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• PlayedLastNight.com
• Swell Season show worth the ticket

Fans who missed the sold-out Swell Season concert Monday night at the Overture Center don't have to worry about what they missed.

Thanks to a new venture called PlayedLastNight.com, audio recordings of the band's concerts throughout its nationwide tour are available for download.

"Some people go to a show and get T-shirts, so why not get the music?" said the company's founder, E.J. Holowicki of Berkeley, Calif.

MP3 files of shows are available for $9.95. Discount coupons being handed out at venues take $4 off. FLAC files are also available for $12.95. The site has track listings and previews of the music so would-be customers can gauge the quality.

"We have the artist in mind," Holowicki said. "We do our best to make sure everything sounds good."

It's not just a straight-up recording of the show, Holowicki said. The music is recorded from the mixing board with microphones on each instrument. It is mixed in a studio and remastered.

"In some cases, if the venue has bad sound, the recording can sound better than it did live," Holowicki said.

Despite the name of the company, the turnaround time for a performance and its availability is about a week. The goal, Holowicki said, is to have it available the next day.

Holowicki began the venture in January. He had been touring as a musician with Iron & Wine, the stage name of singer-songwriter Samuel Beam. Holowicki got the idea as he was sending copies of some of the performances home to his wife. He's friends with the manager of the Swell Season's Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, and he persuaded them to put their music online, too.

"Glen's very charismatic, they've got great songs, but great stories, too," Holowicki said. "Live, their shows are just as interesting if not more interesting than their albums."

Holowicki originally estimated that perhaps about 2 percent of the people attending shows would download, maybe as many as 10 percent. With the Swell Season, however, Holowicki said about 20 percent of concert-goers are downloading the shows. He estimates he's had 4,000 to 5,000 downloads since the two bands' shows been available.

"Swell Season and Iron & Wine are going great," he said. "Their shows are great and every night is different. Some people will download every show."

Because of copyright laws, PlayedLastNight.com can only work with musicians who own the rights to their work. The goal is to get more musicians on board, those that complement each other so fans of one band might download another even if they are unfamiliar with them.

"The big challenge for us is to convince the bands we're good guys, we're genuine, we're kind of family," Holowicki siad.