Happy Halloween - Free Music!

Happy Halloween, folks. As a fun treat, I'm giving you links to legally-free music downloads that you might dig.

3hive.com - a fascinating collection of mostly-independent music downloads. This is a great way to discover new and old artists alike in your favorite genres. I also happen to like the fact that this site is easy to navigate; you have multiple search options (including artist, label and genre), along with reviews of the songs.

Free Irish Music Downloads - the Irish in me adores this idea. The rest of me loves it too.

SpiralFrog: Even Easier Now

SpiralFrog - the music-download site that relies on ad revenue to support legally-free music - has recently made things even simpler.

Now, you don't have to go to the site every month to refresh your account. Instead, you have to visit the site at least once a month and download something.

That isn't difficult at all, considering the site's extensive catalog which, thanks to new releases and recently-added songs and albums, is only getting larger.

So, go enjoy a more-pleasant SpiralFrog experience.

Free Dr Pepper!

If you're a Guns 'n' Roses fan, then you're already grinning over "Chinese Democracy." Finally, a new G'n'R album!

Grin about this, too, then: Dr Pepper swore that, if the album actually came out in 2008, they'd give every American free DP. And they are.

Here's what you need to do:

On November 23 - and on that day only - go to Dr Pepper's Web site. Fill in your details and watch your mailbox for a coupon. Redeem that sucker when it comes in the mail and enjoy your free bottle of the world's best cola.

Free DP AND a new G'n'R album. This couldn't get better.

MTV

MTV would be so awesome if the executives remembered that the "M" in the network name stands for "Music" and act accordingly.

I don't want to watch pithy, teen-friendly reality shows, or any of the other garbage that MTV and MTV2 broadcast. Give me music videos, concert footage, band and artist interviews, music news and music-themed films.

Why not devote one channel to the "other junk" and give us the music-related content on the other? Load us up with 24/7 music. We won't complain. Honest.

Mom, Music and Me

My Mom was the primary influence as far as music went. As a child, I often tuned in to the radio with her - and enjoyed the trivia that she would share with me.

She was the one who told me that Elton John is gay - in response to my question about those massive, pink sunglasses he sometimes wore.

I found out, through my Mom, that Stevie Ray Vaughan was a Texan, and that he'd died in a helicopter crash when I was too young to be "into" music.

Mom taught me how to clean my cassette deck with Q-tips and rubbing alcohol. She also showed me how to splice broken tapes back together.

My first CD player: her doing. As were most of the CDs that I acquired from that point until I started working and buying my own. She would happily buy me almost any album that I wanted, and swipe many of them from me because she enjoyed the music as well.

That was a difficult time: being in my mid teens and having to ask Mom to please, pretty please, return my copy of Marilyn Manson's "Antichrist Superstar" when she was finished listening.

We still introduce each other to music. She tells me that there's a great version of "Amazing Grace" out, with added lyrics. I tell her that she's going to love the latest Eminem album.

I set up her computer to automatically rip her CDs to the folder that she prefers, with the appropriate audio quality. She helped me strategically arrange my surround-sound speakers when I brought them home.

Music, it seems, is one of the reasons why Mom and I are so close. We would still have plenty of things to talk about, and more than enough things to do with each other, but music fills a large part of our lives. I'm not sure what I would do with myself if that changed.

CD Rot

Once upon a time, when CDs were still relatively new, manufacturers had a problem: the suckers would deteriorate no matter how carefully they were stored.

"CD rot," as the phenomenon is called, looks nasty. Check the "play" side of your older CDs. If you see blackish, ugly spots, you have a problem. This can happen even if you were careful to store your collection in a friendly environment, without abusing any of the discs. The CDs are just defective, as it turns out.

Eventually, that problem went away. You shouldn't experience CD rot with newer discs.

You can, however, try to copy the affected discs to your computer's hard drive. If this works, you can burn a new copy and enjoy that - or transfer the files to your MP3 player and listen that way.

Wireless FM Transmitters Stink

The car I'm driving has an older CD player - one without a line-in port - so I have to use a wireless FM transmitter to play my Zune through the speakers.

My mistake: buying a ten-dollar transmitter by some random company I'd never heard of before. The big problem is that the unit is difficult to turn on and off. Pressing the power button does not always do something: instead, I have to sit there and hit that stupid thing three, four, twelve times before it turns on or off. Piece of junk.

I also hate the audio quality - or lack of. Even though I'm hardly a master at detecting the subtle, beautiful nuances of a well-tuned snare or a well-played rhythm guitar, I can tell when there's a hissing in the background of every song. Move the transmitter around a bit and the hissing goes away: obviously the cheap device's fault.

A well-made FM transmitter won't do this. I know because I did, at one point, own a rather-nice one. However, that eventually broke. This cruddy replacement has done nothing but tick me off since I bought it last month.

Do yourself a huge favor and spend a few extra dollars on a high-quality transmitter. You won't be disappointed, especially if clumsy, poor-performing accessories tick you off like they do me.

Download or Buy the CD?

I don't mind (legally) downloading albums versus buying the actual CDs. This is because I don't own an actual CD player anymore: when I do acquire a CD, I rip the files to my hard drive, then transfer them to my Zune.

Liner notes and artwork are wonderful, but they aren't vital to me. Other music lovers do care, though, which is one reason why they keep buying albums.

Another reason: the audio quality. If your ears are better than mine, you can tell the difference between a CD that you've ripped as a lossless file and an Mp3 or WMA that you've downloaded from a site like SpiralFrog or iTunes.

If you don't care about either of the above issues, then just download the album. You can download the entire thing for about ten bucks at most pay sites - versus twelve dollars or more for the actual CD. Those few dollars, when saved up, can make a difference in your music budget over time. Save the money and buy a ticket to the artist's live show, or get a t-shirt.

Albums I'm Excited About

I'm looking forward to checking out Fall Out Boy's upcoming album - because I was somewhat disappointed with "Infinity on High" and hope the band can do something that's at least as impressive as "Take This to Your Grave" and "From Under the Cork Tree" (their two best albums so far, in my opinion).

Spinnerette is also, allegedly, working on releasing their debut album. That's going to be great - Brody Dalle (The Distillers) doing her thing again in the studio.

I'd also like to check out Eminem's upcoming CD. When will it drop? I have no idea. But I'm interested in how his style has changed since "Encore."

Commercials: Ruining Great Music

What happened to the jingle, anyway? I might be young, but I really prefer the product-specific songs to the ripped-off music that so many companies use in advertising today.

We still see a few jingles, in fact. The Oscar-Meyer Weiner song? Jingle. The super-annoying "Free Credit Report" songs, sung by the annoying guy and his annoying band? Jingles.

But more often than not, the companies simply grab popular songs and, well, ruin them for me.

Right now, Beyoncé and Jay-Z's "Crazy In Love" is providing the soundtrack to some furniture-store's commercials. Why, oh why, would they do this to me? I actually liked that song until it started blaring from my TV several times a day.

Other examples of commercials that have driven me insane:

Aerosmith's "Dream On" in a car commercial.

Another car company used Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water."

Levis: Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line."

I do realize that TV commercials must capture our attention: otherwise, the advertisers can't sell us the products. But people respond to jingles. Even those of us who loathe FreeCreditReport.com catch ourselves humming, or even singing, their songs at random moments. What better way to ensure that we're thinking about the product than by lodging its very own song deep in our heads?

Indigo Girls Going Indie

Really, I thought that this would happen a lot sooner than it did. Amy Ray and Emily Saliers - better known as the Indigo Girls - are going with an indie label for their upcoming album, which we should see in February.

The only sucky part, really, is that their label, Hollywood, dropped them - according to the story, anyway. Even though IG are apparently looking at this as a positive thing, it still stinks - or would to me, anyway.

Whatever label the next IG album calls home, I'm looking forward to hearing it.

Best Drum Sticks for Beginners

If you're brand-new to drums, you probably aren't sure, just yet, if you want to devote yourself to them for more than a few months. That's fine. I wasn't sure when I first invaded my brother's room to mess with his kit. Just like I wasn't sure when I took up guitar at age ten.

Typically, I'm a big fan of going cheap when you're just starting on an instrument. That way, if it turns out that you really hate learning how to play acoustic guitar, you haven't wasted a few hundred bucks on a super-slick, high-speed guitar that's now a dust catcher.

I do, however, hate crappy drum sticks with every last atom in my body. They warp, or break too easily. They aren't well matched, so they don't sound the same. They just suck - and if you buy a pair of cheap garbage, you're saving only a few bucks. (Well...you're actually spending more money if the cheap stuff breaks a few weeks later.)

Go to the music store and pick a solid pair of sticks that fit your hands and your style. Invest a few bucks in a pair of Pro-Mark oak sticks, in fact. Even if you end up hating drums, you'll still have a cool pair of sticks, right?

Melissa Etheridge

Melissa Etheridge should not do Christms songs. Period. That's just as wrong as digging up Janis Joplin and having her sing a cover of "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire." Wrong. Not right. Wrong.

However, I do play drums, and have recently re-acquainted myself with the deluxe version of MLE's debut CD. (Self-titled, incidentally.) If you crank up the stereo on the new-and-improved version of "Chrome Plated Heart," you realize that she can really pick a drummer. He complements her guitar well, which is very easy to hear on this cut.

As with so many other artists: the deeper you dig into the archives, the better MLE is. Even if she did have that weird, 80s-style, heavy bassline intro to "Similar Features."

Music You 90s Kids Will Remember

Lately, I've been rediscovering some of the best music from my childhood. Mostly, that music came about in the 1990s, when I was a pre-teen, then teen, headbanging to the local rock station and making notes of which CDs I wanted to buy the next time I had money.

Some of my favorites:

Jennifer Trynin - Better Than Nothing. This artist's single was on the rock side of the pop spectrum, if that makes any sense. (Most of the rest of the CD, "Cockamamie," is way closer to being real rock, which scores big points with me.) You could rock out to the chorus in particular:

I'm feelin' good, I'm feelin' good, I'm feelin' good for now
Good, I'm feelin' good, I'm feelin' good for now

Oh, sure, that's mind-numbingly simple, but it was - and still is - catchy. And fun!

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Sponge - Plowed. To me, the rest of the album falls into the "not a big deal" category. Hardcore Sponge fans will disagree, of course. But the single? Well, it's stuck with me all these years for one reason or another. I think it has something to do with the lead guitarist's skills. The lyrics could have something to do with it at well:

Say a prayer for me
I'm buried by the sound
Of a world of human wreckage
In a world of human wreckage
Where i'm lost and I'm found and I can't touch the ground
I'm plowed into the sound

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The Nixons - Foma. I bought the album for "Sister" and "Happy Song." It turned out that more than half of the tracks were well worth my twelve dollars. These Texas-native rockers had distinct lyrics and sounds (both vocals and instruments), and knew how to rock.

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So, there you are: some cool stuff that you probably remember from your childhood.

My First-gen Zune is Fine, Thanks

I really don't see why people keep telling me that I "need" to buy a new Zune.

The first-gen. Zune that I currently own is working just fine, thanks. Why should I drop a wad of money to replace something that I'm very happy with right now?

Yes, it's a big and blocky device. But I don't mind. This makes the player easy for me to find amidst the heap of junk that I laughingly call my desk.

Sure, it holds only 30GB, but I don't "do" videos. My Zune is only for music, so 30GB is plenty of space. That holds more than half of my collection, which is a buttload of music.

I would, however, not mind checking out another device - like a Creative player. Just to see what that's like.

Spiral Frog: Not Bad

Spiral Frog isn't a bad way to get legally-free music. Sign up, install the software, and start downloading free songs.

I like the fact that the catalog is large, and getting larger. I've found tons of great songs by all sorts of artists, from Johnny Cash to Melissa Etheridge.

Not having to pay for the music is great too. Instead, I look at ads on the Spiral Frog site. The artists and record labels are paid, so it's all good.

The only real problem is that the WMA files are copyright protected. They won't transfer to my Zune because of this. Oh, well. I'll just use this site for songs that I only want to enjoy at my computer.

Overall, though, I really love this idea.

Ani DiFranco: Canon

Ani DiFranco's "Canon" is well worth your investment. This double album is full of her very best songs, including new versions of old favorites.

DiFranco's career really began in 1990, when she recorded her first studio album under her own label, Righteous Babe Records. Since then, she's managed to produce an average of one album per year, without sacrificing quality. What began as a "girl and her guitar" blend of folk and rock eventually evolved into a girl and her band, with brass thrown. DiFranco eventually returned to the simpler things, which has resulted in some pretty good new stuff.

"Canon" is an excellent introduction for new DiFranco fans. You will get two full CDs of music that spans her entire recording career, including:

* The subtle, acoustic "Both Hands" from her first album
* "Distracted" - a fun piece of dialogue recorded during one of her concerts
* The brass-and-guitar driven "Little Plastic Castle."

Those are just a few of the best tracks. You also get vital cuts like "32 Flavors," "Subdivision" and "Dilate."

All of the aforementioned tracks are taken from her earlier recordings: if you already own those, you won't get anything new.

However: new versions appear at the end of both discs. They are well worth the investment because they're different, but easily recognizable. "Both Hands" for example, is driven by DiFranco's electric guitar in this version.

Overall, it's worth the money. Pick up a copy through DiFranco's Web site - and while you're there, check out the other artists on the record label. Most of them are worth a listen too.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I'm twenty-seven! Yay for me! Here's some nostalgia for you young whippersnappers.

Very-young children have recently asked, "What's a cassette?" when they hear me talking about music. These kids know nothing but CDs and MP3 players. Walkman? What's that? Huh?

Cassettes: the evil, unholy ancestors of CDs and MP3s/WMAs/VQFs/whatever.

These tapes were twice as good as their eight-track predecessors because cassettes had sixteen tracks. The audio quality was a little better as a result. Tapes were also smaller than eight-tracks, which was always a plus as far as storage space was concerned.

Tapes, however, had their problems. The biggest issue was the fact that the thin, brown tape inside the plastic housing would snap. This was particularly common if you had not recently cleaned your tape player. (Rubbing alcohol and a Q-tip - rub it over the head and rollers, then let it air dry. The swab was always either dark brown or black with gunk when you finished.)

When the tape snapped, you had to get a thin piece of clear tape and try to splice the two ends back together. Sometimes, this worked. You had a small gap in that part of the song, though, because you had to tape over the recording. So, right in the middle of the best cut on the whole album, you got a moment of dead silence. Lame? Definitely.

Cassette tapes did, in short, suck. I hated them with the intense, blazing passion of ten thousand suns. When we finally got a CD player, I was the happiest teenager in the entire county because I no longer had to deal with crappy, stupid tapes.

And that, oh youthful generation of music lovers, is why I'm so happy that I've had the privilege of enjoying CDs for a good chunk of my life.

Download Services That Don't Annoy the RIAA

If you live in the United States, and you love music, you should be careful about which music-download service you use. Not every provider out there is in compliance with our copyright laws and other restrictions.

Major names like Napster and iTunes are fine. They're above the board, fairly affordable, and they offer huge catalogs full of all kinds of music. The same is true of Microsoft's Zune store: legal, with a decent selection.

In these cases, you pay the services for your downloads. Remember, though, that not all pay-download services are legitimate. Some based in other nations aren't exactly doing the right thing as far as the RIAA is concerned, and that's not worth the hassle that you could face.

Stick to the sites that you know are legal to use here in the States. You might pay a bit more per song than you would at some unknown, weird site, but at least you don't have to worry about getting into legal trouble.

The Distillers: Coral Fang

If you dig punk, and you dig chicks who know how to scream out a chorus, then you've probably heard of The Distillers. Brody Armstrong, nee Dalle, and her band of merry punk rockers might not have dominated your local radio airwaves back in the 1990s, but that makes them no less talented and entertaining.

"Coral Fang" is the Distillers' third studio album. This set of tracks demonstrates the remarkable growth that Brody underwent as a musician, singer and songwriter. Don't get me wrong: I was down with the frenetic shrieking from older songs like "Sing Sing Death House," "City of Angels," "Sick of it All," and "I Am A Revenant." These cuts, from the first two CDs, are excellent. They're noisy, boisterous songs with something important to say: true punk, in other words.

However, "Coral Fang" shows Brody's ability to extend beyond the screaming, beyond the frantic guitar wailing, and dig deeper into her own self to come up with something more.

The cuts on this album edge dangerously close to the pop-punk genre, but not in that tasteless, commercialized sense. Brody's lyrics have gotten even better, which is saying quite a bit. There are still shades of the old energy, especially on hard-driving cuts like "Die On a Rope" and "Beat Your Heart Out."

But there's a nice, melodic undertone. Brody does more singing, and her voice is not bad at all. These new-sounding, fresh cuts, despite being a bit old now in 2008, fit her well.

And by the way: The Distillers are long gone, but Brody's making a comeback. Spinnerette is scheduled to break out their debut album, um, soon. When is "soon"? No idea. We don't have a concrete date yet. But if you head over to the band's Web site, you can check out news, cuts from the upcoming album, and chat with other Brody lovers.

Snoop Dogg's Greatest Hits? Really?

Right now, I'm checking out Snoop Dogg's The Best of Snoop Dogg. To be honest, he never should have bothered.

For whatever reason, this collection does not include old favorites like "Lodi Dodi" and "Gin & Juice." Instead, I'm listening to "Part 2" versions of classic Snoop. "What's My Name," and "Gin & Juice" both, apparently, have sequels. They aren't as entertaining or catchy as the originals, at least as far as I'm concerned.

However: I'm biased. I stopped liking Snoop after "The Game is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told" came out. That was not a good CD at all if you ask me.

If you dig the old raps, then stick to the old CDs. But if you like his newer stuff, pick up this disc.