Here's where you'll find a whole host of stuff relating to music including a bunch of my own compositions and demos.
And as everyone likes to receive gifts, here is a small selection of free music to download legally :-)
I-tickets.com
First off, here is a web site that offers a few free music tracks every week of the year. Mainly from American Christian artists, the people at
i-tickets.com make available a couple of tracks each week, downloadable only during that particular week. All they ask is that you become a member
of the site: small price to pay for some excellent free new music!
Visit www.itickets.com now to see what's on offer.
NoiseTrade.com
Noisetrade.com is a different sort of music web-site. It came into being, mainly as a result of an experiment by a certain Derek Webb, one of
the founder members of Caedmon's Call. His belief that "a great record is its own best
marketing tool" led him to make available his 2006 Mockingbird album for free! The result was not only that he gave away masses of the album, but
he increased his fan-base and concert audiences.
Getting together with some friends he created Noisetrade.com, a web site which offers free music, ranging from 1-track EPs to full-blown albums, and covering an enormous variety of styles. All they ask in return is that you tell friends about the music you download, either by e-mail, facebook or twitter. What's also very cool about the site, is that they give you the option to easily 'tip' the artists via paypal. It's not obligatory, and there are absolutely no strings attached to the downloaded tracks, but it makes it easier to send a little financial thanks to the groups and artists for their creations and hard work.
Visit www.NoiseTrade.com
The Dumbs
The Dumbs were a young four-piece punk rock group from Château-Gontier, Mayenne, France. They formed in 2008 and unfortunately had to call it quits when they all headed off in separate directions for college. There first EP/demo is available to download for free at their Bandcamp page.
They were a great group, full of energy and humour. For the time beign you can find our more about them at www.myspace.com/thedumbsgroupe and www.facebook.com/thedumbs.
Phenomena
Phenomena were an excellent christian rock group from the West Midlands, England. They were around in the late 80s and early 90s and produced at least two EPs, which are available in this download.
I don't know many more details about the group, apart form the fact that Jon Grant was the guitarist in the group, and he went on to perform with singer Lynsey, who later became his wife. The two know do an excellent job with a youth work called Krunch based in the West Midlands. You can find our more about reunions gigs for the group at their facebook page.
The download available here is from 2 EPs Phenomena recorded. They are tranfers from cassettes, using Audacity to clean up and compress the files. Unfortunately Audacity can't remove tape-wobble from years of playing, and believe me these Phenomena cassettes have been well played. Check out the song "So you say" which is a song which has stuck in my head since I heard it back in the early 90s.
Here's the link to download the tracks.
Exode
Exode "Au commencement" was the second album for a French Christian group based in Marseille. They released a previous album which I believe was recorded live. This second album features some great songs, all in French obviously, and the group included a couple of guys who are friends of mine. I don't know exactly when the album was recorded, probably in the late 80s/early 90s, but the mp3s in this download were converted from the cassette using Audacity; they're about as clean as I know how to get them, but there might be the occasional tape wobble.
No Big Deal
No Big Deal were a Christian rock group doing the rounds in the early '90s. I came across them when they performed at a school during the Metal Meltdown festival. They did an excellent set, rock tinged with a funky edge on some of the songs, which at the time reminded me a little of Extreme.
They released at least one EP called "You've Been Robbed" which I have on cassette, and as I've recently converted it to mp3s (using my trusty Audacity), I thought I'd post it up here for downloading. . . music this decent just deserves to be heard.
As with Phenomena EPs, these songs are not mine, and hopefully members of No Big Deal won't mind me posting these songs. I've tried to find out what happened to them after the festival but I've not been able to find any info about them on the internet. The only thing I've come across is this review from Cross Rhythms magazine :
If you'd been bold enough to step into the rock 'n' roll pubs of Southampton and Portsmouth over the last six months you'll have caught this tough, gritty foursome who play decidedly heavy rock managing to avoid both the predictability of some metal and the tired old blues ruffs of some heavy rock. In fact, this tape exudes a gutsy vitality I found completely invigorating while the lyrics speak the gospel truth with unembarrassed directness. Suffice it to say I liked 'You've Been Robbed' and once they get a producer and a budget they'll surely be on to bigger things. In the meantime, get along to one of their gigs all you Hampshire rockers. - Tony Cummings
So I guess this post is a little hommage to an excellent Christian 90s rock band. Here's the link to download the EP.
Leafmouth
This is the website of Jeff Jacquay, formerly of numerous bands including Unashamed and Open-Field System. I don't know a great deal about him, except that he's made available a number of his previous albums covering styles as diverse as hardcore/punk/metal/acoustic/alternative/pop/etc.
Very generous fellow . . . get some great music while it's on offer. You can find our more aout Jeff at leafmouth.com! And here are the links for the albums :
Martyn Joseph
Martyn Joseph is a Welsh singer/songwirter. He often performs solo, just him and his acoustic guitar, although he has been known to have a full band set-up, or to join with other musicians (see 'Faith, Folk and Anarchy' below). He's made loads of recordings, but personally I prefer his live acoustic stuff; to me it's where his passion really comes across. And passion is a word you have to use when talking about Martyn Joseph, who writes and performs passionate songs covering a variety of subjects from the mundane to the spectacular.
You can discover or rediscover Martyn Joseph through a variety of mp3s freely available at www.martynjoseph.net/category/listen/. There are also a whole host of downloadable Windows Audio files (wma) taken from various radio interviews that Martyn has done over the years, including his thoughts on different subjects as well as some live performances.
Visit www.MartynJoseph.net
Faith, Folk & Anarchy
While meandering around the net recently, I came across a link to download the album "Faith, Folk & Anarchy" free of charge and legally!
The album contains tracks by Tom Robinson, Steve Knightley & Martyn Joseph. As the album titles implies, the tracks are all acoustic based songs, and as you'd expect from theses particular songwriters, the tracks all have a lot to say about faith, life, love, society, etc.
Download the album at http://faithfolkanarchy.com/mailordr.htm
Also of interest on Tom Robinson's website are a load of previous albums, again available for free download. Check it out : http://www.tomrobinson.com/records/music/index.htm
Jan Krist
Jan Krist is an excellent folk/acoutstic
singer-songwriter. Excellent music with beautiful and thought provoking lyrics.
I recently visited her website to discover that there are 5 live audio tracks available for download. Here's the link http://jankrist.net/audio
If you like what you hear, several of her albums are available for download on Amazon or Itunes, as well as various other mp3 distribution sites.