Free mp3 files from BMF!

I am very excited to announce that the response from independent artists to donate a free track for readers of BMF has been AWESOME! You can download the free (and legal) mp3 file for your listening pleasure using the "File Factory" panel on the right. Click on the track you want and choose "Download with FileFactory Basic". Pardon the pop-ups, input the code, and you are ready to rock. These are full-length tracks from releases we have reviewed, not samples and certainly not garbage! Each track has received the BMF stamp of approval and is sure to please fans of rock and power pop.

Songs will not be available forever, so get them while you can and be sure to check back for fresh cuts later.

BIG thanks to all of the fine artists participating...now be a sport and promise to go buy their CD if you like what you hear!

These are completely safe and legal to download...we have obtained permission from each artist to post their mp3. If you are an artist and there has been a miscommunication, please let me know and I will remove the track in question immediately. If you are an artist and want us to audition a track for posting, send us an email.

Call for mp3

We're working on an exciting new feature here - making free mp3 files available for our readers. If you have recently been reviewed and have a file you'd like to share, please send us an email giving us permission to post the file - whichever song you choose. We'll "change our tunes" every 2-4 weeks. If you have not been reviewed yet, what are you waiting for? Contact us for an address and get ready to ship your CD!

Free mp3: Jude Cole

Some "new/old" demos being offered from Jude Cole at his MySpace page.

Free mp3 (limited time!): Dan Weir "Orphan Town Vol. 1"

Orphan Town is an elaborate ruse for Dan Weir to hear his songs performed by ringers. These include drummers Prairie Prince (The Tubes, Todd Rundgren, Dick Dale, etc) and Todd Roper (Cake, Chuck Prophet), guitarist-plus Joe Gore (Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, Tracy Chapman, eels), members of Rainmaker, singers Ray Wilcox (!Tang, Xraydusa) and Paul Daniels.

Produced by JJ Wiesler at Decibelle Recording, add'l engineering by Drew Zajicek. Mastered by Tardon Feathered at Mr. Toad. Music and lyrics by D. Weir.

For the next week or so, friends can download tracks from Orphan Town Vol. 1ABSOLUTELY FREE via MySpace. After that, they'll be for sale on iTunes, Amazon, etc.

Review: Adam Miner "Playing House" FREE mp3 CD!

Singer/songwriter Adam Miner is giving away his latest release, "Playing House". Go get this album now, along with free artwork to download at here. Yes, it is FREE and legal! Thank you Mr. A Miner!

If you are a miser with your hard drive space, we here at BMF will give you the highlights. Adam Miner sounds like a refined, less gruff version of Elliot Smith. He specializes in power pop in the finest tradition, loaded with the sunny feel from 70s pop artists. The melodies are ultra catchy and nearly every song features rich harmonies. There are few exceptions: "Autumn Air" is an instrumental harmony vocal your hard drive could do without, and "Honie Please" is a sparse and beautiful acoustic ballad that no hard drive should be without. Other highlights include the bouncy title track ("Playing House") and "I Myself & Me," in which Adam laments, "I've whittled down all my friends to three...I Myself & Me" in a bright cheery song. "Obscure Melody" has all the makings of a great song that could have been, if only the acoustic guitar did not sound so dulled and his voice was not processed to sound like he was singing through a funnel. I'd love to get a remix of this track in which the acoustic guitar was brighter and his voice unprocessed. Fans of The Merrymakers will do a double take after hearing "Pinery Park", which sounds like it came right off their record, "Bubble Gun". "Get In My Space" is another outstanding track, a catchy appeal to add another friend to just I Myself & Me.

iPOD-worthy: 1, 3, 4, 8

Adam Miner on MySpace. Official site.

Free MP3: Butch Walker "Leavin' the Game on Luckie St"

Free mp3: Dave Stephens

"In an effort to spread the word about his music, Dave is offering these free downloads of his two albums. After downloading, please tell a friend and direct them to this page so that they too can enjoy these albums. Physical copies of these albums can be purchased from The Dave Stephens Online Store at: www.davestephens.ca/store.html
For more information about Dave, please visit his official website at
www.davestephens.ca.
Link: click here.

Hot tip: Trim your mp3s

mp3DirectCut is freeware that you can download and use to crop your mp3 files:

"mp3DirectCut is a fast and extensive audio editor and recorder for compressed mp3. You can directly cut, copy, paste or change the volume with no need to decompress your files for audio editing. This saves encoding time and preserves the original quality, because nothing will be re-encoded. The built in recorder creates mp3 on the fly from your audio input. Using Cue sheets, pause detection or Auto cue you can easily divide long files."

This one is worth check out, folks. I've used it many times to get rid of pointless intros or outros on otherwise iPOD-worthy tracks. Also an excellent tool to separate that "bonus" track from the last official track listed on the CD.

Get it here.

Free mp3 - Tommy Conwell "Walkin' on the Water"

Before his well known record "Rumble" in 1988 (read), Tommy Conwell and the Young Rumblers released "Walking on the Water" on Antenna Records in 1986. Some of these tracks found their way onto "Rumble". I don't think it was ever released on CD, and even the cassette tape must be a hard to find rarity (it is currently going for a ridiculous $2400 on amazon.com...that is NOT a typo of one too many zeroes).

Since most people can't shell out this kind of dough (and since most people probably don't even have a tape player anymore), the Young Rumblers have made it available here to download.

Free mp3: Danny Vaughn - Rarities

Grab them - free and legal: http://www.vaughn.de/seiten/rarities.html

"At the prompting of several friends I have put together a bunch of mostly unheard stuff that I’ve done over the years. I’ve decided to make them available here on the web site for free to any and all total fanatics out there"

The stuff spans Danny's career and is generally worth the memory space.

Recent post on Danny Vaughn.

Free mp3: Nina Gordon

Nina has generously posted some free mp3 files of tunes from her unreleased recording "Even the Sunbeams" and a couple demo tracks too (circa 2004). You can find them here. This is the recording that would have been in the sandwich of "Tonight..." and "Bleeding...", but she decided to shelve it for reasons explained here.