester, New York to catch one of our favorite musicians play in the small bar, Garcia's.  Keller Williams, who has long covered music of the Grateful Dead intertwined with his own tunes, was scheduled to play all Dead/Jerry Garcia covers on August 1st.  Why?  It was Jerry's (or would have been) 76th birthday.  It's been a while since he's passed.  Jerry died from a heart attack at age 53 in 1995.  What's significant about that is, due to the number of narcotics he experimented/depended on during his career as a musician, 53 is longer than he probably should have lived, especially after surviving a diabetic coma and other debilitating conditions.

Jerry did well to live that long.

But, for those of us who believe that he was an incredible musician and lyricist, we depend on others to continue to bring us his music; enter Keller Williams.  Now, before I go on, it should be noted that Keller has zero to do with the realty agency.  Just a coincidence.  Keller performs his own original compositions along with other tracks he appreciates, and he has (nearly) always included Grateful Dead music in his shows, regardless of whether he's performing solo or as part of a larger musical ensemble. 

When announced in April that he was going to play this show, my group jumped on the opportunity to grab tickets.  And, sure enough, they evaporated as Garcia's is a small venue, and have been sold out since the beginning of May.  They even added a second show.  That sold out too.  Fast forward to earlier this week as the concert fast approached: organizers of the event surprised all of us when they announced that, due to the sell out, they would be simulcasting the show, for free, on the YouTube.  Hurray!  Friends, unable to grab tickets, would be able to see the show anyway!  Also, this presented a unique opportunity.

I'm a bit of a collector of music, specifically music I've seen.  At previous Keller shows, I've even gone to the soundboard operator, master of Keller's domain, Lou Gosain, and asked if a copy of the live show would be made available for purchase.  The answer was always no.  Sure, at some venues, Keller's peeps allowed for tapers to bring their own mics and record the performance, complete with audience noise/chatter, but I was looking for something a bit cleaner, a soundboard copy.  And, this time, I was able to get it.

Because they used YouTube, I thought the video of the show would remain on there for a bit.  Turns out, that was true.  The show, in its entirety, is still up on YouTube.  So, how to get it off.  Well, the first order of business was to grab the show/download it, just in case it disappeared.  While you can load a mess of plug-ins to Chrome, I was doubtful that there would be one so that you could locally save videos since both Chrome and YouTube are properties of Google.  Enter Firefox.  I added the extension, and a button appeared just below the video: would you like to download this in HD 720p?  Yes please. 

Now that I had the file, I would need some audio-processing software and MP3-ripping software as well.  Enter Audacity.  Audacity is FREE and powerful.  It allows you to record from your mic, but more importantly, directly from your soundcard in your computer.  I was able to play back the show I just downloaded and simultaneously record just the audio track without degradation.  Then, Audacity allows you to split the file into individual tracks, normalize the volume, and batch (read: do multiple) save the resultant tracks into individual MP3 files complete with artist/album metadata! 

DONE AND DONE.

What I was left with was a near-CD quality show, certainly good enough for car listening, that I could upload to my iPhone without streaming, and relisten to a board-copy of one of the most fun concerts I've been to in a while!  Where there's a will there's a way.  Now, there may be a reason why Keller's people, and possibly the venue's administration, why this wasn't or wouldn't be made available.  But, as it was a free show, one I don't intend on selling for my own profit, I don't think I'm breaking any copyright laws.  I may be wrong, but at least when they lock me up, I'll be in my cell with Keller's own brand of bittersweet, folk rock, for free!

P.S.  If you tune into the YouTube video (music starts at 14:09), it's practically an advertisement for my wife, who is heavily featured in every song due to the fact that she was tempted to jump onto the stage and hug Keller the entire night.  Luckily, cooler heads prevailed. Yes, I'm confident in the strength of my marriage, I think.