qspmusic.com

As I get older I still love music just as much as I ever did but, with young kids and a busy job, I don’t get a chance to listen to as much music as I would like. And the music that I do buy now is rarely played on CD  as most of my listening is done on the commute into work so when I get a CD I immediately rip it to MP3 format and put it on my iPod.

So the logical step was to stop buying so many CDs and buy MP3s directly and when I discovered a free trial to emusic.com that is exactly what I did. Once I had trialled my generous 30 free tracks - about 2 or 3 albums worth depending on your choice - I enjoyed it so much I stayed with it and am now a very happy subscriber and look forward to choosing my new tracks each month.

And - to get back to my initial point - the spin off benefits have been the reviews and ‘new on site’ sections of emusic that have led me to a whole host of new artists as well as rediscovering some old favourites. Emusic is not your kind of place if you want the latest chart, pop or R’n'B sounds but if you like more underground electronic, dance, indie, punk etc then you will love it.

My favourite album of the year so far (and I can’t imagine anything beating it) is Beat Box by Glass Candy, a shimmering slice of messed up electro disco with the coolest of female vocals by the mysterious Ida No backed up with Johnny Jewel’s electronic soundscape.

At the same time I re-discovered a great live album by The Cult - Dreamtime Live at the London Lyceum from about 1984 and this takes me back to the early exciting days of their goth tinged beginnings before Billy Duffy had turned into a ‘rawk’ god.

Anyway, more new stuff from emusic and also myspace to come.

There are some great sites out there on the web for the aspiring drummers amongst us.  Some of my favouites are as follows :

www.onlinedrummer.com

Full of lessons on all aspects of drumming. It also has a great Drum TV section where you can watch drummers in action and analyse what they do in a trainspottery fashion…

www.DrumBum.com and www.DrumBum.com/lessons

This defintely gets the best name award for drumming sites and is scarily close to the truth when it comes to many drummers! The best thing about this site is the amazing range of free lessons on all types of styles, methods and muscial genres from punk to jazz-funk and reggae to rock. You can get the lowdown on techniques like drags, flams and buzz roll as well as the basics on balance and gripsand it is all backed up with video on some of the areas.

www.EveryDrummer.com

This is a site covering the greatest drummers of all time. From John Bonham to Carl Palmer and Keith Moon to Neil Peart, they are all here. You can search by band name and you can find out more about them individually too, though the bios a re a bit short in most cases.  A good starting point for drummer research.

And don’t forget about the teaching videos available on youtube.com at http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=drum+tutorial+videos&search=Search.