On the joys of bootlegs and the evils of ClearChannel McSatan Corp, LLC.

I love live music, go deep into a band when i love them, and know I would grumblingly shell out the dough for a CD of a Justin Timberl- I mean cool, alternative band show.

I'm a whore. What can you do.

From the wonderful Pitchforkmedia.com aka Pitchfork
But there's a catch: Instant Live, which launched in May, is owned by Clear Channel Entertainment, one of the largest and most aggressive media companies in America. The owner of six times as many radio stations as its nearest competitor and the owner and/or booker of over 130 venues, Clear Channel has been criticized for anti-competitive and anti-artist practices by the press-- Salon's extensive coverage has set the bar-- and politicans including Senator John McCain. Even the deregulation-happy FCC has scrutinized their business.

So as cool as this technology sounds, music fans will ask: what are they planning to do with it?

For now, the Instant Live team has started small, launching in Clear Channel's home base of Boston and recording at smaller rock clubs-- like the Paradise, where I went to see them record Kay Hanley, former frontwoman of Letters to Cleo. I only heard about the gig by talking to Clear Channel: neither Hanley nor the venue advertised it on their websites, but once you walked in the club you couldn't miss the merch table, with large Instant Live banners and young employees promoting the album they were about to record. As if to demonstrate just how easy it was, they even had a boombox playing a CD that they had just cut during the soundcheck.