If you listen to any other kind of music than the mainstream schlock on the radio, then you know how hard it can be to keep up with bands. For instance, when I lived in DC I saw a band called Blank four or five times. They were great. Every time I saw them they were opening for someone else, and every time they were better than the headliner. But I forgot to ever buy one of their seven inches. Or maybe I never saw one for sale. Doesn't seem likely, but I really can't remember.

But now there's a new problem. Try searching Google for a band called Blank. The results you get are ridiculous. Only recently have I been able to find any good info on Google. I didn't know the names of any of the band members, and while I could remember what the covers of a couple of records looked like, I couldn't remember the names of any of them. Eventually I found a little bit of info: the singer's name. With that and a little more digging, I found his new band. But we'll get to that in another post. This article is about the good news.

There is a new website called BandtoBand.com, and it is made for situations like this. You can enter a band name and it will give you the names of members, and what other bands they have been in. Here is an example from their front page:



But it gets better than that. Let's say I want to find out what bands Tonie Joy has been in. OK I could just go dig around on Google, and I would probably find every band he's ever been in (I would, and it's because they are all good). Or I could enter him on BandtoBand and get pretty pictures. See the incomplete picture below right, also a screenshot of the website.

So now I know what bands he was in. I knew already, but I actually didn't know all of the records. But this is where it gets good. I know Tonie Joy was in Born Against with Sam McPheeters, cause if I click on the Born Against record from the previously mentioned image on the right, I find every single band member who recorded with Born Against (including their pseudonyms). I can find out what other bands Sam was in by clicking on his name. It's that easy. You could pretty much go forever this way, one band to the next. But what if there isn't a direct link between two bands?


















My Favorite Part
Let's say I want to know if Tim Kinsella (of Cap'n Jazz, Owls, Joan of Arc, etc.) ever played with any of the guys from Native Nod. Look for the Create Map box on the right side of the page, about halfway down.



Search those names and you have this ↓

It tells us that Eric Bocek was in Joan of Arc with Tim Kinsella and The Firebird Band with Christopher Broach. Broach was also in The Firebird Project with Chris Wilson, who was (or is) in Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, which also contains Dave Lerner, who was in Native Nod (so was Ted Leo, he is the brother of Chris Leo, the singer of Native Nod). Whoops. That was Danny Leo, another Leo brother. So we found a link. Not direct, but not that far away, either.

This is a great tool for finding out what happened to bands you loved in the past that broke up without a trace. Expect a slew of posts in the not-too-distant future about bands I find through this site. Have fun! Find somebody good. And please, let me know what you find, even if it turns out to be something that is, in retrospect, painfully obvious.
Leave a comment below.

Labels: Hardcore, Hardcore Music, Indie, Music, Reference, Tutorials

Summer Music Festival time is right around the corner! OK, I know that sounds absurd if it's right around freezing outside as you read this, but now is the time to start planning. Lineups have been at least partially announced for a lot of the big festivals already.

If you're not there right now, then you already missed a lot of SXSW, the South By Southwest festival. But the music doesn't start until March 14th, and goes to March 18th. Check out their lineup. This year, DirecTV will be broadcasting some of the shows live on channel 101.

Coachella is bigger and better this year. They have added another day to the festival, headlined this year by Rage Against the Machine on Sunday April 29th, Red Hot Chili Peppers on Saturday April 28th, and Bjork on Friday April 27th. Other notable bands: Interpol, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Arcade Fire, Sonic Youth, Peeping Tom, Blonde Redhead, !!!, Happy Mondays, The Lemonheads and lots of others. See the full lineup. Tickets cost $85 for single day passes. Three day passes have already sold out, but I'm sure you can still find some. The festival is held in Indio, California, which means traveling and staying there will be expensive.

Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festivalis four days long this year, June 14-17, and is held in Manchester, Tennessee. The Police are headlining. Other highlights include: Tool, The Flaming Lips, The Decemberists, The Hold Steady and Mute Math, among many others. The whole lineup is here. Ticket pricing is a little weird. As in years past, the first tickets are cheaper, at $184.50US, and will eventually rise to $214.50. For more ticket info look here. They have some good travel information on the site too, including details about their airport shuttle.

The annual traveling one-day Warped Tour comes back for more hot, sweaty, dirty punk rock fun. The schedule is already up, but the lineup is still coming together. Confirmed bands include: Agent Orange, Alkaline Trio, Bad Religion, Coheed and Cambria, Flogging Molly, Pennywise and The Vandals. Lots more to come, as well. Not all of the bands play the whole tour, so pay attention on the Bands page to make sure you will get to see your favorites. Otherwise, travel.

Perry Farrell's Lollapalooza has managed to get something together for at least one more year. The festival no longer tours and will be held in Chicago, August 3-5. The lineup is amazing. It includes Death Cab for Cutie, The Shins, Violent Femmes, Sleater-Kinney, Built to Spill, Eels, Cursive, Nada Surf, Jeremy Enigk (formerly of Sunny Day Real Estate and Rainer Maria. Amazing. That's just a few of them. Their website is (annoying and cluttered) Flash, so no direct links. Tickets go on sale in April. This would be worth the trip.

Obviously I skipped some major festivals outside the States here. Check back, I will fix it when I have more time.

Labels: Hardcore, Hardcore Music, Indie, Music, Shows, Travel

There have been a lot of different formats for ebooks over the last few years. Originally, people tried selling them online, with the books in proprietary formats and special software (or even hardware) required to read them. I always thought that ebooks were a great idea, but I'm not about to pay anybody for a book I can't put on my shelf, or for one that requires hardware to read.

Now, though, some websites have started disseminating ebooks for free. That changes my whole view on the matter. If I can put it on my thumb drive, I can read it anywhere. Those who know me know that I am always reading something; those who know me well know that I am usually reading several things. Here is a short list of sites with free ebooks. I find these sites pretty often, so this post will be updated in the future. Check back.

Scribd is relatively new ebook service. My favorite two features: the ability to view documents right in your browser window, and the fact that you can also download them as PDFs. They have lots of topics in over 50,000 books already, and some venture capitalists just gave them a bunch of money. Must be nice. You can search for books, browse titles or use a tag cloud to select tags relevant to you. The very first thing I found yesterday was a book about designing webpages using XHTML and CSS. But Dating and Seduction for Dummies was on the front page too.

O'Reilly has a nice selection of free ebooks as well. These are technical guides for Java, Perl, Apache, Linux and more. If you have any desire to learn how to do anything on the web, even HTML, then O'Reilly has a book for you.

FullBooks.com has tons of books available, but they are not PDFs. They are just regular web pages, and each book is on multiple pages. If you have a Mac, you can use Print to PDF to turn these books (or any other document) into PDFs that you can use anywhere.

Update: Now there is a good way to do this in Windows too (there were other methods before, but none as good as this apparently is). DoPDF is new free software that lets you print directly to PDF in Windows. Install, then File, Print and use DoPDF as the printer.

Floodle buys ebooks from eBay sellers, work-from-home companies, and others and then republishes them online for free. They have some hilarious books, some unbelievably crappy ones, and some that are extremely useful.

This list is by no means comprehensive. Check back in the future for new finds and more info.

Like ebooks? Hate 'em? Leave a comment below.

Labels: Books, eBooks, Reference

I'm leaving for New York in a week, so posts may be a little slow next week. But when I get back, expect to see something about:

• The Appleseed Cast at The Knitting Factory
  
• The Shins at Madison Square Garden
  
• (Maybe) Sleepytime Gorilla Museum at The Bowery Ballroom (We'll see. I don't like anything I've heard, but it's supposed to be a great show.)
  

And I'm sure I will find plenty in the galleries in Chelsea to show you.

And you better believe I'm going record shopping. Last time I stopped in Generation Records I found a treasure trove, plus a store cat that took a shine to me.

Plus there's whatever else we do. I'll be here for a week still, but my head left yesterday. Can't wait!

Oh, and if you find yourself needing great maps and travel guides Not For Tourists have their entire guides online for free, in PDF format. I'm sure they would appreciate if you'd buy one. I used them last time I went. They are excellent guides in every conceivable way, but their best feature is the fact that they are essentially Moleskines. People write about these things incessantly for a reason.

Labels: Arty, Indie, Music, Shows, Travel

There are lots of free, legal ways to get music on the 'Nets. Too many to keep track of really. So here are some to get you started filling up your hard drive and slowing down your computer. Unless you like porn. In which case your computer is probably already full.



Free Albums Galore has hundreds of complete records available for download. There's a good mix of genres, and bands you may actually have heard of like The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Danger Doom, Explosions In the Sky, Meat Puppets and many others. There is a lot of classical music, too: Bach, Brahms, Chopin, Debussy, Dvorak, Haydn, Mendelssohn and others grace the list.

What the World Needs Now must be a great song. Mr. Bungle covered it. So did Aimee Mann and Tiny Tim and lots more.

Reloda has a lot of really good indie mp3s and live songs. Check out the Built to Spill bootleg.

largehearted boy is another one with lots of indie shows, mp3s and CD reviews.

3hive has a lot of new music by bands I've (mostly) never heard of. I like it.

This should get you started. You've gotta make a dent in your iPod's storage capacity somehow. Stay tuned for updates.

Labels: Hardcore, Hardcore Music, Indie, Music

Scientology's LA Celebrity Center
I make a huge rock-star entrance into the Celebrity Center. I'm the only person with dreadlocks, wearing black, and chain-smoking. I have to admit this is a beautiful hotel. All the employees are identically dressed, with white shirts and matching ties and slacks (shorter girlie ties and skirts for the women). They're all scurrying about like little busy Scientology worker ants. For the sake of pulling off the charade, I'm hoping nobody can speak German.

"Ya! Dieter Lietershvantz... has arrived!" I strike a pose with my guitar.

I no longer remember how I came across Harmon Leon, but I can tell you he is one of the funniest people I have ever found. In his Scientology adventure, Harmon plays German rock star Dieter Lietershvantz. Dieter goes, and I mean he really goes to the Scientology Center for fun. It's hilarious.

Labels: Dumb Fun

Wikipedia has a post of every music genre ending in -core. Maybe someday I can pull together a post with an example of every genre. Oh wait, Christcore? Horrorcore? Raggacore? I think I'll pass. At least for now. Maybe someday I'll have the urge to listen to some Cuddlecore It's gonna have to be a pretty bad day, though.

Labels: Hardcore, Hardcore Music, Music

WhiteHouse.org has a whole series of these "Patriotic Posters." "Watch out! The USA's putting the SURGE in INSURGENCY!"

TerrorReady.net: From the Department of Homeland Panic. Don't forget to learn about the various ways you can die.

Somebody needs to make a widget of The Human Clock™ I would leave it up all the time.


I like the idea of other people doing work for me. That's why I like The Letter Project. It's nothing more than people spelling words you enter. But it's the best chance I will ever have to make people spell words correctly.


My Creepy Valentine is exactly what it sounds like. Don't miss the second gallery.

I love Exactitudes. Everyone should see this. For extra credit, dress up like the people in each grid, and then send me the pics.

The Oddcast Text-to-Speech Demo says what you type, in a voice of your choosing.

Let them sing it for you. It's completely self-explanatory.

Postage Paid Envelope Revenge. I would do this to my high school for sending me all those requests for money, but they don't use prepaid envelopes. Probably not 72 pounds, though.

Have you ever used a DayTimer? I did, briefly, but even after ripping out all the unnecessary stuff, it was still just too much to lug around all the time. Right now I'm using an ancient Palm, but I've done similar things to the Pocket Mod Hipster PDA. If you have no idea what any of this is about, it's an organizer. In this case, one you customize online and then print at home.