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Friday, January 21, 2005

Don't Stop Til You Get Enough


spiffy special: MUSICBLOG REVOLUTION

It has been a grand total of thirty-five days since I've updated my blogroll.

In that time, I've acquired well over a hundred new musicrich bloglinks.

This is getting ridiculous. I knew that this MP3 Revolution was going to blow up but not quite like THIS! Not so soon! Not without me making money on it!

Ah well.

I'm going to continue trying to accumulate new links (and I would appreciate if you would drop me a note at forksclovetofu@gmail.com if you start a new musicblog) and I will occasionally update.

But I'm not sure how much longer I can reasonably try to keep my finger on the pulse. The blood, you see; the blood is POUNDING!

Without further ado, here's a brief rundown of what I've found just recently:

Coverville follows copy, right? except that they claim to HAVE the copyright (nice work if you can get it!); Kiddie Records is the latest GREATEST innovation over at basichipdigitaloddio, packed with a new classic kids LP every week; an order of progress offers great Brazilian tunage; Sweet Blasphemy brings pop glam and modern hipster ish; Blog this way is a french and BLUES HEAVY site; cool hand bak is eclectic modern redux; a best truth is mp3 filepile in Spanish; buscate un novio follows the same dictum and lingua but centers on female rock; adoru has longass dj mixes, hip hop and dance and rock and all things great and small; more multilingual fun at Rock de Siempre; NPR's All Songs Considered takes the most adult contemporary tracks from the Flux/Stereogum contingent and makes your mom and dad listen to them so that you can go "Holy shit, ma likes BRIGHT EYES?!?!"; Blog Alive fulfills an excellent niche need with his simple but cleverly designed musicblog devoted to live performances, both bootleg and officially sanctioned; Each Note Secure seems more like a business venture and an aggregator than a labor of love but they do have some interesting finds; fire of love's descriptions are brief but the music is well chosen and the insight is sharp and heartfelt; Good Rockin'Tonight dips into the well for some older rock selections; keep the coffee coming offers music from the perspective of "a more than middle-aged baby boomer looking at the world with increasingly blurred eyes and wrinkled features"; WFMU's 'On the Download' is that station's monthly-updated musicblog that puts the "excellent" in excellectica; P.S.M.Evenings and Weekends runs the gamut from the Pixies to El Vez and back to the Shangri-Las; Revolution in the Head is similarly all over the place with Manu Negro, Annie and the Breeders; Just for a Day, bedroom dancing, 7 and 7 is and Torr provide more hipster- and obscurist exploration; Melodia Records offers a rotating mix of tunes from the British label's indie archives; Play/Pause's bilingual (French/'Murrican) mush of rnb, disco and rock is sure to please OR Francophiles could go wallow in the 'lectric joys of Listoplay's selection of LCD Soundsystem, Chemical Brothers, Clinic and Fisherspooner.

Any blog that finds a way to link the Archies, Buck 65 and Carla Thomas is on my MUST list and the of mirror eye does just that; Yu-Mex follows the little known and FASCINATING saga of the 50's Yugoslavian obsession with Mexican music (seriously!); Upon First Listen tries new tracks with you and sums up his one paragraph initial impression; NES Horsemen has bridled up a team of Capcom games and groomed the tunes for your enjoyment; this Swiss Yodeling site is a joy and a boon for lonely mountaineers; while those of us afflicted with S.A.D. might want to live in The House of 250 Rising Suns; Throwaway Style's uber hipsterism and excellent design makes for a fun romp but perhaps you're more in the mood for some Polish Jazz?

From Steve Earle to Stetsasonic, nothing escapes IckMusic; Henry's Harmonious Head is a bitchin' online radio broadcast that starts with Rollins but doesn't stop 'til it gets to DJ Screw (and not even then); A Spoonful of Lester offers plenty of that good ol' fashioned navel gazing that blogs are famous for, 'cept this is well written and comes with a soundtrack; Buked and Scorned is even more of a genre whore than _I_ am, plus DJ/critic Mike McGonigal is considerably more knowledgeable to boot (no fair!); grab some luverly 1920's era shellac-ripped tunage over at Hot Dance and Jazz; you can probably guess what the 80's Tunes Livejournal community is into; I am absolutely in love with Bedazzled's warped and wondrous aesthetic, plus I'm floored by the quality of his/her offerings (i am, for the record, very PRO Kovacs); Spitzenschlager's rotating Hungarian vinyl selections should be all but guaranteed to be new listening; Ta Hu Wa Hu Wai is another welcome addition to the "dust preservation society", sites that offer a single complete obscure and out-of-print exotica LP for listening.

Reverend Frost's Spread the Good Word steps with a high concept: blend the spooky with the soulful and I LOVES IT; boomselection's gift of the STELLAR MIA/Diplo Piracy Funds Terrorism Mixtape is something better than Myrrh and Gold, any of you who don't have this are COMMANDED to go get it and play until your ears bleed. Then rush over and snag the cavalcade of hip hop vinyl scarcities, test pressings, remixes and general wonders at The Rookie, Freemotion, Steady Bootleggin' and Broke BBoys; these four are so good they make a man wanna cry; Scream(becausemusicisfreedom) purports to be mostly rock and metal, hunt for the music in the tiny box on the lower right; Milk Cocoon is rough and indie and kawaii; Domo DJ is on the scene with underground/backpack hiphop and world pop.

Don't dream that self promotion could possibly be dead; here's a list of sites either run by or about bands that offer eponymous music: The Pop Group, Alison Breitman, Splogman, StrangeView Productions, The Sermon, DJ Sherburne, The Revelators, David Sylvian, Sweet Billy Pilgrim, Hello Nurse, Pretty Flowers, Cracks in the Sidewalk and Kate Bush. Also, just for kicks, here's a group of labels that have MP3s of their artists available on site: Glorious Noise, Secretly Canadian, Thinner/Autoplate, Foul Country, TVT, 4AD, Beggar's Group, XL and Daptone.

Mr. Bassie's Notes and Comments is Jamaica exclusive and cracklin' hot; Evigan Funk's selection and writing couldn't be better; My Everchanging Moods comes out the gate with harsh words for our newly reminted Satan and some Rakim t' boot; Republic of Replicants is 80% comics and 20% music; BowBow2 is an aggregator with attitude; Deep Soul Junkie is stone cold funky; Shirley and Spinoza is where my radio dial lies these days and I recommend you join me on the strange side; bored with music has unceremoniously lifted my entire blogroll but you know what they say about the sincerest form of flattery (though for the future: a brief 'would you mind?' email prior to lifting my lock/stock/barrel would be somewhat appreciated); The Corduroy Suit is Silver Jew specific; forward-thinking label 'Secretly Canadian' is offering a complete new release by the Impossible Shapes for free for a limited time; Free Sample Zone follows the Comfort Stand business model and styles itself as a gratis, web-only label with a subversive set of copyright politics (fuck yes!); Shredding Radio has the best of both worlds: radio station AND downloads; Aural Pleasure and Track 69 are simple and direct and an excellent source for your RDA of Taco and MC Solaar.

Thirty-five years of homegrown tunage (if your home is London, Ontario) is available at the archives of 94.9 CHRW, it's fascinating to listen to the music change over time; look in on two OTHER very specific snapshots of musical history over at The Big City, a musicblog specializing in NEW ZEALAND music (you listening, Tracicle?) and Russian Recommended Records; ex-Veruca Salt frontgal Nina Gordon has been stirring up a tempest in a teapot as of late but it's the Youngblood Brass Band's collabo with Talib Kweli that's been turning MY crank; Trout Fishing in South-Central Wisconsin is one of Vinyl Mine's faves and it could be one of yours too; FRUITS OF CHAOS IS BACK, MOTHERFUCKAS! and in honor of Mel and El you should check out this slew of Japanese-/Chinese-/Korean-Pop sites: Broken Cadence, Angelfish, Bootleg, Music of Aodai, Crimson Stigmata, Mona Lisa Overdrive, momomomomomomomomo and Cardiography.

Tape Findings found sound is a sheer delight; Arjan Writes about house and club music, then provides you with clips of the songs; the recent digitization of the Smithsonian/Folkways archive is reason for celebration, go listen to samples and then load up your shopping cart and THEN spin over to Worldly Disorientation for yet MORE wondrous music from all over the globe; 510 to 514 is droppin GEMS and vinyl podcast takes old technology, adds it to new and hysteria breaks out worldwide!

WHEW! I'll try and update the sidebar over the weekend. In the meantime, go check 'em all out!

As long as I've got your attention, I'd like to say a few brief words about YouSendIt.com.

A growing number of musicblogs are eschewing hosting in favor of YouSendIt and similar sites. I've come to think of it as a ghetto alternative; YSI is free and easy to use but only allows for a scant handful of downloads.

I turned my nose up at this populist alternative at first but I have to admit that it's really served the musicblogging community well. So count me in as a provisional fan: those curious to start their own musicblogs should check out YouSendIt and consider it as a babystep toward building an audience.

But as soon as you start getting past the twenty-download-a-day threshhold, consider blowing ten bucks a month and getting some hosting, eh?

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