Monday, July 10, 2006

Music Ten

Ten Things for the Music Lovers

Freeware/music dowload caution: always scan free downloads of anything for bugs and other threats before dumping the programs/MP3 files into your hard drive.

1. ArtistGigs.com offers free music downloads by independent and unsigned artists.

2. BlueNote.com is offering a complimentary sampler featuring The Little Willies, The Wood Brothers, Cassandra Wilson, Dr. John, Amos Lee, Raul Midon, Keren Ann and more if you fill out this form here and subscribe to their mailing list (note: while supplies last.)

3. The intelligent guide to free and legal music: Fingertips.

4. Glide Magazine.com offers free music downloads twice a month and maintains a small archive of past freebies here.

5. Listen to free music online with Internet Player freeware.

6. Solway's Internet TV and Radio Player allows you to listen to, watch and record radio and TV from around the world for free.

7. Out of Obscure is a free MP3 download site and community.

8. Listen and record radio broadcasts online with a preview version of Silent Night Radio.

9. UKBassLine.co.uk offers free downloads of music by unsigned house, garage, and bass and drum artists.

10. Unsigned Band Web.Com appears to offer free downloads if you register as a listener (I'm having trouble reading the site because of the colors used; my apologies if this one turns out to have premiums involved.)

One more, in print: I rarely read or recommend music magazines because most of them are snot rags, but one that is actually worth it is Paste Magazine. Whatever you think of the opinions in Paste, the magazine comes with a sampler CD in every issue with full songs by new or up-and-coming musicians and sometimes a DVD sampler with music videos, shorts and trailers, which to me makes it worth the $7.95 cover price.

Paste Issue #22 (Bob Dylan looking constipated as usual on the cover) has an especially fine sampler in it, with Alejandro Escovedo's Arizona (Edit) and Janove Ottesen's Black and White Movie as well as 20 other tracks. If you subscribe to Paste (11 issues for $34.95, over half off the cover price) you're given access to their online archive of 400 more free downloads. Not a bad deal at all.

5 comments:

  1. While not free downloads, I think there's a cool website worth mentioning because it's customizable and a great way to discover new artists; Pandora.com

    You go to Pandora, input a favorite song or band and based on the musical elements in that song/band, they create a music station of music you like. You can give each song a thumb's up or a thumb's down (and they will never play it again on your station). You can add more songs/bands for them to also analyze and choose from to compile your radio station.

    It's completely free and a very cool way to assemble exactly the write mood music for whatever situation you want as well as to discover new bands. As an example, I input Indigo Girls and heard new artists such as Groovelily, Charlotte Martin, The Waifs and others. I think it's pretty freaking neat and you can create multiple radio stations for multiple moods :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous8:11 AM

    Alison wrote: I just mentioned Alejandro Escovedo in my latest Blaze.

    Great minds. :)

    Bill wrote: Signed up for Blue Note. Thanks!

    You're most welcome, sir.

    Angie wrote: While not free downloads, I think there's a cool website worth mentioning because it's customizable and a great way to discover new artists; Pandora.com

    This sounds very interesting, Angie -- thanks for the info.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hah. Simple Simon to the rescue once again: yPlay is my freeware mp3 (ogg/flac/etc) player. It's more of a media database with a player built in, but there's a neat bookmarking feature for listening to long mp3 ebooks. On XP it also (optionally) speaks the tracks, buttons and so on aloud when you move the mouse over them, which is useful for those with impaired vision.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous2:11 PM

    Hi Tara, I noticed that you did not reply to my last email, I wanted to talk to you, and offer anykind of help that I might, write me back.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous3:27 PM

    Anonymous wrote: Hi Tara, I noticed that you did not reply to my last email, I wanted to talk to you, and offer anykind of help that I might, write me back.

    Anonymous, my weblog comments are not intended as a bulletin board for personal messages. Please try to use other means to communicate with your friend.

    ReplyDelete

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