My other latest recent musical obsession is guitarist Nels Cline. Best know these days as the guitarist in Wilco, he’s nevertheless been a mainstay of the LA experimental/free/out/weird scene for decades, as well as guesting with some big name dudes like Mike Watt (his guitar playing features heavily on Contemplating The Engine Room by Watt – an amazing album)
Anyway, there are a few free downloads on last.fm that feature him – first, there’s The Darkness Of Each Endless Fall by Stueart Liebig – Stig is an outstanding bassist from LA, and I just bought this track yesterday from eMusic, but on clicking on his name on last.fm just now, discovered I could’ve got it for free… So you can, and then go and buy loads of Stig’s music cos it’s amazing.
Also on last.fm are four free downloads from The Scott Amendola Band, featuring Nels. Again, I downloaded both albums from eMusic, but you can get tasters of them from last.fm, then go and buy them on emusic!
And lastly – same as before, I bought it on emusic before discovering the freebies – some of Nels’ own trio, The Nels Cline Singers, whose music is all instrumental, just in case the name throws you.
Get stuck in – you can get about an hour or so’s worth of free loveliness from that lot on last.fm. Seems like their label, Cryptogramaphone have free tracks from all their artists on last.fm – i’d recommend Jenny Scheinman, Alan Pasqua and Nels’ solo stuff as well, but it’s all worth checking out. Hours of spikey goodness.