We’re in the process, or I should say I am in the process of rolling out a new design for LtM. I did it myself. Yes, yes, I did. If you happen to look at the website anytime before I post that its finished, I’m sorry for your eyes. The colors are disgusting, mostly so I can see what I’m doing. So please be patient while I put the site back together. A new logo is coming, too. Whooo…..

Hey guys, whats going on, another somewhat rhetorical question goes here, etc….

Some of you may be wondering why we haven't updated in so long, and with less frequency. Well, I'll tell you. Here's an update on me and Damon:

Damon got an internship at X96 in SLC, Utah, a pretty kickass radio station. Here's a blurb on his royal status from the X96 website

Damon

Damon is not single, as one might assume because of the beard.  His girlfriend (who is awesome) quite likes it, actually, and would invite you all to stop giving him guff about it.  He refuses to accept your guff, anyway.  Damon is originally from nowheres-in-particular, where he currently resides; works at a bookstore, which is awesome; will one day be crowned King of All Media (assuming Howard Stern steps down and/or is not immortal); adores fried mushrooms, 'Nilla Coke, and General Tso's chicken; went to high school in England; and is more punk than you.  Apparently he loves semicolons as well.  We invite you to join us in pitying the fools who missed his radio show, The Exposure Box, on Snow College's KAGJ.  'Twas kick-awesome.  Contary to popular belief, he did not fail his most recent attempt at English 2010.  To find more out about what he does with his ears, read what he writes at www [dot] lovethemusicreviews [dot] com.

 

So between work and his internship, and his lack of computer access, Damon is in a kind of LTM remission for now.

I, on the other hand, am still working, as I was over summer, and am back in school for the Fall 2007 semester, full-time. Not only am I lacking the time to update LTM as frequently as I'd like, I also haven't been handed any kickass music recently, unless I've scoured the net for it myself. My next post will more than likely be on a Buena Vista Social Club album, that features Latin-like remixes of some Jack Johnson and Coldplay, to name a few.

I also got a cat, Ivy. While that isn't particularly time-consuming, I do find it distracting to sit down and write a post and then hear my pantry being ransacked so she can hunt my recycled plastic bags.

But, both me and Damon are doing well, and we promise to be back in action as soon as we can get our shit together. Until then, keep emailing us with your suggestions and comments, and they'll be filed for address later. 

Love the Music, and yourself,

Jen  

As I was jamming out to Damon's last show of the season (Exposure Box radio show), I felt inspired to ask a question: Would anyone be interested in podcasts, done by..us?

Either participate in our poll, or leave your thoughts in the comments. Thanks guys!

P.S. I have no idea if this will show in the feeds, so if it doesn't just swing by if you can and let us know at our site.  

[poll=1]

Hello everyone,

Wanted to let you know some of the changes we've made here at LovetheMusic.

• Got all of our email addresses up and running. In case you haven't checked it out, the pages at the top right have been updated.
• Newsletter is still in the works.
• Updated all of the posts, with official website links, Buy This links, etc.
• Categorized and tagged every post, to make it easier for you to find what you're looking for.
• Added a tag cloud. It's pretty.
• Unwidgetized the site, for a couple of reasons. I have more freedom to do what I want in the sidebar without widgets, and it is officially bug free.
• Added new categories, world regions –ie, where the music originates from. Quite handy.
•  Jen has lost a lot of sleep the past two weeks. I think that deserves a spot here.
• Added Google Calendar capability, so soon you'll be able to see all the exciting things we have planned.
• Added Comments RSS for each post, as well as Trackback URIs.
• Fixed the placement of the social bookmarking icons, feedback on those is wanted.
• Blah blah blah.

Thats about it. As well as doing all of that, we've somehow managed to up our post frequency, and we should be expecting at least one post a day. 

Also, if anyone is interested in a link exchange, please email me at jen at lovethemusicreviews dot com. I'll link you up in the sidebar, too.

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!

If you're an internet radio listener, you may have heard of a different kind of radio, called Pandora. A common problem for 'music-lovers' is one in which involves finding new music. You love a band so much–can I have some more please? Where do you go to find out? How do I find out about new music, underground unnoticed music that is spilling over in golden quality? That sounded a little too dramatic–but you get the point. Personally I used to use Amazon's feature of "Customers who bought this item also bought: ", and skipped around from there. This is much more efficient. The use of it is quite simple–you type in the name of a song or an artist, and Pandora searches for it in the music genome. It finds it, perhaps asking you if it is a song name or artist name, and sometimes it shows as unavailable in the index. This usually happens when you ask for a classical artist or world musician. When it does find it, it connects to that particular, creating a radio station based on the musical qualities in which that song or artist possesses. They have these recorded as part of the Music Genome Project. Then, it'll start off with a song by that artist (not the song you requested for the station; musical licenses disallow it) and explain why they are playing it–ie, "This shares acousitic harmony, slide technique and blah blah…". From there, it continues with those qualities, with some shades of grey; it may play something not-so-similar to see if you enjoy it. During your playtime, you can tell them if: you like it, you don't like it, don't play this because it's not good on this station, and you can bookmark the song and/or artist, or purchase it on Amazon or iTunes. You can also "Go Backstage", where Pandora features the artist page in a pop-up window. You can add more kinds of music to the station as well, perhaps wishing to integrate Dashboard Confessional with Saves the Day. The best part, is that the whole setup is free. You sign up for an account, with your email address, and they use your account to keep track of your stations and bookmarks. The bookmarks are available as feeds, too. You can't skip more than X amount of songs per hour, though, due to music licensing, but these doesn't take away from the huge appeal of this tool. They offer a pause button, and if you don't like what you're listening to and want to skip it but can't, you can just start a new radio station. Pretty sweet. You should check it out, if you're at a loss for what to listen to next on your musical journey. It will serve as a source for Damon and I to keep track of music we'll be reviewing in the future.

Related Links:

Pandora

Pandora Wikipedia