Yeah, so I bought my tickets on the day they were let loose upon the internet. Me, the boyfriend, and another friend of ours are all going. We are trying to get more people to attend, but for some reason rough camping and port-a-potties and 200 dollar tickets are putting them off. Another official thing: I'm officially excited. I know its not until June, but still. Expect lots of pictures, lots of reviews come June/July. Jen

Related Links:

Bonnaroo 2007

Bonnaroo Tickets

LovetheMusic is officially on Myspace! Can I hear an ‘OMFG’?

Here’s the link : http://myspace.com/lovethemusicreviews

You can add us as a friend, if you have an account. Thanks!

Love,

Jen

****

If you're anything like me, or Damon, for that matter, you need to find new music all the time. And it's a pain, because good music is hard to find, and even worse, free music is harder to find. But, alas! There are ways of doing it, easy ways.

1. Amazon.com. Oh, yes, I use the "People who bought this album also bought:". Why not? It's fantastic. I've found so many groovin' tunes that way, and it's dead easy. Just look up an album, like "Brushfire Fairytales" by Jack Johnson, and you'll see what other people bought as well as that album, which usually include music inside the same genre, style, and fanbase. Some common hits for that are Coldplay, Donavon Frankenreiter, Ben Harper, and John Mayer. This is especially good if you're looking for a little guidance, but want to dig the rest of the way yourself.
2. Pandora. Now, we've discussed Pandora and its awesomeness before on LovetheMusic, but we do need to go over it again. Pandora is a free internet music radio, that creates stations based on what music you like. Example: I want to create a station based on John Butler Trio (surprise!), so I put that in as my first choice. Later on, I can add more music to the station. It'll play music based on musical qualities found in JBT's music, but if I add more music, like Jack Johnson, Michael Franti and Spearhead, and Blue King Brown, it'll play music similar to all those artists, as well as using the unique qualities of each artist to find more. You can't skip tracks frequently; I believe your limited to 5 skips per hour, but it's a radio—get over it. One of my favorite features is the Bookmark Song feature. If I really like a song, and I want to follow up on it to find more, I'll bookmark it and its automatically saved to my profile. Later on, I can view all my songs that are bookmarked, hear a 30-second or so clip, and remember what song it was and look for more on the net. Yay!
3. iLike. I found this one through Lifehacker. It works through iTunes, so you have to have that to be able to use it. The program is still in Beta, and requires a download and installation. Basically, it generates recommended music based on what you're playing in your iTunes, through a snazzy sidebar that you can shrink at anytime. The other awesome part, is that when it generates that list, perhaps of 5 recommended songs, it provides a small play button to the left of each song, so you can stream a preview of that song in your sidebar. Fast, easy, and well-done with recommendations–I'm in love.
4. Last.FM - I use this service primarily to generate the feed you see in the sidebar, that way readers can see what I've been listening to. However, last.FM does offer charts of the music you've listened to, as well as recommended radio and neighbours, or people who listen to similar music. You can view these people's playlists and perhaps explore artists they like that you've never heard of. Also, for the more popular artists, last.FM generates a radio station based on their music, similar to Pandora, but less interactive.
5. MP3 Blogs! - Like LovetheMusic, there are tons of mp3 blogs out there. Tofu Hut has a HUGE list, one that I'm looking forward to digging through to find some goldies. Some other common, large ones are: 3Hive, Pitchfork Media, Aurgasm (my personal favorite), and I just discovered this aggregated source of MP3 blogs, called The Hype Machine.

Well, I hope this helps on your path to discovering new music. Don't feel overwhelmed; take it a step at a time, thats what I have to do. A lot of this requires a little legwork, but its worth it in the end. When I'm rocking out in my Jeep driving down the road, I think "Wow, thank God I found this stuff!"

love yourself, Jen

P.S. If you guys have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!

The artist line-up has been released for Bonnaroo 2007, and it is killer.

The Police Tool Widespread Panic The White Stripes Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals Flaming Lips Wilco Manu Chao The String Cheese Incident Franz Ferdinand Bob Weir & Ratdog Damien Rice Ween The Roots Gov't Mule Ziggy Marley & the Melody Makers The Decemberists Kings of Leon Spearhead Wolfmother Regina Spektor The Black Keys DJ Shadow Gillian Welch & David Rawlings Spoon Keller Williams Sasha & Digweed STS9 Old Crow Medicine Show The Hold Steady Galactic Lily Allen North Mississippi Allstars Fountains Of Wayne Hot Tuna Feist Hot Chip John Butler Trio Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys Aesop Rock The Richard Thompson Band Xavier Rudd Tortoise T-Bone Burnett Mavis Staples Clutch Cold War Kids Paolo Nutini Brazilian Girls RX Bandits The Slip Girl Talk Railroad Earth Martha Wainright Rodrigo y Gabriela Annuals Tea Leaf Green Sam Roberts Band Elvis Perkins in Dearland Charlie Louven Sonya Kitchell Apollo Sunshine Ryan Shaw Uncle Earl The National The Little Ones

And, Lewis Black and Dave Attell are to be there, too. I'm quite stoked about the line-up, but less stoked at the prospect of coming up with the money to go. Who's going? It's averaging about 250 bucks a ticket per person. Not to mention travel costs. Yeeks. I hope someone is going, and will take pictures.

Love yourself,

Jen

John Butler Trio - Grand National

Label : Jarrah Records 

So here we are, Spring of 2007 and anxiously anticipating John Butler Trio's new album, Grand National. It's official release is March 27th, I believe, with the pre-order shipping out on the 23rd. Oh, yes, I ordered mine. Well, on a personal note, I'm flippin' excited. Although the album contains many songs I've had the privilege to hear either live or through the taped shows at archive.org, these will be studio versions, with the addition of several new tracks. There was some confusion over the album's title, as Grand National is also the name of a horserace. John Butler told his fans in a 'blog' post: "It means one big nation. One world, one people. Seems fitting for these polarised times. … And then sharing our music with this one world in a grand way. We're going Grand National baby!" The album cover itself is designed by John Butler, and has a circus-like feel to it. John Butler Trio is also scheduled to play at Bonnaroo this year, and when I am updated on the Bonnaroo line-up and ticket costs, I will post about it.

The unofficial tracklist:

• Better Than (heard live)
• Daniella (heard through archive.org)
• Funky Tonight (mp3, seen live)
• Caroline (new)
• Good Excuse (performed at the Make Poverty History Concert)
• Used To Get High (new)
• Gov't Did Nothing (heard through archive.org)
• Groovin' Slowly (new, but possibly played live)
• Devil Running (heard through archive.org)
• Losing You (heard through archive.org)
• Recognise Me (new to me!)
• Nowhere Man (released on the Funky Tonight EP)
• Gonna Take It (new to me, also)

'Good As Gone' was released on the Funky Tonight EP as well, and I personally am hoping that will be on Grand National, also. Well, folks, if you're not excited, you should be. Although we try to remain impartial with our reviews here at LovetheMusic, we will be spotlighting favorite artists from time to time, as I do with JBT and as Damon does with Saves the Day and others. More reviews coming. I promised reviews on the 2006 indie favorite, Beirut, and I will have that soon.

Thanks for reading,

Love yourself, Jen

Related links:

Buy Grand National

John Butler Trio Official Website

John Butler Trio Store (US)

John Butler Trio Store (Australia)

John Butler Trio on MySpace

Matisyahu - No Place To Be 

Miguel de Cervantes is quoted as saying, "The pen is the tongue of the mind." I think that's a ridiculous notion, as the tongue is, quite literally the tongue of the mind. I'd love to be really pretentious and tie that into the Matisyahu review, but it's really just on the wall of the writing lab here, and it really bugs me. Anyhow, Matisyahu's "Youth" album, his studio debut, was one of the highlights of 2006, following on the underground success of 2005's "Live at Stubb's" and appearances at Bonaroo and other festivals, so it lifted my spirits considerable to see there was a new release available. I was disappointed that the CD portion of this CD/DVD combo is only EP length. New versions of "Jerusalem (Out of Darkness Comes Light)," "Warrior," and "Chop 'em Down", and a cover of the Police's "Message in a Bottle" play opposite remixes of "Jerusalem" and "Youth," and a dub version of "Message." The studio tracks are great, except "Message," which might've been a treat live, sounds kind of stale. The real weakness comes from the remixes, which are sadly unoriginal. "No Place to Be" verdict: Not very good. The "Live in Israel" DVD is a different story altogether, though. It's a combination documentary/concert film capturing an entire concert performed in Tel Aviv, Israel, and also follows Matisyahu and his band around the town to fill in the exposition. It's a very balanced piece, and Matis' performance is on point. This is for sure the highlight of the package, and well worth the price of admission. "Live in Israel" verdict: Superfantastic.

Final verdict: If you think of it as a DVD with a bonus EP, then it makes much more sense. For sure worth it for the DVD

MP3's

Jerusalem

[audio:http://us.video.aol.com/video.index.adp?mode=1&pmmsid=1778416&referer=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.singingfish.com]

Chop 'Em Down

[audio:http://www.yekayeka.com/shnazzle/03%2520Chop%2520%2527em%2520Down.mp3]

Rastaman Chant

[audio:http://ia310115.us.archive.org/3/items/matisyahu2004-12-25/matisyahu2004-12-25sbdt01_vbr.mp3]

Related Links:

Matisyahu Official Website

Buy This Album!