If you have an iPhone and are a music lover you could do a lot worse than drop $2.49 on the TuneIn Radio app, which streams radio stations from ... well, just about everywhere. I've only had it a couple of days and haven't explored beyond the USA but I've heard great things about the African, Caribbean, South American stations you can get. Was just tuning into some bluegrass show on the legendary WSM Nashville and then surfed to Cajun Radio 1290 out of Lafayette. Been very impressed with its reliability on 3G, trundling on the bus down George St didn't even upset it. I'm told the bandwidth usage is very reasonable too, so all in all four hoofs and a tail up for TuneIn Radio.

Eight free tracks from Tom Waits' upcoming live album, Glitter and Doom Live. Just gotta give them your (an) email address.

Despite Sony Music Australia being on my Enemies List for wrecking eMusic, I've been trying out their download service bandit.fm. Only because they offer special promos each month that make it a good deal. Before I went to America they had a "buy your first album, get $20" deal so I exploited that with a couple of accounts.

Got some nice stuff, the Blind Faith record, some Ray Charles, a Flying Burrito Brothers set and cherry picked the new K'Naan (Somali-Canadian rapper) which is very good and a few other singles. In August they are having "buy an album and get $20 credit." So I bought Marianne Faithfull's Broken English for $10. With that, I got a Nine Simone box set which is thirty some dollars but the $20 made a nice discount.

Without these deals however and all other things being equal, I would stick to iTunes for the occasional purchases I normally make this way. The bandit.fm site is pretty and shiny but sometimes a pain to use. iTunes is not without its annoyances but at least the info is presented in a no frills style that makes scanning and picking easier. The artist pages at bandit.fm have too many giant graphics and too little easily accessiable information. You can click one extra time and get to a list of albums available, but that stuff should be right up front. There are also some technical issues. When you click on an album, a box pops up to listen to it and the rest of the screeen whites out until you close the box. Fine, except I sometimes get the whited out screen with no box and can't get out of it without shutting the tab and reopening the site entirely. The downloads are at 320kpb so audiophiles may applaud the quality but it also makes your average album a huge size in MBs. If you only have, say, a 1 or 2GB MP3 player who wants one album to take up 500MB. Don't need it, and would like a choice of formats.

So in short, the price is almost always the same as iTunes and there is no other reason to use it over iTunes - except for the special discounts each month, which is presumably why they offer them.

So, the eMusic issue. I didn't jump in and blog here about it for a few days because I wanted to be more measured in my response. It's entirely over the fold so as to not bump the Flatlanders down at the expense of a rant most people won't be interested in. It is long and rambly, assumes knowledge already of the eMu model and entirely about me, me, me. Fair warning...

A selection of songs is up on 8tracks. Full list over the fold.

So my beloved Muxtape is off line, whether by RIAA fiat or money troubles or both or whatever, I know not. That news kinda sucked although it was not unexpected, being and how the illegality of it was more or less blindingly obvious.

But a great idea and great for the music industry whether it knows it or not. But hark! In the dust of Muxtape, a new service launched called 8tracks which claims to do the same thing but -- gasp! -- legally. I've seen it called "Stracks" too, but I think the squiggly thing is offically an 8. I've signed up but haven't made a mux-er, a ... mix yet. There seem to be more restrictions that with muxtape -- you can't see the whole list before listening for instance -- which are presumably to keep it within the legal requirements. It does look like you can officially create multiple mixes and have them all up at the same time. Which is good, although I was kinda digging the zen-like process of destroying your mux before you could create a new one.

I'm encouraged that it looks uncluttered and simple, but also adds some functions muxtapes lacked -- I like the simplicity of "following" a user and also the ability to add comments to mixes. Will try and maybe get one up tonight.

Update: Did my first 8tracks mix. Painless process and one improvement on Muxtape is you can queue up all your songs to upload rather than have to do them one by one.

DailyLit is a concept that may send certain people in paroxysms of grief re: western civ. Serialised books via RSS (or email). I haven't really decided what I think of it, but I'll give it a go.

Isn't "The Millionaire's Inexperienced Love-Slave" the most wonderfully reedonkulous title? Even for something from the Harlequin stable? I was tempted to get it but it costs $4 and I am all about teh free. That is how I roll.

There is plenty of free, either the usual public domain classics or current works distributed under Creative Commons. I got The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James but at 200 plus installments ("War and Peace" is over 600!) I might break down and just buy the bloody thing before then. I also signed up for Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow and daily articles on US Presidents from Wikipedia.

All the records on this late, lamented muxtape, except for the John Hiatt and Hayes Carll (will post about those this weekend at the latest). Listed here for completeness but notes o'er there. I put up a new muxtape of highlights from these acquisitions.

Country and Folk and Blues etc
Recapturing the Banjo-Otis Taylor
Creedence Country-CCR
Reunion Hill-Richard Shindell
Somewhere Near Patterson - Richard Shindell
From the Reach-Sonny Landreth The star studded (Eric Clapton, Dr John, Jimmy Buffet, Vince Gill, Robben Ford) new album from guitar hero sideman extraordinaire Landreth. I find it a bit generic. I mean, awesome guitar chops and all but it's just in that rock-blues groove that all sounds the same to me. You would think the track which features Dr John AND Jimmy Buffet (together at last!) would at least stand out with a distinctive style but it really doesn't. They're quite anonymous on it. It's perfectly pleasant background music and guitar nerds might get more out of it than me.
You Can Name It Yo Mamma If You Wanna-South Filthy
Hacienda Brothers-Hacienda Brothers RIP Chris Gaffney.
The Complete Sun Recordings-Little Junior Parker's Blue Flames I would say this is a must-have, so I don't know why it took me so long to get it. Historically important -- "Mystery Train" -- but also musically seven great cuts of rhythm and blues.
The Little Darlin' Sound of Jeannie C.Riley-Jeannie C.Riley Pre-"Harper Valley PTA" tracks finds Jeannie mining the sub-Loretta vein of country girl power. Nothing here matches Loretta output (goes without saying) but it's a very listenable collection of classic country. It's 60s but fewer strings and a little rawer than a lot of the Nashville sound. At least half the songs have Jeannie as the other woman, in the other half she's being dumped. Just how I like it! The album was originally released in 1968 as Sock Soul. "Sock Soul"? No, I can't imagine why either.
Now and Again-Daryle Singletary This is the third and last Singletary album there, a compilation of his mainstream hits or attempted hits (couple peaked at #2, another one in the top ten, the rest a fair way further back) back in the '90s. I really love the two later albums which are tradition hard core honky tonk, while still neo-traditional, this one doesn't quite have that edge. Still better than most anything I see when I turn on CMT though -- EXCEPT for the cover of that Bryan Adams Robin Hood song. Ufg. FAIL, Daryle.
Back to the Front-Bob Neuwirth I need to listen to this one more, he can be quite the intricate songwriter. Very good folk-country singer songwriter with a wry eye.
Afrissippi-Fulani Journey Guelel Kumba from Senegal (Fulani is the local lingo) hits the Delta with very fine results. Website. I'm gonna buy a t-shirt.

Rock and Indie etc
The Golden Hour-Firewater
The Monks-The Monks

Jazz etc
A Grand Night for Swinging-Mary Lou Williams
Roots and Grooves-Maceo Parker
Brilliant Corners-Thelonious Monk
Steamin' With the Miles Davis Quartet-Miles Davis
All Members-Don Sleet
The Sequel-Mulgrew Miller and Wingspan

African and Soul and Funk etc
Children-Famous L.Renfroe
Si, Para Usted - The Funky Beats of Revolutionary Cuba Vol. 1-Various I've been listening a bit to the podcast of the radio show Waxing Deep (click on "Radio"), whose presenter Dan Zacks produced this set. I tried sampling a lot of the jazz/soul/funk/afrobeat podcasts and found a lot of cool stuff but I think this is my favourite. Again, the downside of downloading is the lack of liner notes which for a lovingly assembled and niche topic like this are pretty essential. I'd pay extra for them in cases like this. In the end Ithink I'll end up buying the hard copy of the CD from their website. Very reasonably priced (including intl. shipping) and it's nice to support folks like this. The Jan 26 2007 show has some tracks from it.
Nigeria 70, Lagos Stomp-Various
Texas Thunder Soul 1968-1974-Kashmere Stage Band Not your mother's high school combo.
If Loving You is Wrong (I Don't Want to be Right)-Luther Ingram
African Rhymth and Blues-The Remixes-Mombassa I like these a lot, the "remixing" is done very sensitively.
Booiay!! A Compilation of West African Funk-Various Companian to The Danque!!! which I got last month. When I listened to the previews I liked that one more for some reason so I got it first but after listening to all of Booniay! it might be my favourite. You guys, I am so into African funk right now.

Classical and Shatner
Brahms: Sonate Für Klarinette Und Klavier Es-Dur, Op. 120 Nr. 2: II. - Peter Daum, Dieter Klöcker, Josef Suk & Werner Genuit
Exodus: An Oratorio in Three Parts- William Shatner Dude, it's the Shat reading from the Bible. As if I wasn't gonna get it.
Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra & Tod Und Verklarung-Andre Previn and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra I had two credits left and this was two credits (for 60 minutes of music.) I don' think I can take Also Sprach Zarathustra seriously really, or at least the famous 2001 refrain but Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration) sounds promisingly moody.

In addition to Richard Shindell, another muso with his thinking cap on is David Byrne. It has pie charts!

I've made money, and I've been ripped off. I've had creative freedom, and I've been pressured to make hits. I have dealt with diva behavior from crazy musicians, and I have seen genius records by wonderful artists get completely ignored. I love music. I always will. It saved my life, and I bet I'm not the only one who can say that.

What is called the music business today, however, is not the business of producing music. At some point it became the business of selling CDs in plastic cases, and that business will soon be over. But that's not bad news for music, and it's certainly not bad news for musicians. Indeed, with all the ways to reach an audience, there have never been more opportunities for artists.

Picture from here.

New Elvish photos found. I like the cape one.

My assessment of the 70s output remains: fracking grouse to the power of infinity. I think that sums it up. That iTunes deal is still available BTW and there are some tasty tracks from it on my muxtape, left.

... also saw Kasey and Shane and thought much the same as I. Two people can't be wrong.

So way back last year it was announced Lucinda Williams would do a series of concerts in which, each night, she played one of her albums in its entirety. That was the first half of the show. The second half was a normal gig, bits and pieces of other stuff and songs from the new album, West. During this second half, the album songs would be whipped up digitally and on their way out audience members could pick up a CD of the show they had just enjoyed. A very cool idea, and one I'd like to see others pick up. Cooler still, it was later announced these shows would be sold from her website so everyone could enjoy them. I went straight to lucindawilliams.com store when they went on sale.

Since I was planning/saving for a long overseas trip at that stage I um'd and ah'd about getting the "box set" of all five before having one of my rare moments of thrift and responsibility and just ordered a single disc, the show that recreated her 1988 self-titled album.

I sampled a couple of the lesser legal digital download services last week. OK, I sometimes grab a single song from an MP3 blog and sometimes augment my own posts with music. But I never download whole albums or just go grab whatever I want from bittorrent. Although as this article shows you could P2P every minute of the day for the next thirty years and still not be a fraction of the thief the major record labels have been, I still think you have to support the models that are adapting to the real world. And no, I don't include those dodgy Russian sites. Anyway. I already have two accounts on eMusic for 190 tracks a month and there's nothing out there that competes with it for price and range, but have found some interesting things.

First up, WE7. The model here is that each song can be downloaded free but has a short ad at the beginning. After a month you can go back and download the songs (still free) without the ad, to a maximum of 20 songs a month. Like all these services offering DRM-free tracks and trying to shake up the models, the problem is getting content, especially from the majors or bigger indies. WE7 has a very sparse country selection but a pretty good blues one. My first 20 downloads are below. I really don't get Patty Griffin in any deep way but I'm told the fault is entirely my end so I'll keep trying.

The number of downloads is unlimited, but you can only ad-strip 20 a month. CNET says it's doomed. I don't mind the ads, and they seem a lot shorter than 10 seconds to me. However all the ads thus far are for ... WE7 itself which makes me wonder how they're travelling in the whole "attract advertisers" side of things. Last week they made a show of promoting the capital they have raised so we'll see. Another obvious problem is that it's extremely simple to snip the ads from the tracks yourself. How to assure advertisers they're even being heard? But that is for counters of beans other than my own. Meantime: music free and legal.