Emperor X – The Blythe Archives Online Georepository
Hero Note: Happy, pop-indie-folk songs for the goof-ball in all of us. This stuff is darn catchy! Chad Matheny has a voice like Conor Oberst and a sound akin to a chilled Danielson Famile. Search around the websites for lots of free music and secret stashes. Emperor X has become one of my Top-10 finds for 2010. Great Interview at NPR.ORG: Read the story at NPR Download the Interview at NPR.ORG
Emperor X (real name Chad Matheny) plays one-man pop songs, sometimes with little more than an acoustic guitar and a port-a-mic. Typical descriptions of his sound often include the words “electronica” and “indie”, but a more fitting one might be experimental indie-folk. In live shows, Emperor X often includes motley and mercurial backing musicians, usually Matheny’s friends and acquaintances.
Most Emperor X songs riff on Matheny’s life, usually straying into the realm of the future or his obsession with mass transit (see “Everyone in Jacksonville”, “Right to the Rails” and “Edgeless”).
Matheny tours the United States very frequently, and recently completed small tours of Mexico and Canada.
Emperor X – Violent Translation of the Concordia Headscarp
Emperor X – Go-Captain and Pinlighter
Emperor X tracks are available at WFMU’s Free Music Archive thanks to Twin Lakes Records and Phoning It In.
You may download and share much of the media on this site by clicking here. Free downloading and file sharing of this material is encouraged. Please donate. Thanks! –CRM
The Blythe Archives Online Georepository
Each volume of The Blythe Archives contains information which may be used to locate additional musical material cached throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Australia. The data range in form from etched GPS coordinates to lyrical pointers suggesting specific mass transit stations. At present, the approximate location of eight caches are known, though it is likely that many more exist. Of these known eight caches, one has been found, one has likely been destroyed, and six remain buried.
The watertight caches contain original master cassette tapes and miscellaneous documents. These cassette tapes are the only extant physical copies of the music they contain. However, instructions accompanying each cache tell the finder how to unlock MP3 files stored in this online georepository which contain all audio from the tapes. Once the MP3s are unlocked, the georepository server will display links to these files in the space below for public download. (crm:09.24.2008)
Heroes of Indie Music 