Performing Songwriter Bids Us A Fond Farewell.

Dear Friends, June2009 marked the final issue of Performing Songwriter. The magazine, founded by Lydia Hutchinson, was one of our favorites. Well written and well made, the magazine featured articles on artists at all stages of their career. It was unbiased in its approach and revolutionary for its time.

In a heartfelt editor's note, Lydia bids a gracious thanks and farewell after 16 years of publishing one of the top music magazines. I am sad to hear it is closing, but happy to hear that Lydia made the decision on her own terms. Just as she started the magazine as and independent, she closed it as an independent. Truly the end of an era.

This is Lydia's goodbye note to all of us.

I remember meeting Lydia at the Planet Bluegrass Folks Fest, Lyons, CO.... I don't even remember the date, except that she was on the 3rd issue of the magazine. We met through a mutual friend and I helped her 'flog' a few subscriptions. We had a great time on that day and though we don't see each other nearly enough, I consider her a friend. We practically grew up in our careers together in music.. a sister entrepreneur.

Last summer, during a stay in Nashville, was the last time I saw her. We chatted briefly at her offices about the 15 years that had passed. She told tales of keeping the magazine away from the corporate buyout. The magazine was her art, her baby, her own. She kept it independent, she kept the quality. Lydia made it happen on her terms. I'm so damn proud of her.

This upside down economy has taken a hard toll on all of us... music industry and print publishing are just a few industries affected. It's the end of an era for sure, but not the end for Lydia.

Lydia, my friend, here's to you, your future and all the people who's lives you touched.
Cookie

Special Event 060509 Live in the Studio with Kai Eckhard.. Compositions for Solo Electric Bass

Dear Friends!

We had a very special guest performing for our Special Event this month. His name is Kai Eckhardt, one of the most extraordiary electric bass players in the world. He is an internationally know bass player whose credits include touring and recording with Billy Cobham, John McLaughlin, Trilok Gurtu, Stanley Clarke, Wayne Shorter, Patrice Rushen, Dewey Redman, Donald Byrd, Bela Fleck, Victor Wooten, Robert Walter, Karl Denson, Michael Franti, Larry Coryell, Warren Hill, Al Di Meola, Zakir Hussain, Vital Information , John Scofield and Bill Frisell. In the last five years, Kai can be seen as a regular with Garaj Mahal a well known ensemble playing high powered instumental music in the jamband circuit.

We were delighted to have him perform for a Blue Coast Records Special Event-- Live in the Studio yesterday. Kai picks up where Jaco Pastorius left off as a solo bassist-- and now challenges how we think of this instrument. His approach is like an acoustic guitarist melding arpegios and intricate time signatures into a beautiful weave of sound.

For this session, the recording team at OTR Studios, helped setup a unique E.S.E. microphone placement. While Kai utilized his 3 instruments we used a 5 microphone setup that captured the entire room as it vibrated with the sound of his instrument. Kai's interpretations of his songs uses full dynamic range and we chose not to use compression in this recording. As we have more time, we'll include more descriptions and photos at our website.

Let us know if you have any questions for us or Kai about this recording session. For the weekend, the singles will be available at $2/96K and $1/44.1 and as always, you can stream all the songs at 192kbps. On Monday, the prices will go to $3/1.5 respectively. Next week, we will be releasing more music from the vaults, either Thursday or Friday.

Sign up for our new twitter feeds @bluecoastworld for the latest information. Our next scheduled Special Event is in July with Matt Rollings.

We want to thank all of you who participated in our listening events! And especially thank those of you who are taking the time to write about us on forums throughout the world. We are all amazed and at the warmth you are giving us. Thankyou!

Enjoy the music!
Cookie Marenco
Blue Coast Records

Blue Coast Collection Reviews and Forums in China!

Check this out!
Baidu.com is like google in China, so on a whim, we decided to search for the Blue Coast Collection and to our suprise, there were hundred of listings (more than 457 as of this writing)! We used the google translator to see what it was they were saying about us and it seems we're very well received!

Most of the forums seem to be generated by colleges kids, both men and women. We've heard reports that acoustic music is well received by 30% of the population... We're beginning to believe it!

Blue Coast Records Opens Up a New Section called Tidbits! New Music From Art Lande! 96K downloads on a whim!!

Dear Friends! Thursday is a tough day to get anything done, so we've moved our new music offerings this week to Friday.

Our contest from last week brought HUGE response and great reviews for all three songs presented. Jane Selkye's rendition of Ascension Day, brought the most favorable accolades, but we will offer all three as downloads next week at 96K. Those that participated, will get a free 96K version of all three songs when they are mixed.

This week, we had Blue Coast Artist, Art Lande in the studio recording with Bruce Williamson, his long time friend and musical companion for more than 15 years. These two fine musicians performed 3 Duke Ellington songs followed by their IMPRESSIONS of the same song.

The Ellington Challenge!
This week the challenge is to figure out which Duke Ellington piece these 3 IMPRESSIONSISTIC songs spawned from. You'll need to figure out the songs in the correct order and submit to me before 11pm PST on Saturday.

If you guess correctly, on Sunday we'll send you the original improvisation of the Duke Ellington piece as Art and Bruce performed them in the studio last week! It's not easy to figure out. Here's a hint for one piece... shiny material/Children play with these... :D

You don't need to purchase to be part of the contest. The whole song can be streamed as an mp3. If you like the music, our 96K

Tidbits will be priced at $2 per single... less than the cost of my triple espresso!

Art Lande and Bruce Williamson--Tidbits

Join us at Twitter.com BlueCoastWorld

Have a wonderful weekend!

Cookie Marenco
Blue Coast Records..

If It's Thursday, It Must be NEW MUSIC TIME at Blue Coast Records

Since the wonderful response of our 96K downloads, we decided to release music every Thursday on this high rez format!

This week we'll release the final 3 songs from the Blue Coast Collection at 96K at a special price of $3 per download. The songs will remain discounted until June 1 when they'll go to our regular price of $4 per song and $40 for the entire album bundle.

We have so many special 'treats' in the vault recorded using our E.S.E technique, we're not sure which to release first. Come back every Thurs to find out.

We also have a number of 44.1 downloads available at
www.bluecoastworld.com
and are adding new music all the time. These are recordings produced for the artist (mostly by me and some of my producer friends) that we've made available for downloads. They don't pass the test for us to be released as 96K downloads (either because they were recorded at 44.1 or mixed to 44.1..... ) because we don't believe in upsampling.

Tell your friends, visit forums and let us know where you're talking about us.
We love your comments.

Enjoy the Music,
Cookie

High Resolution Downloads Three Hours After Performance

Special Event 09 April 2009

On April 9, 2009, Blue Coast Artists Keith Greeninger & Chris Kee were joined by world-class drummer Brain for a one-time only performance and live recording at the request of Blue Coast Records' producer and founder, Cookie Marenco.
Some of you know Brain's incredible drumming skills from his work with Primus, Tom Waits, Buckethead, Guns N' Roses and many others. Keith Greeninger's familiar voice is heard in the lead-off track on the Blue Coast Collection - Keith is a stunning performer. Chris Kee, also featured on the Blue Coast Collection, is playing acoustic bass. Chris plays bass on Jane Selkye's Blue Coast Collection pieces, though recently he's becoming known for his work with Houston Jones and Peter Rowan.

The recordings took place at OTR Studios, homebase for Marenco. In house IT specialist and General Manager for OTR, Patrick O'Connor, handled all the details for creating the site, uploading and backend support. Tim Jones, house engineer at OTR Studios, assisted Marenco with the E.S.E. setup. E.S.E. (Extended Sound Environment) is the proprietary technique created by Marenco and Jean Claude Reynaud for use with Blue Coast Recordings.

The music was recorded to 2" analog tape and mixed to the Sonoma Systems DSD (direct stream digital). From the DSD, the music was tranferred to 96K and 44.1 .wav files for uncompressed downloads. The full song can be streamed at 124kbps mp3 quality. "These are big files, but not as big as DSD, which we are hoping to release soon," says Marenco. "The DSD sounds incredible. If there is enough demand, we may release the multitrack as .wav files for people to make their own mixes at home."

Response to the high resolution downloads has been remarkable. Computeraudiophile.com commented on the event calling it "one of the coolest releases so far in 2009". Fans are choosing the 96K download 8 out of 10 times. Plans are in the works to release the Blue Coast Collection, the flagship recording, for 96K downloads before the end of the month.

Marenco adds, "The recording with Keith, Brain and Chris was a tremendous success on a musical level as well. Considering the musicians had never met prior to the session, let alone played together, this is a remarkable achievement. We are planning on another live session before Brain leaves to tour with Guns N Roses and Keith and Chris have their summer festivals."

The event was created for visitors, Ed Martin and Andy Gilbert, who flew from Oklahoma to visit Blue Coast Records. Other guests in attendance were Merl Saunders Jr, Mike Newman, Anne Vrolyk, and Scott Thompson. Blue Coast offers special thanks to Andrew Doyle and Mike Howle assistants at OTR who helped but were not at the event.

From Recording to Worldwide Distribution within 3 hours... AMAZING!

Blue Coast Records - High Resolution Downloads Three Hours After Performance

We want to thank our fans at The Computer Audiophile site for posting our story on the front page! If you want to join in on the forum, please click here.

Fri, 04/10/2009 - 15:05 — The Computer Audiophile

Wow, this is one of the coolest releases so far in 2009. I'm so impressed I couldn't let this one disappear into the forum black hole if nobody saw it in time. Thus, a front page story. Blue Coast Records founder Cookie Marenco assembled artists Keith Greeninger, Chris Kee, and drummer Bryan “Brain” Mantia for a performance and live recording last night (April 9, 2009). Three hours after the performance Blue Coast offered 16/44.1 and 24/96 WAV downloads of the recording! Blue Coast Records is known for great artistic talent, great sound quality, and its Extended Sound Environment (E.S.E.) recording technique. At Blue Coast Records sound quality and musical enjoyment are not mutually exclusive. Read more for details and a link to download two of the tracks.

From BlueCoastRecords:

"Special Event 09 April 2009

Earlier this evening, Blue Coast Artists Keith Greeninger & Chris Kee were joined by world-class drummer Brain for a one-time only performance and live recording at the request of Blue Coast Records' producer and founder, Cookie Marenco.

Recorded using the E.S.E (Extended Sound Environment) proprietary style these pieces and are incredible in sound, music and magic. The prices will be $1.50 for CD Quality and $3 for 96K quality downloads.

Some of you know Brain's incredible drumming skills from his work with Primus, Tom Waits, Buckethead, Guns N' Roses and many others. Keith Greeninger's familiar voice is heard in the lead-off track on the Blue Coast Collection - Keith is a stunning performer. Chris Kee, also featured on the Blue Coast Collection, is playing acoustic bass. Chris plays bass on Jane Selkye's Blue Coast Collection pieces, though recently he's becoming known for his work with Houston Jones and Peter Rowan.

From Recording to Worldwide Distribution within 3 hours... AMAZING!

Cookie Marenco, the Blue Coast Artists and the team at Blue Coast Records sincerely thank you for showing your support for high quality music and performances!"

Link -> http://www.bluecoastrecords.com/special-event-09-april-2009