Today's music sucks? Bear with me, dawg!

Every couple of years I would scour the Al Gore's most famous invention after climate for interesting music, sites like artistsdirect.com, garageband.com and others that don't exist anymore and where unsigned bands, or signed and little known artists uploaded their music, oftentimes quite good, occasionally brilliant. I'd listen to hundreds, thousands of cuts to find a few diamonds in the rough.  I had a method, which probably missed a few rarities, but which served me well. I'd listen to a few seconds to decide, 5, 15, 30.  Certain guitar chords alerted me to the worth of the rest of a recording.  And I had my taste - hard rock was usually out, plaintive folk music as well,  electronic sounds - foggetteaboutit.  Americana,  country, soul, blues yes.   I was looking for authenticity. (Doesn't everyone?) I'd gather the diamonds and burn them onto CDs, which I'd take on trips to Europe where I'd hand them to my friends there, DJs and artists, all of them in awe of American pop music, and who I thought were too influenced by the limited range of the most popular artists played on commercial radio, as bad there as it is here.   I liked to share my discoveries, and I had a reputation to maintain, oh, yes.  

Then my life had changed, and I stopped listening, stopped searching.  Until this year.  Last month, actually.   The Internet sites have changed, but the buried, largely unheard music is still to be found.   I have found some amazing artists, whom I would like to present to you.  Rock and roll, or whatever it is called these days, is not dead.   There are people out there with the skills and the ideas, who may not sell many CDs or tracks on iTunes, but who all deserve our support,  and speaking for myself, my enthusiasm.  (Some or all of them may be familiar to some of you, especially if you live in their hometowns, but as a group, I suspect they are largely unknown.)

Here they are:

Deadman,

Malcolm Holcombe 

Pokey LaFarge

The Deep Dark Woods

New Country Rehab

David Jacobs-Strain

Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain

Lastly, the two incredibles. The future of music:

Phat Bollard

Fitz and the Tantrums

The links are just samples of the artists' music, not always their best recordings, but ones that are easily linkable. You can find more music of these artists through MySpace, YouTube, Google, the artists own sites, and so on.   Enjoy!

P. S. Goodness, how could I have forgotten. Here is the band that started me out on this trip this year:

The David Wax Museum