Free shows

I discovered podcasts this week.

I needed a soundtrack (well, news, actually) for my new exercise gig, and went searching.  The BBC is up and running now, but in the course of finding that I also found some gems in the music section.

Many of NPR’s “All Songs Considered” live concerts are available, including a stellar Radiohead show and sets from Spoon, Ted Leo + Pharmacists, The Hold Steady, and a bundle of other indie-ish heroes.  Also, several “song-of-the-day” options are available from sources like KCRW in California, KEXP in Seattle, and The Current in Minneapolis.  (I’m counting on one of these to feed my appetite for new jams after my Paste subscription runs out; their monthly sampler is kind of tame for me.)

THE PROBLEM IS that this stuff shows up in iTunes’ “Podcasts” directory, not the main music library.  !!!  So I figured out how to fix it:
IF YOU WANT CONCERTS/SONG-OF-THE-DAY DOWNLOADS TO DISPLAY IN YOUR MUSIC LIBRARY, RATHER THAN YOUR PODCAST LIBRARY…

1. First download some stuff or subscribe – in iTunes, go to the iTunes store / podcasts / music / NPR / NPR: Live concerts from All Songs Considered podcast

2. Click “Get episode” for a show you want
3. When download is complete, go to “Library / Podcasts” in left bar of iTunes – change the view to “View as list” – and expand “NPR: Live Concerts…”

4. Right-click (control- or command-click for some Mac users) the concert and click “Convert ID3 tags…” Select v1.0 and click OK.  (This is the critical step; iTunes puts podcasts in the podcasts directory based on tags in the higher versions that don’t exist in v1.0.  So, when we are deleting that part of the tag, and will then be able to re-import to iTunes.)

5. Right-click the concert again and click “delete” – click “remove” from the iTunes library – click “keep file.”

6. File / add to library – navigate to the file (unless you’ve changed how your iTunes keeps your library, it’s under YourLoginName / Music / iTunes / iTunes Music / Podcasts / NPR… – click OK
7. Now it’s in your music library! You’ll probably want to edit the tags so it shows up as an album with the artist’s other stuff. It’s one long track, so you might also think about checking the “Skip while shuffling” option.