Beirut Giving Away Movies: Or, Why I Love Indie Labels Against My Better Judgment
by chris on Dec.15, 2010, under general, media
I’m not a hipster, but one of my favorite bands is a little indie outfit called Beirut. They play Balkan folk – what I affectionally refer to as ‘horncore’ – with lots of beautiful, anthematic melodies and harmonies.
For example, here’s one of my favorite songs off of their album The Flying Cup Club:
In 2007, Beirut teamed up with La Blogotheque to film a series of “Take Away Shows”, where the band walked around cities in France playing their music live for people, like this:
These were such a success that Beirut and Blogotheque decided to make a feature-length music video movie, where the band wandered from hipster hovel to hipster hovel playing their horns all over the place.
I’ve been looking for this DVD for some time now. Some of the individual songs can be found on YouTube, Vimeo, etc, but I wanted high quality and the real thing. But emails to Beirut’s merch address went unanswered, and nothing was on eBay, Amazon, etc.
Finally, I emailed Beirut’s record label, BaDaBing Records, only to find out that they had ‘sold out years ago.’
In that case, I hazarded, is there any chance you’d make the files available for download? Since you’re not selling the DVD anymore?
I received two emails in quick succession:
Good suggestion…. Will look into that. Thanks!
and
Hey Chris, we just heard from La Blogotheque, and they’re fine with you sharing the video files wherever… since there aren’t any more dvd’s, I’m guessing you’ll need us to rip the files for you? Let us know if you have any expertise on how to go about that, but I’m sure we can figure it out. Sweet!
A week later, BaDaBing had mailed me one of two remaining copies of the DVD, with an express mandate to make them as widely available as possible.
So I did.
If you would like to have a copy of the no-longer-available musical movie masterpiece that is Beirut/Blogotheque’s Cheap Magic Inside, you have two options.
- Download the torrent from ThePirateBay, which, once it gets picked up, will probably be much faster.
- Download it from my server, which I plan to keep up and running indefinitely.
In either case, you can download the videos in one of two formats: 1) full-quality 720p H264 m4v files, or 2) iPhone/iPod Touch optimized m4v files.
If you want to replicate the DVD or prefer to rip the movie files in a different format yourself, you can also download a raw disc master in ISO, DMG, or CDR.
Please download / link / rehost / mirror these as you will to ensure the widest exposure and availability.
And, if you are so inclined, you might go throw some change at Beirut, BaDaBing, or Blogotheque to support them. While in some ways this move isn’t logically surprising – they’re not selling the DVDs anymore, so they haven’t lost any sales, and they’re making new fans – in the broader context of the music industry it’s stunning.
Merry Christmas, indie kids.
December 15th, 2010 on 3:04 pm
[…] For a download link and instructions, please visit Chris’ blog. […]
December 19th, 2010 on 9:24 pm
[…] [HTTP] Thank you, Chris. [DF […]
December 20th, 2010 on 6:21 pm
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Nicolas Morand, Cédric Marchal. Cédric Marchal said: http://www.cpeterson.org/2010/12/15/beirut-giving-away-movies-or-why-i-love-indie-labels-against-my-better-judgment/ […]
December 29th, 2010 on 6:18 pm
[…] the consent of BadaBing (Beirut’s label) and ours, to upload and share files from the DVD (read the story). If you would like to have a copy of the no-longer-available musical movie masterpiece that is […]
December 29th, 2010 on 11:03 pm
[…] Magic Inside can now be downloaded in both DVD-quality and iPod-optimized formats on Chris Peterson’s blog and as a torrent on The Pirate Bay. With his permission, I’ve also made uploaded the […]
January 3rd, 2011 on 7:26 am
[…] the DVD completely sold out and when Beirut fan Chris Petersen failed to find a high quality copy of the DVD anywhere, he simply contacted the label and received […]
January 4th, 2011 on 12:18 pm
[…] enlace http://cheapmagicinside.blogotheque.net/. Todo esto gratis y de forma legal gracias a Chris Peterson, un fan de la banda que obtuvo el consentimiento del sello Ba Da Bing Records y de La Blogotheque […]
January 4th, 2011 on 1:05 pm
[…] the consent of BadaBing (Beirut’s label) and ours, to upload and share files from the DVD (read the story). If you would like to have a copy of the no-longer-available musical movie masterpiece that is […]
January 26th, 2011 on 8:48 pm
[…] out the whole story on Chris’s website and download the films over here from his […]
March 29th, 2011 on 12:01 am
[…] caso é que esse DVD simplesmente esgotou. Um cara entrou em contato com a gravadora da banda e sugeriu que eles o disponibilizassem para download. […]
May 19th, 2011 on 2:30 pm
[…] In December, we told you about Chris Peterson, who set up downloadable links to all of Beirut’s performances for La Blogotheque (read post here). You can now look to Beirut’s YouTube channel to view all of the Take Away Shows as well as an additional feature. All videos were compiled for a DVD entitled Cheap Magic Inside, which was release in December. To learn how to download the videos for yourself, visit Chris’ blog. […]
August 30th, 2011 on 3:49 am
Thanks! I’ve been going to the flyingclubcup website for a long time hoping they had made more!
September 27th, 2011 on 8:49 pm
Thank you! very much appreciated 🙂
December 31st, 2011 on 4:04 pm
Chris Peterson, you are my favourite person in the whole world. Thank you for doing this for us.
June 28th, 2012 on 12:52 am
[…] Beirut Giving Away Movies: Or, Why I Love Indie Labels Against My Better Judgment […]
December 6th, 2012 on 10:57 pm
[…] El largo de Beirut, llamado Cheap Magic Inside, está dirigido por Vincent Moon y su descarga es libre al haberse agotado las existencias en DVD. La experiencia se nos presenta en forma de un paseo de […]
December 20th, 2012 on 3:10 am
[…] gravadora, a BaDaBing Records, recede um e-mail de um fã da banda, Chris Peterson, pedindo uma cópia do DVD das filmagens que a banda havia feito com o pessoal da Blogotheque, no […]
March 3rd, 2017 on 8:41 pm
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