The Radical Roger McGuinn

This blog has enlisted a couple of music artists as guest bloggers who will occasionally give us an insider's view of the way technology is affecting their existence. One guest, appearing today, is Roger McGuinn, legendary guitarist and co-founder of The Byrds. The other will be Chris Collingwood, lead singer for Fountains of Wayne, which is just heading out on tour.

Roger's post:

Roger's post:

In October, 2006, my wife Camilla and I toured Denmark and the UK for a series of concerts. After one of the first shows in England, our road manager, Steve Walker asked, "Did you see 'Turn Turn Turn' from last night's concert on YouTube?" I checked it out and was surprised at the quality and how it was a good representation of my performance.

We loved that the fans were recording videos with their cell phones and posting them on the Internet to share with the world. What a great way to keep the mercenaries from selling bootleg concert footage on eBay. If everybody already had a copy, who would want to buy one?

We decided not only to allow video recording, but to actually encourage it. During my recent appearance at the Barns at Wolf Trap in Vienna, Va., I invited the audience to turn on their cell phones and video my acoustic rendition of 'Eight Miles High.'

In the '60s, audiences showed their appreciation by holding up their lighters or matches, often burning their fingers. Now when I look from the stage I see a sea of tiny blue squares and the occasional blinking red LED shining back at me. Makes me feel great! I love technology.

It seems no one from the Barns concert knew how to post to YouTube. (We were there -- let's just say it wasn't the youngest crowd going.) But while searching YouTube, we found this cool clip from the 1960s. Check out Roger in the sunglasses...