Website Review: Internet Archive Preserves Live Music, Old Websites, and Much More

I'm not much of a radio listener. Not because I don't appreciate music, but because I don't appreciate DJs. You could say I dislike them, even. You could say they inspire rage in me, but that might be taking it a bit far.

But when I lived in Calgary, there was one station I not only listened to, I volunteered with. It was a public radio station, CKUA (which I can still listen to online), with a small but devoted listenership. So small that my chances of getting free tickets to various events they sponsored were pretty high.

Once, I got tickets to a Billy Bragg concert. It was around the release of Mermaid Avenue, the album he collaborated on with Wilco. They took lyrics by Woody Guthrie and put them to music, with Jeff Tweedy and Bragg sharing vocals. At the time of the concert, I hadn't yet heard the album, just a song or two played on the station.

I hadn't heard "California Stars" yet either, so Bragg's performance there was my first taste of it, and the one that lingered long after the concert. I was disappointed when I got the album and it was the perfectly fine Tweedy version instead of the funkier Bragg version. That loss festered for years, until ... well, OK, I suddenly thought of it again after several years, and checked the Internet to see if it might be somewhere out there.

Now, I've finally got that live Billy Bragg version - free and legal - thanks to the Internet Archive. The song's perhaps not the holy grail of music, but it's almost as fun as I remembered. I'm surprised I hadn't thought to check the Internet Archive for it earlier. They have over 35,000 live music concerts available – including a huge repository of Grateful Dead concerts - as well as audiobooks, radio programs, texts, movies, and videos – all free and legal for download.

It also preserves web pages and materials from the dark ages of the Internet – you know, from a few years ago. Actually, they use Alexa Internet's Wayback Machine, which has been crawling the web since 1996, to offer access to pages that are no longer live.

The philosophy behind the Internet Archive is stated on their website:

The Internet Archive is working to prevent the Internet - a new medium with major historical significance - and other "born-digital" materials from disappearing into the past. Collaborating with institutions including the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, we are working to preserve a record for generations to come. Open and free access to literature and other writings has long been considered essential to education and to the maintenance of an open society.

They don't mention the value of giving me access to Billy Bragg's version of "California Stars," but I'm sure that's just an oversight.

Article Author: Diane Kristine Wild

Diane writes about boring things during the day, pop culture things by night. She also runs the TV, Eh? website, a compilation of news and information about Canadian television. Follow her on Twitter @deekayw for more random thoughts.

Visit Diane Kristine Wild's author page — Diane Kristine Wild's Blog