C

ool music related blogs! I admit to being a blogaholic. These are some of the coolest and most useful blogs I've found in the blogosphere.

Garage Spin

Blog Author: Mike B.
GarageSpin is edited by MikeB. MikeB has performed, produced, published, and streamed music. Check out his career snapshot here.

Blog Focus:
GarageSpin, a phoenix spontaneously bursting forth through the flames of digital music revolution, flexes its musical muscle to the beat of newly empowered, unsigned artists. (I.e. a guy who digs music discovered blogging.)

Artists now write, collaborate, record, produce, promote, share, sell, and perform music online. It's an incredible time to be a songwriter or musician, and an amazing time to be a fan of independent music. GarageSpin focuses on the trends, technologies, and tools making waves in garage-based home recording studios everywhere.

Bob Bakers's Indie Music Promotion Blog

Blog Author: Bob Baker
Bob Baker is an author, musician, actor and artist who is dedicated to helping creative people of all kinds get exposure, connect with fans, and increase their incomes through their artistic passions. Bob's books include "Guerrilla Music Marketing Handbook," "Unleash the Artist Within," "Branding Yourself Online" and more.

Blog Focus:

• Promote your indie music on a budget
• Self-publish your own book
• Build a personal brand identity on the Internet
• Promote your talents as an artist, writer or performer

Future of Music

Blog Author: Dave Kusek
Dave Kusek is Vice President at Berklee College of Music responsible for managing the online music school, Berkleemusic.com. Kusek was a co-developer of the revolutionary Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI), co-inventor of the first electronic drums at Synare, and founder of Passport Designs, the first music software company. In 2005 he co-authored the book "The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution.

Kusek also runs a consulting business Digital Cowboys providing advice and services to Nokia, Pepsi, AOL, BMG, EMI, A&M Records, Boston Acoustics, Roland, Yamaha, Intel, IBM, Island Music, Nettwerk, Ovation Guitars and others.

Kusek has written for or been featured in Forbes, Billboard, New York Times, Wired, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Associated Press, MTV, CNBC and Financial Times. He is a frequent speaker at MacWorld, Comdex, NAMM, AES, IEBA and has appeared on NBC-TV, the Nightly Business Report, NPR, and the BBC.

Blog Focus: The Future of Music blog will examine scenarios for the future from the perspective of what is working today and what will work tomorrow. The blog looks into the landscape of artists, writers, managers and publishers sitting in the center of an entirely new digital enterprise. We evaluate traditional promotion and distribution methods and the development of new ones. And, the Future of Music blog takes an in depth look into what music fans really want, and how they want to receive it.

SoundTempest

Blog Author: Andrew Aversa
Andrew is an independent musician and freelance composer based in Philadelphia, PA. He has independently released four albums of electronic music under the moniker "zircon", and written for dozens of TV, film, radio, video game, and advertising clients. As part of the site staff of non-profit music community OverClocked ReMix (www.ocremix.org), Andrew has posted numerous guides and tutorials on music production and provides written feedback on over 150 submissions to the site per year. When he is not working on personal projects, he attends Drexel University where he is currently studying in the Music Industry program.

Website: www.zirconstudios.com

Blog Focus:
This is a blog centered on one of the most interesting (and tumultuous) industries in the United States; the music industry.

The whirlwind of change that continues to occur nearly every day has prompted a massive amount of media coverage on the multitude of happenings within the business. Unfortunately, the massive and complex barrage of developments, to the layperson, can be difficult to absorb, especially when the people doing the reporting rarely have a true understanding themselves.

The goal of SoundTempest is to help navigate the troubled waters of the music industry and cut through the fog of misinformation to give you the straight talk on music business news.

The Lefsetz Letter

Blog/Newsletter Author: Bob Lefsetz
Bob Lefsetz is a Santa Monica-based American music industry figure and author of the email newsletter, "The Lefsetz Letter". Lefsetz worked previously as an entertainment business attorney, majordomo of Sanctuary Music's American division and as a consultant to major record labels. Lefsetz deals with issues at the core of the music industry.

Blog/Newlsetter Focus:

• The diminishing role of the major record labels in current recorded music
• The decline of physical musical formats (primarily the decline of CD sales as alternate online music services such as iTunes continue to flourish)
• The prevalence of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharing as the primary source of digital music distribution
• The need for a legitimate and licensed Peer-to-Peer or similar distribution service to facilitate the next working business model for the music industry.
• Lefsetz's personal reflection on songs, songwriters, bands and industry insiders that have affected his unique and independent outlook of the music industry.
• Lefsetz's personal life: his wife, kids, trips, vacations, youthful years driving across country, skiing, and so forth (some funny-ass shit here sometimes! LOL)

Marketing [dot] com

Blog Author: Dave Hooper
Dave Hooper is an American author, music marketing expert, and radio show host.

In 1995, Hooper began his music marketing company Kathode Ray Music while he was still he college, studying commercial music at the University of Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee. During the mid to late 1990s, he was hired by record and management companies to do street and radio promotion. He helped promote such bands as No Doubt, Bush, Blue Öyster Cult, Marcy Playground, Lightning Seeds, and Run-DMC.

His marketing endeavors went on to involve Internet promotion. As well as promoting bands online, David created the first non-pornographic membership Web site: IndieBiz.com--a Web site devoted to helping musicians learn how to market themselves.

Blog Focus:
This blog has a marketing focus, and tends to unearth outside the box ideas that are applicable for marketing on a low budget.