Small bands making big music is a dangerous combination.

As someone desperately seeking new music, I’ll often find myself longing for a new band that sparks the idea music can still be fresh and invigorating. The time between finding those bands is akin to traveling through a vast desert.

Dallas is the most recent band to perk up my ears and set my imagination on fire. Their new song “Weathered” is a summer soaked instant hit in constant control of where it’s steering the listener. The rest of the band’s 4 track EP due out July 9th matches a familiar indie/rock vibe currently going around while still able to be unpredictable and unpretentious in the same breath.

This is the kind of new music you want to discover.

Thanks to Ryan Booth and his tweet.

I loved Seinfeld. It was a show that probably shouldn’t have found the kind of success it did, but with the right actors, writers, and people in place it took the simple and ordinary and made it funny to a mass audience. Last year Jerry Seinfeld started a new (simple) internet show called ‘Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,’ which might have missed your radar. Everything from its long, descriptive, title to its obvious premise screams “No big deal,” yet it might be one of the biggest deals for internet television in recent years.

The show isn’t based on Seinfeld’s life, it is his life post Hollywood success. It’s him showing everyone how he’s settled into this new stage where he gets to take a step back and enjoy what he’s built over the years. He drives a different car for each guest and talks hints of coffee in addition to the random and funny topics geared specifically to each guest...

Canopy Climbers aren’t a well known band. Their previous album ‘Distances’ wasn’t talked about on many blogs and though breathtaking, didn’t win any awards. This band, however, is the reason I continue to search for new music from those currently unknown. It’s music that needs to be heard, and needs to be heard by a lot of people. On their brand new release, Canopy Climbers break free of any restraints that held them back previously. ‘Miles’ is a masterpiece capable of bridging paths to most music listeners, more importantly, making those listeners fans.

The first half of ‘Miles’ is a sweeping brush stroke filled with bright reds, yellows, and oranges. Songs soar into a sun filled sky during choruses, able to float on clouds for miles. By the album’s end, the mood is much different, but the band is careful to bring the listener down into reality with carefully placed song choices and...

There are social networks and then there are social networks aimed at the business sector looking to brand and enterprise anything they touch. Fusings may not be completely corporate in its feel, adapting the Pinterest look to “Building a better professional brand,“ but it’s close.

Visiting the site, you encounter a tiled layout which has become common place among likeminded sites. The tiles, or fuses, currently rely on two elements, ‘themes’ and ‘ideas’, to drive the company’s philosophy. Themes are words or phrases in solid colors which describe specific examples, such as links to blog posts, pictures, podcasts, etc. While Fusings, as a whole, isn’t complicated, it still isn’t a site that can be described in one sentence. It’s a site and service you have to use to fully understand.

Sam Melvin, who does community outreach (among other things) for Fusings, explains how he sees the...

It’s not the most exciting announcement Apple could make at WWDC, with the vast majority of people who pay attention already assuming apps are coming to the Apple TV, but it’s an open hole that still needs to be filled. Sure, recent rumors of deals with major labels might have a lot of people hoping for and expecting a new music service, but if history is any indicator, a new app store will not only revamp the static set-top device, but it should tap into a currently dominant goldmine.

The June 10th WWDC keynote will be one month short of the 5th anniversary of the iOS AppStore opening. Looking back, Apple TV currently feels exactly like the iPhone right before it got 3rd party apps. Whereas, it’s a functional device perfectly content to live in its own little world, but the potential is clear as day, growing long in the tooth each day apps aren’t available.

iPhone apps like...

Maybe it felt like you were earning your way at the time, accomplishing tasks on your own merit, but looking back doesn’t it often feel more like someone took a chance on you?

I’m not where I’d like to be in terms of career or job, but everything is progress. Bruce Houghton, who runs Hypebot.com, was one of the first people to take a chance on me, an unproven writer, accepting a pitch to write a post. The site brings all types of people together around the common theme of music and the business behind it. It’s been a gateway to meeting people whose work I admire and opportunities to write for other sites.

I wrote an article, published on Hypebot, about how the iTunes store is one of the best places to sift through curated music selections and actually discover new music. The article was read by Om Malik, who runs GigaOm.com, and republished the link on his post ‘7 stories To Read This...

There are a lot of things I like about the iPhone — also a fair amount I wish they’d fix or change — but the music experience has always been one of the best of any device.

The landscape is changing from a world that previously acquired music to a world that now borrows it for a monthly fee. Prior to that, however, Windows or Mac, the clearest and simplest way from holding a CD or digitally downloading a track (point A), to putting it on a portable device and listening to it (point B) has always been through iTunes with an iPod/iPhone.

With no words, this ad captures the simplicity of getting music onto your device and having it accompany everyday situations. It’s something that only comes from having one of the largest music stores built into your ecosystem. It’s probably the reason Google is willing to lose money (if necessary) to have their own music store built into as many...

Here’s your new music tip sheet. Personal recommendations from one person to another.

With the release of their newest single, “Dreaming”, Smallpools is on the cusp breaking big. Take notice.

Often ambient and electronic, Halfnoise combine some of the best traits of Radiohead and Sigur Rós into one tempting package.

The drummer from Now, Now has a side project called Sombear. Sombear’s new single “Love You In The Dark” is a thick, moody jam that comes charging like a train.

Don’t let your preconceived notions get in the way of enjoying some good music. Go “Get The Girl Back”.

Maybe it’s not that noticeable to most people, but it seems to stick out like a sore thumb that Yahoo doesn’t have a music link on their front page next to movies and sports.

You can stumble around Yahoo and find Yahoo Music which offers a blurred hybrid of their OMG site and generic music keyword related articles. So why doesn’t Yahoo list their music site on the front page even though there’s little doubt that their music page gets substantially more traffic than most sites striving to cater to their music minded audience?

It’s probably because it’s a static reminder of the past. Yahoo and music have a strained relationship at best. For example, one of the few original blogs, ‘Early Edition’, hasn’t been updated since September of 2010. Other tabs on the site like iheartradio and Spotify mostly serve as a pass-through to other destinations. There is just very little for this...

The lightweight, clean, and minimalist results provided by ReadyMag should have other publishing systems more than a little nervous.

Below is a test magazine I made. That’s right, it’s embedded in this post. Try it on a computer, on a phone or tablet. It’s scary how quick and simple the experience scales up or down fitting your device.

Everything that ReadyMag is offering, the ability to create lightweight, cross platform magazines that can be sold, is such an attractive offering.

Although the results can be stunning, as shown in the introduction videos, you still need a little patience to create something worth sharing around. The tools are simple and mostly straightforward, but there is a roughness in manipulating objects exactly how you want them to appear. The current offering of templates also still requires the user have some inkling of design talent, creativity, and...