In the past few years technology has taken on a larger and larger role in popular music on both the performance and manufacturing front. When it comes to the strictly practical side - recording and distribution for instance - technology has been a boon for the independent musician as it has allowed him or her to manufacture and distribute their own music for no more than what it would cost to purchase a personal computer with a good sound card and a high speed Internet connection.

One only needs to look at the success of bands like Dispatch who never signed with any record label and yet were able to sell out three nights at Madison Square Gardens by simply making the tickets available to their MySpace friends to see how well that could work out. Bands no longer have to jump through hoops with record companies in order to get their music published and distributed. True they have to pay for it all out of their own pockets, and as their pockets aren't as deep as the big companies, they won't be able to afford to do all the big companies do marketing, distributing, and promoting their recording. But for some people that's a fair exchange in return for being able to retain creative control.

On the other hand, the ever increasing role that electronics and digitally created effects have started to play in the music itself has led to something of a backlash resulting in some musicians and audience members looking to older and simpler forms as an alternative. Like the punks in the 1970s who rebelled against what the saw as the excesses of progressive rock and the blandness of the industry controlled charts, the musicians among them aren't interested in creating music for the sake of celebrity. They want to play music that inspires them to play and moves them.

Like some of their contemporaries, for Eden Brower and John Heneghan of Eden & John's East River String Band that has meant going backwards in time and searching out old blues and popular songs from the early part of the twentieth century to perform. While there's always the risk that when performers look to an earlier era for their material that they will become a type of museum piece or a curiosity, one only has to listen to their recently released CD, Some Cold Rainy Day, recorded on their own East River Records label and distributed by Forced Exposure, to realize that this duo won't be put in a display case any time soon.