Here’s the link to the NEW show. You can listen to it in your web browser by simply clicking the link or you can right-click (or on a Mac, click-and-hold, then select “save”) to download it to your computer and then move it to iTunes (or whatever) and listen to it on an mp3 player. This episode is nearly 50 minutes long, featuring quite a LOT of music as well as an interview with the director of The Lotus World Music & Arts Festival, and a quick review of The Turkuaz Café, my favorite ethnic restaurant in town.

Show notes for EP001:

These first two links will always stay in the left column, but for clarity’s sake, here they are with the first episode that’s relevant to them:

The Lotus World Music & Arts Festival That’s the basic link where you can learn lots more than what I was able to include in this episode (more episodes on the Lotus to come!). You can also find lists of all artists who’ve performed at the Lotus over the years at this page on their site.

eMusic.com is not an official sponsor (right now), but if you click through here to there and sign up, you will get 50 free song downloads and I will earn some extra downloads for myself. For your free selections, you might want to check out:

Balkan Beat Box at eMusic
Seu Jorge at eMusic
Lisa Germano at eMusic

or maybe you’d care to sample other musicians who played at that first Lotus festival back in 1994 while you’ve got a chance to grab some of them for free. (I regret that I couldn’t get permission OR have enough time to let you hear all of them on this week’s episode!)

Guardabarranco at eMusic (Nicaraguan pop/folk musicians. I love their music, but couldn’t reach them to ask permission to use the songs.)

Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill at eMusic (Clare-style Irish fiddle music)

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band at eMusic (R&B, Traditional, Gospel amazing music in classic New Orleans style!)

Ingrid Karklins at eMusic (Latvian style music from an American woman)

Featured musicians’ websites:

Balkan Beat Box is … well, if you ever get a chance to see and hear them live, take my advice and GO! Their music is wonderful on disk or mp3, but there’s nothing that can replace the excitement of standing or dancing in their audience.

The Dorkestra is not playing together anymore, but you can read and hear more at their website.

Sabá is also not playing together anymore, but Shahyar’s current group, The Silk Road Ensemble, has a website.

Lotus Dickey website has info and materials for old-time musicians as well as enthusiasts.

Seu Jorge can be found in many places on the Internet, and I had a very hard time deciding which song to include in the podcast. I very nearly used his version of David Bowie’s Life On Mars (the link is to Jorge’s performance of this song on YouTube. And yeah, I like Jorge’s version much better than Bowie’s.)

Lisa Germano also has a rich diversity in her music, making it difficult to choose a specific cut for the podcast. Fortunately, she’s also given me permission to use more of her music in later episodes, so stay tuned!

Lunch this week came from The Turkuaz Café – 333-7908, 301 East Third Street.

Photos of musicians and Lotus events courtesy of Kevin Atkins and Michael Valliant.
Thanks, once again, to all the artists who gave me permission to use their work, to Lee Williams and everyone at the Lotus, to Kevin Atkins, Dmitri Vietze and Grey Larson.

And listeners/readers, please, if you have any suggestions or comments, please post them here or e-mail me at host@thisismybloomington.com. Thanks for listening!