Update for June 28

Nacho Libre, the new Jack Black comedy, doesn't have an official soundtrack, so Some Velvet Blog compiled one. The wacky tracks by Esquivel, Los Lobos, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso are first-rate. Even if you have no intention of catching the Mexican wrestling flick, you absolutely must hear the film's absurd theme, Mr. Loco's "Real Religious Man."

"They're beating the living hell out of kitchen appliances with lengths of pipe and massive gears and slamming shut a deep-freeze to what roughly corresponds to 'the beat,'" reports The Tofu Hut. They not only survived a performance by Norwegian "pop/demolition" ensemble Hurra Torpedo- they loved it. A photograph, video and music provide a full picture of the devastation.

Does your mom like pop music? The Modern Age's mom is keen on Keane. They offer a great review with lots of pictures.

Brooklyn Vegan takes a fall. Not to worry- no one was hurt when they interviewed the legendary Mark E. Smith. Don't miss the live recording.

Why isn't the new Kanye West offering, Late Orchestration, available in North America? Fluxblog offers a tantalizing peek at the UK release.

The guys at Central Village smell teen spirit at a Taking Back Sunday show on Long Island. Against all odds, they avoid winding up in the slammer.

Finally in what has to be some of the best writing ever on an mp3 blog, Moistwork's invited their favorite authors (real book authors!) to wax poetic on their own influential musical moments. The link above will take you to the ruminations of Gary Lutz authur of Stories in the Worst Way. Song selections and descriptions of Galaxie 500, The Moldy Peaches and Pavement. The whole series is called Moistworks:Writers Week 2.0 and they're all great so check them all out.

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New kids on the block (newish mp3 blogs that deserve your consideration, patronage and service)

The Yellow Stereo - Recent posts about The Pippets, The Chalets and Tobias Froberg. Created in April 2006.

Ashcan Rantings - Recent posts about Janis Joplin, John Auer, and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. Interesting fact about Ashcan Rantings: any profits go to the ASPCA or other charities. Created in March of 2006.

Weekly post compiled with good cheer by Bill from There Stands The Glass.

Week of June 17 update

Said The Gramophone is presenting his "Said The Guest" series on Wednesday the 21st, this time curated by Beirut. See what this ukulele-playing, idiot savant has in store for you.

Indie Don't Dance has her dream summer mix up. It's short but oh so sweet.

Copy, Right? reminds us, in her own inimitable way (i.e. bunches of cover songs), of the importance of Material Issue and the great sense of loss she still has 10 years since the day that he died.

Normally we won't be linking to just any old blog-based-mix-tape but in this case Connor from I Guess I'm Floating has put up a three disc compilation of the best tracks of 2006 so far. In addition and just to spice things up a bit he went on a little Pitchfork rant that got some of his readers all riled up (see the comments).

Clever Titles Are So Last Summer celebrates her big, blogger, one year anniversary with a bunch of shout outs and of course some good music. In fact it's like Birthday theme week over there so go tell Bethanne how much you care.

Week of June 12 update

Well, we're still working out some kinks but here's another update.

• Daytrotter has a new in studio session with Sunset Rubdown. More importantly next week they'll upload a session with Casey Dienel.
• Nothing But Green Lights has a blogger combo special where 6 prominent bloggers pick the best song they've legally downloaded in the past month.
• Shake Your Fist has an interview and songs from Chicago chanteuse Nora O'Connor
• What is it about the World Cup and Mp3 blogs? Burning Oak is 4 posts of the way through blogging the World Cup musically. Check out entries about France, Netherlands and Croatia.
  

What's The Deal?!

Why another mp3 blog site you ask?

The answer is that it seemed to some members of the mp3 blogging world that a lot of the interesting resources were spread throughout the net. While we all love the Elbo.ws forum, the Hype Machine's top blog list, Tofu Hut's mp3 blog list and all of the info over at the Wiki, we just felt it'd be nice to have one place where all that stuff is accessible in some small way. We hope that the site will be a valuable and fun place for bloggers to visit but it's main intent is to be a place where members of the press can come weekly to see what's happening in the blogosphere (we'll also attempt to coin a less annoying phrase!).

The main feature of the site at the moment will be a weekly review type post of all the great features, interviews, and community posts from the week that was. The weekly post can be delivered to you if you sign up to the right. Initially we'll send it out as a weekly email to as many members of the press that we can add to our list. So if you have any contacts with the press please email us here - musicbloggersunited@gmail.com. We're coming at this from the angle that all of these outlets need content and instead of having them just somehow stumble upon our posts (i.e. our great works of literary art) we'll deliver them to their email inbox.

P.S. Thanks to everyone involved but especially Jeff from DIYRockstar, Moka from Motel de Moka, Merz from Mars Need Guitars and Victoria from Muruch. Extra special thanks to Malachy Egan for the header graphic (contact him at malachy dot egan at gmail dot com).

Meet The Press!?

Music blogs are a fun news item these days. We're popping up in everything from Rolling Stone to The NY Times and everything in between. Here's just a small informal review of what's been said recently. Thanks in part goes to the invaluable bloggers' forum over at Elbo.ws.

• Top Ten Mp3 Blogs courtest of TopTenSources.com

• The controversial Top 25 Blogs by way of Entertainment Weekly

• The Boston Phoenix namedrops The Hype Machine, Elbo.ws, Said The Gramaphone and Music For Robots.

• Fluxblog waxes poetic in this piece for the The Washington Times.

• PBS tries to stay relevant with this online article featuring Largehearted Boy.

Eardrums Shall Fall has some commentary on the new SIRA legislation, this news was originally released by the blog from the non profit organization IPaction (whose moto "Defending The Publil Interest Where Culture and Technology Meet" should be a mantra for us music bloggers).

Eardrums Shall Fall
IPaction

According to the New York Times the Russian download site All-Of-MP3.com was taken down by the RIAA. We first saw it posted on the blog Rewriteable Content though.

Rewriteable Content
NY Times

No Rock & Roll Fun points out that the Dutch based piracy torrent site ThePirateBay.org was shut down. Apparently the site just moved countries and is back in business.

No Rock & Roll Fun