 "Photo: Bob Al-Greene")
As the years go by I get less and less of my information about new and cool music from print magazines and radio stations. I find myself online trying to gather information as quickly as possible from bloggers across the country who spend hours every day motivated by your thirst for information.
While there are some obvious holes genre-wise in the list of blogs I'm about to offer, please realize that most music bloggers tend to fall into the indie-rock realm and that might be the exact reason this list is a little heavy when considering styles of music. Without further ado, here's a list of some of the blogs I frequent most, along with a brief descriptions of each blog's focus.
Omahype - Omahype.com Since this one is local in scale, I'll give it my first shout-out. Omahype is a newer blog that focuses on the local music scene, mostly in Omaha, but gives Lincoln the occasional shout-out as well. From time to time, the site offers up advance mp3s from national independent artists alongside its reviews of shows from bands like The Faint and Bear Country. Props to the site's administrators for giving UUVVWWZ a whole lotta love.
Hype Machine - Hypem.com Hype Machine actually serves as a conglomerate of a ton of mp3 blogs all across the country with no genre boundaries. Surfers can search for any given band or song and get a listing of all recent mp3s posted within that search.
I've found some great covers (see: Mercy doing Hot Chip's "Ready for the Floor"), mashups (see "Closer to Business Time" featuring Nine Inch Nails and Flight of the Conchords) and remixes (see the Beyond the Wizard's Sleeve mix of Midlake's "Roscoe"). It has the stuff that's not hard to find as well, but I really like searching out the rarities.
Stereogum - Stereogum.com Based out of New York, Stereogum has made its way to become one of the leaders of the indie-rock blog pack. Alongside regular entries talking about recent or upcoming concerts, Stereogum is rife with features such as "Band to Watch" (self-explanatory), "Premature Evaluation" (sneak peak album reviews) and "Quit Your Day Job" (how indie-bands who don't sell many records make ends meet). The site even recently hosted the world premiere for the video of Tilly and the Wall's newest dance anthem, "Beat Control."
Large Hearted Boy - Largeheartedboy.com/blog A long-time favorite, LHB combines many facets of being a music, arts and literature lover into one very information packed site. Occasional features include "Book Notes," where authors create a play list based on a book they recently wrote, "Shorties," which are links to articles about a bevy of popular indie bands such as Wilco, the Mountain Goats and Magnetic Fields and "Try it Before You Buy It," where potential music buyers can listen to full album streams.
Coolfer - Coolfer.com Coolfer is more about the technical and business side of the music industry. This blog focuses on earnings, mergers and the ebbs and flows of the digital age. This site is more for people that want to know the inside of the industry than find out about upcoming concert dates or to win tickets to Lollapalooza. If anything, this blog will make you feel smarter and you get to look at charts and graphs and numbers, oh my!
You Ain't No Picasso - youaintnopicasso.com Run by college student Matt Jordan from the University of Kentucky, YANP is the place to go for the chance to win tickets to various concerts such as the upcoming Monolith Festival at Red Rocks, listen to rare mp3s like Death From Above's Justice remixes and Christmas indie-rock mixes. Most of the concert listings focus on bands coming through Louisville, but he provides the entire tour itinerary so we can still see if bands are coming through Nebraska.
Aquarium Drunkard - aquariumdrunkard.com Based out of Los Angeles and named after a line from Wilco's "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart," AD posts exclusive interviews, mp3s, classic reviews of overlooked albums (recently Velocity Girl's 1994 Sub Pop release "Simpatico!") and even promotes concerts in Los Angeles and during music festivals around the country (see: SXSW). Check out the site's podcasts as well, as they offer up all kinds of great new songs worth paying attention to.
jeremybuckley@dailynebraskan.com
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