Toots and the Maytals are true reggae legends (more: Wikipedia, MySpace). Founder Toots Hibbert is credited with coining the word "reggae" in the band's 1968 single, "Do the Raggay." They've had more number one hit songs in Jamaica than any recording artist ever, and received a Grammy for Best Reggae Album of the Year in 2005.

He was a contemporary of Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff, and was featured in Perry Henzell's seminal 1973 reggae movie "The Harder They Come" (Amazon link).

I joined BBtv's London-based music correspondent Russell Porter for a visit on the venerable Mister Toots' tour bus after an amazing set at Outside Lands, and we sat down with him for a conversation about the history of reggae, and what Toots thinks about contemporary hip-hop and dancehall -- and where his legacy leads. The generous vanity intro he did for BBtv is a thing of beauty, we can all die happy now.

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Sponsor Note: This episode, and other BBtv music features this month, are sponsored by the Crowdfire live music social media project. You can find images, video, and audio about the band featured in today's show at Crowdfire -- here's the search link for fan-uploads related to Toots and the Maytals.

Related Boing Boing tv episodes from Outside Lands:
* Broken Social Scene: interview and live performance (music)
* Galactic's "Modern New Orleans Funk" with Xeni and Russell (music)
* Interview with Cold War Kids frontman Nathan Willett (music)
* Andy Gould, rock band manager, dances on the labels' graves.
* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)
* BB Gadgets' Joel at Outside Lands: Crowdfire deconstructed
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)

(Special thanks to Wayneco for the magic bus, to Michael Cacia, and to Virgin America for air travel.)

Boing Boing tv is wrapping up the work week with a music feature on Broken Social Scene, a Canadian indie rock music collective with about 20 members. Like a giant litter of hipster kittens! Together, they create a sound best described as Baroque Pop. Each musician contributes their own unique style into an fusion of rhythm and ambience.

They’ve won two Juno Awards (sort of like Canada’s Grammys) for Alternative Album of the Year. BBtv's UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter caught up with Brendan Canning, one of the band’s founding members, at the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco.

Note: this episode, and other BBtv music features this month, are sponsored by the Crowdfire live music social media project. You can find images, video, and audio about the band featured in today's show at Crowdfire -- here's the search link for fan-uploads related to Broken Social Scene.

Related Boing Boing tv episodes from Outside Lands:
* Galactic's "Modern New Orleans Funk" with Xeni and Russell (music)
* Interview with Cold War Kids frontman Nathan Willett (music)
* Andy Gould, rock band manager, dances on the labels' graves.
* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)
* BB Gadgets' Joel at Outside Lands: Crowdfire deconstructed
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)

Boing Boing tv caught up with Les Claypool and Larry "Ler" Lalonde of Primus at Outside Lands for a hyperdelic, transdimensional conversation about inflatables, Maker Faire, South Park, weird home-made electronic instruments, and more.

Les also made his film directing debut this year with Electric Apricot, a faux-cumentary feature about a fictional jam band in search of the ultimate music festival.

If you dig this, check out our previous BBtv episodes from Outside Lands. And there's tons of fan-made footage and photos of Primus on Crowdfire.net (they're a BBtv sponsor).

(special thanks to Jason McHugh; to Virgin America for air travel, and to Wayneco for the magic bus)

Related Boing Boing tv episodes:

* Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)
* BB Gadgets' Joel at Outside Lands: Crowdfire deconstructed
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)

One of the artists Boing Boing was excited to "discover" at the recent Outside Lands festival had in fact already "discovered" us. Today on Boing Boing tv, we present singer-songwriter Kaki King.

Pesco says the prolific multi-instrumentalist "plays like a mofo," and boy is he right. The BBtv crew and I caught her live performance at the festival, and chased her down for an interview backstage (literally: our legs were sort of hanging off the side of the platform while guys hauled drums and amps off). We learned that (1) she's a fan of the Boing Boing blog! and (2) she hates comment trolls. Boy do we love her.

Kaki has a new record out, "Dreaming of Revenge," and she's touring the world as I type, with show dates in Europe and the US through 2008.

Rolling Stone named her one of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time,” describing her style as "Van Halen Meets Bootsy." You'll witness why in today's BBtv episode.

We talk with her about life on the road, how IM and social networking help keep her from getting homesick while touring, and how she managed to go from busking in NYC subways to jamming with the likes of the Foo Fighters and hypnotizing crowds of tens of thousands with her rich, distinctive sound.

Speaking of Outside Lands -- you can find lots of crowd-submitted video, audio, reviews, and cameraphone snapshots of Kaki's performance at Crowdfire.net (the project is a BBtv sponsor).

Related Boing Boing tv episodes:

* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* BB Gadgets' Joel at Outside Lands: Crowdfire deconstructed
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)

(Special thanks to Bre and Wayne for the bus; to Virgin America for generously providing air transportation)

Boing Boing Gadgets editor Joel Johnson checks out Crowdfire, a sort of real-life social media experiment at the Outside Lands Music fest. The experiment allows concertgoers to upload, share, remix, and "favorite" photos, audio and video they shot themselves... during the event. Some of that media was projected on the stage where bands played, and all of it was made available online.

Crowdfire (with Windows) is Boing Boing tv's sponsor this month, and the project was the brainchild of BB partner and FM founder/CEO John Battelle and Rick Farman, the festival developer who created Outside Lands.

Crowdfire is sort of like an event-centric Flickr or videosharing site, but on a very large scale -- some 60K+ people attended the concert each day, and as Battelle said, probably 59,000 of them were carrying cameraphones.

Related Boing Boing tv episodes:

* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)

(Special thanks to Bre and Wayne for the bus; to Virgin America for generously providing air transportation)

When the BBtv team and I were covering the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco, a lot of interesting stuff happened. Case in point -- today's episode, in which members of the "rock / blues / French pop" band Carney (MySpace / band website) wander into our giant blogstar tour bus (generously loaned by Wayneco). They perform an amazing acoustic set, after zany hijinks.

Those hijinks include phoning the "president of show business" on a dishwashing hose, and an unintelligible deconstruction of jazz music with our UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter. The live set aboard the bus begins around 4:40, and it was electrifying in person when it (most unexpectedly) happened.

All of this happened because a BBtv team member taped the letters "Boing Boing tv" in blue gaffer tape to the side of our ginormous motorcoach, which was parked just behind the festival's main stage. The Carney dudes were wandering around in the dust around 2am looking for their drummer's lost jacket (more on that later), spotted the bus, and because they're fans of the blog, they peeked in to say hello. We're sure glad they did.

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You can check out more of Carney and the many other acts that performed at Outside Lands at the CROWDFIRE website, where folks who went to the fest uploaded photos and video they shot themselves.... during the event. It's a really cool project. We contributed a bunch of clips and stills there.

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(Special thanks to Bre and Wayne for the bus; to Virgin America for generously providing air transportation; to BBtv field producer Jason McHugh; to BBtv production assistant Ilana Shulman, and to Windows and Crowdfire, for sponsoring our Outside Lands coverage.)

Related Boing Boing tv episodes:

* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)
* BB Gadgets' Joel at Outside Lands: Crowdfire deconstructed
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)