Plain White T's

One more big name band before I switch things up some more. Everyone knows "Hey There Delilah" but there is more to this band than just a one hit wonder. When they aren't being acoustic balladeers, they play alternative rock with Fearless Records who were kind enough to share a couple songs from their first album with the studio. The album "All That We Needed" has free mp3s for the title track and "Take Me Away." DO NOT BE FOOLED!!! Other albums from the band on the site say they have free mp3s but they are just 30 second previews. I really like the song "Take Me Away" and I would have posted the music vid but the video itself is quite tasteless in my opinion. Daytrotter also has a live EP with the band from early last year. Sorry for no vid this time but I couldn't find anything good...

Rogue Wave

In keeping with the big name bands recently, I thought I'd pull out another with a lot of songs to offer. Rogue Wave is a band that seems to keep popping up when mentioning indie rock and for good reason. The music is great, the vibe is unique, and the free music is always appreciated. Purevolume has 4 songs from various albums on their profile although not quite sure if it is really the band's... Anyway, Daytrotter on the other hand has 2 free live EPs, one recorded in early 2008 and the other in July of this year. One of the only bands to be featured on Daytrotter twice might I add... If you're new to Daytrotter, sign up is easy although downloads will take place through an odd external program that you will have to download. Enjoy!! (Sorry for the lack of things to say...)

Housekeeping (Not a Band)

Hey peoples!! I have a couple things to say before I jump into the music this week.

Firstly, I love being able to share this music with anyone who has stumbled their way here and hope to continue to deliver the content that I've promised. But it is a little hard to judge how to maintain things without any feedback... So I'm opening the floodgates to anyone willing to respond for open comments, criticisms, conversations, whatever! Please, if you are enjoying this site (or hate it) contact me through this site or through my facebook and tell me what you think. Do you want something changed? A genre I've overlooked? A poor choice in music that you want to tell me off on? Go ahead!!! No matter how trivial, every comment helps.

Secondly, I want to stress how some of the material I am posting are temporary items. I know that some of the links or files that I have posted have since gone dormant or have been removed and I will try my best to update older pages to show which have gone down. Also tell me if you find any... Enjoy everything you can!!

And lastly, I hope you enjoy this site (notice how I like the word "enjoy".) If I'm keeping track correctly, then I have posted somewhere in the ballpark of 300 songs (!!!!) already with so much more on the way. Keep checking in and... I'll let you fill in the blank.

Thrice

Another mainstream band, another punk influenced past, and another drastic departure from older material. Thrice is a band that can be depicted as many things: a great alterna-rock band, that band with a song in Tony Hawk and Burnout, or in the case of some people I know - a band that can't put on a live show. Whether or not that be the case, they do have a great thing going right now and with songs like "Image of the Invisible" I can understand why.



Once again thanks to Vagrant Records, several tracks from the albums under that label are available as free mp3s. Unlike Alkaline Trio's tracks, these are the newest albums to be released and can be different from people's past experience with the band. The 4 disc EP entitled "The Alchemy Index" is a radical departure from Thrice's normal sound especially in the last 2 discs. I bought the second half (Disc 3 and 4) as an impulse purchase and have come to thoroughly enjoy it as one of my favorite albums of the past couple years. The music is more toned back, almost an acoustic sound for much of it, and has a specific evocative theme for each disc. Disc 3 focuses on the element of Air and an ethereal and disconnected sound while Disc 4 focuses on the element of Earth with a much harsher western sound and darker tones. A fierce departure from their normal sound and style but a beautiful experiment nonetheless. PLEASE check the video for "Come All Ye Weary" from Disc 4 of "The Alchemy Index" below!



And for those looking for a slightly more traditional Thrice sound, Daytrotter has a free four track live recording from the beginning of the year. Daytrotter is a great site featuring exclusive live recordings with indie or lesser known artists as free downloads but will require a simple registration and a small exterior program to download the music. Enjoy!!!

Alkaline Trio

I realize that I've been covering a lot of indie artists when I also promised to follow mainstream bands so I'll put up a few big names over the next few weeks. Alkaline Trio has some pretty humble punk roots and have blown into a very mainstream band lately. Thankfully for those interested in free music, their older record label (Vagrant Records) has an impressive spattering of free songs from their older material. In the media page, each album listed has 1-2 free songs. As can be the case with punk, the material can be hit or miss from song to song but these are pretty good tracks with personal recommendations for "Mercy Me" and "Armageddon."



And before I finish, the title track from their newest album "This Addiction" is available for free from Spinner. The newer stuff has a heavier emo feel and sounds all too familiar to many other bands but is still good. Best of both worlds, huh? Enjoy!!

UPDATE: Turns out I forgot other sources of music. There are other record labels that have hosted Alkaline Trio but not many offer free music. This one has two free tracks from a dual album with another artist.

Pogo

Guess what, I'm actually back!!! I have a ludicrous amount of spare time this semester with high speed internet available so expect updates to be weekly or bi-weekly for sure. And I have to celebrate my return with an old favorite that I'm sharing here for the first time: Pogo.

I could gush endlessly about this amazingly talented musician but I'll try to keep it reasonable. He's a very hard man to pidgeonhole considering that the closest genre he fits is Dance/Electronica but it doesn't even fit that. In simplest terms, he is sampling audio from any number of great movies and creating a wonderous amalgamation of seemingly abstract clips and fragments. And before that starts getting really confusing, here's an example using clips taken from the old Disney version of "Alice in Wonderland" (his most popular piece)

He can be a bit of a hard sell for those that find his music hard to get behind but the rewards of the music itself far outweigh any complaints that I can comprehend. His tracks have sampled a wide variety of films (mostly "family" films) including classics like Mary Poppins, Hook, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Up, Toy Story, Harry Potter, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, The Sword in the Stone, and many others that I will never know. The music has a strange way of invoking emotions and memories of the movies while still remaining distinct. The actual music behind the "lyrics" is amazing as well (the bass beat to Alice had me addicted for weeks.) The videos themselves are works of art as well. But the best part of the bargain is that nearly all of his music is free!!! His profile on LastFM contains four free EPs containing most of his music including a album dedicated to Alice in Wonderland. Most of the rest of his music can be found on his website or on the youtube pages for the individual songs. And because I'm just sharing the love, I'll post some of his best tracks below. Enjoy!!!

UPDATE: I realize that I did a poor job at really linking you to the other tracks not on last.fm so here are two real links to "Expialidocious"and "Upular." Some of the other links I've used have dried up but look around and you will find them.

His newest song made from Toy Story, sponsored by Pixar!!

His song from Up, also sponsored by Pixar

His song sampled from Hook, which Sony tried to sue him for...

And finally a real world mix made for he made for his mother on Mother's Day. Sweet...

Apologies Needed (Not a band name)

Sorry peoples... I've had a really hard time keeping this updated over the summer due to little to no internet access at times and a lot of other things on my plate. I'm leaving for New Hampshire this week for 2 1/2 weeks with no internet unless I drive into town to use the library's wifi. I will try to throw in some more over the summer but I won't have a consistent schedule back until the fall semester. Sorry but enjoy anyway!!!