The websites in this section help you find MP3s, assist in promotion for bands/artists, connect you to live music & ticketing, offer place-shifting for your media (PC-to-PC, PC-to-mobile phone), stream music, and/or offer video discovery. Others, are fantastic recommendation engines or social & sharing platforms.









Radio One Llama
A fantastic search engine to find and listen to internet radio
[website]

When you want to go outside your own music collection, the route of internet radio where real people (as opposed to a Pandora-type of site) are making decisions about programming is, increasingly, a great route to go. The number of radio streams are multiplying and Radio One Llama allows you to search for a station based on artists you like, genres, or location in the world...yes, the world!

The site is so easy-to-use, it's not worth explaining too much. The first image above shows our search for a station based an artist/act that we've covered here on Groovemine, Letting Up Despite Great Falls. The stations that have played their music appear below the search field. Clicking on any of the live links launches a station's current stream within the window, which is identified above along with tracks/artists the station has recently played. We'd recommend staying away the "popularity" tab as you'll get suggestions based on ultra-pop music, new and old. The "genre" tab presents options as pretty as the Periodic Table of the Elements (see second image above). The "location" tab is, perhaps, the most amazing thing about the site as it presents you with a map powered by Google, allowing you to zoom in on a geography-based selection.

Oh, and you can use this great site on your iPhone.







The Sixty One
A visually engaging discovery site despite some design drawbacks
[website]

Named after Highway 61, a U.S. route that runs along the Mississippi River and marks the origin of American music culture. Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan and B.B. King rode the 61. Elvis grew up in the housing projects along it. Highway 61 was the road by which people left their homes to take their music to the world. That, said, the music found here isn't all classic Americana.

The qualities that come to mind when thinking about this site are: visual, confusing, and engaging. Visual because a large background image fills the entire browser window with remarkable effect, often a photograph of the artist who's music is playing, sometimes it's album art. Other related images, additional photography, biography factoids, or concert dates randomly appear, overlapping the background image sometime with transparency. The site is a bit confusing because the navigation is atypical either because of its location or labeling, which isn't always a bad thing in and of itself. Regardless of 'where' you are on the site, it always looks the same, as described previously. We couldn't figure out how to work some of the functionality that appears to be straightforward at first glance, for example setting up a playlist. In spite of all that is confusing, we spent a lot of time on the site. The visual design (almost) renders the music you hear an extension of your experience rather than the focus, which is refreshing.

What about the music? Quality indie stuff you may have never heard of before that fits perfectly with music from major indie faves also present on the site like Andrew Bird, Iron & Wine, and Besnard Lakes. Not sure how all of the collection is curated, but there is an option to register as an artist (or as an agent of one) allowing you upload music and photos. Some of the music is for sale but, this is another area we find confusing. It seems you have to purchase credits to buy each song yet somewhere on the site we found the claim: "Unlike a record or distribution deal where they only make $1-2 per album (if they ever get paid, that is), artists on thesixtyone make at least $7 per album and are paid every 30 days—no wait for recoupment and no complex royalty schemes!" The option to buy an album was unapparent.

In general, this site looks like it was conceived of and designed by a team of smart ADDers and, perhaps, it's just a matter of time that they resolve some of the things we find confusing about the site. It's definitely worth your time exploring despite our perceived drawbacks.







The Crypt Sessions
Intimate HD video portraits of acoustic artists, new and old
[website]

On a long drive home from a lousy day working in the rain, sound recordist and studio owner Rick Barber and Cameraman Bjorn Ventris decided that there had to be a better way to combine their skills. Inspired by Black Cab Sessions and From the Basement, The Crypt Sessions was born out of a need to provide quality content for a few artists that we were working with at the time. Early 'guinea pigs' ManOrMouse? and Matthew Neel came in to perform while The Crypt Sessions honed their set. Soon they were inundated with requests from labels, artists, PR companies etc all hoping to get a slot. The sessions are shot in HD and recorded by engineer/producer Matt Sime (Feeder, Moloko, The Boo Radleys) The Crypt Sessions aim to create an intimate acoustic performance from artists both new and established.

A podcast is available from iTunes as well as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Myspace.







Well-Rounded Radio
Podcasts containing in-depth interviews & music of
innovative indie music providers
[website]

If you're an active consumer/junkie of independent music, hungry for the story behind the music, you need to check out this site. Well-Rounded Radio connects listeners to great music happening outside the mainstream, gives them a behind-the-scenes look at its creation, and lets them sample it within each interview. Composed as a podcast, you can stream directly from the website or subscribe via an RSS feed. The site is organized by episode, each one devoted to an artist, producer, or someone working behind the scenes to deliver great music like Episode 056 with Jeff Price, founder and CEO of Tunecore or Episode 058 featuring one of the founders of Amie Street, Josh Boltuch. Some of the more recognizable artists that have been interviewed include Antibalas, Mission of Burma, Pylon, and Jill Sobule. In written words, you find the background of the interviewee, a summary of the discussion, and a tracklist of the music featured on the podcast. The "Recommendations" link at the top of any episode takes you to the same page where you find linked suggestions of music to investigate, seminars to attend, websites to browse, and more—don't forget to visit this page!









Cloudspeakers
An aggregator and discovery tool
[website]

Created and connected to last.fm, Cloudspeakers is a music aggregator of links to legal audios, videos and reviews. It's presentation is much more streamlined in form and function than last.fm and couldn't be any easier to use, especially if you know the artist(s) you want to research or listen to. They do have two feed lists on the home page (top screen above) of what is "fresh" and "hot" from which you can browse, but the breadth of what can be obtained on Cloudspeakers comes from what you request in the search field. Type in your favorite band/artist and you come to a profile page (bottom screen above) with an excerpt of a their bio found on (and linked to) last.fm, an expandable list of excerpted reviews of the artist from blogs and magazines, a slide presentation of their discography, and a list of other "relevant" artists. A similar page appears when you click on an album cover. All pages have an embedded media player accommodating both audio and video. The site remarkably easy to navigate—very similar to Cowbell.fm.







StumbleAudio
A recommendation engine with superior interface design
[website]

If you get off on discovering music from independent, perhaps unsigned, artists you've never heard of via a perfectly designed interface, then check out StumbleAudio. Interaction with StumbleAudio feels more like you're using a portable music device rather than interacting with your PC. Browse their library by genre or type your favorite artist in the search field at the top and be presented with music that supposedly sounds similar your entry. In either case, albums are presented on a virtual CD carousel for you to listen to in their entirety. If you decide to purchase the album, there are links on the right side of the screen taking you to retail outlets offering MP3s or CDs. The main drawback of the site seems to be the limitations of the search function. It did not produce any results for a handful the indie artists that we typed in. We expect they're working on it, so bookmark this site and visit often.







IndieFeed
Curated, free MP3 feeds
[website]

IndieFeed provides a curated selection of free MP3s organized in five broad genres of indie pop, hip hop, electronica, dance, and blues. Our first inspection found a good selection music from emerging indie artists that we've heard of along with some that seemed quite obscure. Part of what makes them somewhat unique is the ability for you to listen and download the MP3s directly from the site or to automatically receive downloads through RSS syndication as podcasts in iTunes and Zune or other media aggregators. The one thing we didn't like is the intro to every MP3 (podcast) identifying "IndieFeed" and it's corporate sponsor although, we couple this comment by acknowledging the need for anything indie to make money.







Slacker
Award-winning internet and mobile radio
[website]

Sleekly designed (think Harley Davidson), extremely user-friendly, Slacker is an internet radio site with nearly 100 genre-based stations. You can add to their selections by creating your own customized station(s) once you create an account. Registered or not, users are able to share a radio station via a form-generated email or by copying the station link code that is presented at the bottom of the Share This Station window of the player. Bios are accessible for every artist within the player when the Now Playing left tab item is selected (see image above). Upgrade to Slacker Radio Plus for $3.99 and avoid audio and banner ads, get unlimited song skips (normally, you're limited 6 skips), complete song lyrics, and use a mini widget player that you can place anywhere on your desktop without having to use your browser.

Slacker Mobile is a set of free apps for your Blackberry and iPhone giving you everything you find online with your PC. It was awarded as a CNET Editors' Choice in April 2009.





Didiom
Stream music from your PC to your phone
[website]

Didiom is a set of 2 free programs. One allows you to stream music, podcasts and audiobooks from your computer to your phone; the other, to shop for new music and audiobooks from more than a quarter of a million artists, more than 2 million songs, organized over several genres. What’s more, you can also place bids for the music and audiobooks you want and share previews with friends and family, right on your phone.

The desktop application allows you to choose the folders to be monitored by our streaming server. The streaming server scans your folders for audio files in the format of WMA (both DRM-free and DRM-protected), MP3, WAV, AAC, M4A and Ogg Vorbis. It also scans for iTunes® playlists, and playlists in the format of WPL, PLS and M3U. When you want to access your library remotely, just enter your username and password. Once authenticated, you can browse your library remotely and stream music, podcasts and audiobooks at different bit rates.

The tracks you download arrive in MP3 or unprotected WMA format, so you can add them to your iTunes® and iPod®.

While the shopping app is free, you pay for the music and audiobooks you download. Most songs are between $0.89 (single download) and $1.39 (dual download). Most albums are between $9.99 (single download) and $12.99 (dual download). The price will appear on your phone's screen before any purchases you make, and you’ll also have the option to bid.

Currently, the Didiom software is only available for use on a PC and with Blackberry or Windows Mobile phones.

Go here to read a good review of Didiom.







Noisevox
HD video digest with interviews and performances of indie stars
[website]

Quoting their tagline: "Noisevox is an open music magazine and media network created by journalists, photographers, musicians, and you." Noisevox's straight-forward presentation provides wide-format HD video with a scrolling menu to the right of the window containing a significant selection of interviews and live performances for each episode of a featured artist/band. To date, episodes include The Thermals, Animal Collective, Moby, and The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, Crocodiles, Dan Deacon, Japandroids, Here We Go Magic, Arctic Monkies, and a recap of The All Points West Festival. If you're an indie junkie like us and enjoy in-depth information on one subject—but find reading long-form text online daunting—go the audio/video route with Noisevox.







Cowbell.fm
An aggregator of music blogs
[website]

Cowbell.fm is an automated aggregator site collecting data from the world of music blogs. By default, the presentation of their data on the home page highlights "Recently Popular Songs" and "Popular Bands." From there you can change the main view to "newest songs" or peruse the straight-forward navigation for "Hot Songs" (the week's most popular songs), "Hot Bands" (a tag cloud of the week's most popular bands), and "hot blogs" (a list of trend-setting blogs).

What's most valuable about this site, is the simple, streamlined way in which the pulled data is presented and the (subjective) quality of rankings. The easily scannable list of blog posts are called out according to a song, sometimes prefaced by the band—but its all about the songs, which lead each entry and are made available for streaming in its entirety. Each list item continues with a thumbnail-size image of the album (not always correctly connected to the song), the blog's name, and a 3-line teaser of—and link to—the blog entry from which the song is 'discovered.' You can, often, find the song available for download on these blogs, but proceed at your own risk and respect. It is likely that a lot of the music found on music blogs is made available without proper permission from the artists and labels.

There's, also, an option to "collect this song" or to "follow" the band. This data is stored in "My Stuff" but you must register to utilize this functionality.

What subset of the music blogoshpere Cowbell.fm draws from, we're unsure. But, we definitely find the selection of music it features—from, mostly, indie-pop artists—of great interest.



[Discover more Web-based Tools here]