Having ranted in the past about how some artists still can’t get RSS feeds onto their website’s as the designers are too busy playing with Flash, I have come across a cool website which overcomes the RSS problem and you can create aggregate feeds of news from your favourite artists even though they don’t have feeds themselves.  go here –

Link to Bandnews.org – Live from the Web | Search & Read official Music News – Band Directory – Archive  for more.

Well I’d argree with the Arjan Writes blog – bigging up (sorry couldn’t resist that) William Besson (Link to :: arjanwrites music blog ::: Hot New Talent Alert: William Besson).   If the music on his myspace account is anything to go by then there is some serious talent here (http://www.myspace.com/williambesson). Some bits resemble Depeche Mode during their Ultra period, with fragments of Massive Attack – a blend of chill and trip hop.

Besson has is own web site as well – http://www.williambesson.com/. It is possible buy his first album – Isn’t It About Faith? via his website which links to several sites around the world such as CD Unsigned. 

I shall be investing further.

Horrah – new Ryan Adams official album has been announced, details here (Link to Ryan Adams Reveals New Album Details).

Are more mainstream artists are starting to leverage their net presence? To promote new albums and get people’s attention.  In the last two days of news NME have reported:

• free tracks from Ash (here) – article (here)
• free tracks from Manic Street Preachers (here) – article (here)

Polly Paulusma whose debut album Scissors in My Pocket garnered rave reviews has announced a new album called Fingers & Thumbs to be released in May.

If you like your slightly folksy female singer song writers in the vein of Joni Mitchell and Kathryn Williams. Her record company have an glowing (obviously) bio of her here which will give you more of a sense of her musical styling.

Polly according to her website will doing a live acoustic performance as part of Channel 4 radio’s music show The Tube.

Note – Polly’s website is annoyingly not RSS enabled – so if you want to keep abreast of her activities you’ll have to sign up to the news letter!

Surprisingly the news that the BPI are taking another pop at CD-Wow hasn’t really reached the mainstream news – article here – Link to No Rock And Roll Fun: CD Wow heading back to court on the case.

You would think that the BPI would be better of trying to level the pricing playing field. Although that would probably hurt their members profits as UK is on of largest music buying nations based on purchases per person.

I’ve had a number of emails announcing new albums over the last twenty four hours.

The first about Rush announcing a new studio album, to be called “Snakes and Arrows” to be released on May 1st.

Then Billy Joel, with his the first set of new recordings in 13 years called “All My Life”. Then Tori Amos announcing a new album on 1st May called “American Doll Posse” with a world tour to follow.

Tags: Rush Billy Joel Tori amos Albums Music

 SXSW put together a great set of torrents in the build up to SXSW with tracks showcasing artists that appear every year.  You can find the torrent here : Link to south by southwest festivals + conferences.  A word of warning the torrent is BIG.

Tags: Torrent SXSW Music Show Case