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http://www.aquariusrecords.org/

First, the disclaimer - I don't really pay attention to what is or isn't RIAA music.

That said, for anyone looking to discover something off the beaten path, sign up for the newsletter offered by the fine folks at Aquarius Records. I've found more good new music there than I have in all other places combined. It's not the biggest record shop in the Bay Area, but it's the coolest, and you're bound to find something you've never heard of.

Wife: "Hey Honey - LET'S FUCK!"
Me: "I'm cleaning crap off my drives - my OCD. You know. I'll be up later. Play with yourself in the mean time..."

I do listen to a lot of classical music, so that keeps prices down, and I moved to TO just this year. 1/2 of my CDs I bought in Washington DC in the late 1980s, the other half in San Francisco - usually at Aquarius or Amoeba. (by the by: DO YOURSELF A BIG FAVOUR and subscribe to the Aquarius email. They get the most peculiar records. Period. Ever. And if you're into Metal - one of the owners is behind tUMULt... classical? Metal? Yeah - I have eclectic tastes...) Amoeba is expensive, but they get me the Really Weird Stuff. Amoeba was great, because it's what was a 22 lane bowling alley, and half of it is used CDs. They took over the Pharmacy next door and that became the classical and video section... Simply: HUGE BEYOND YOUR DREAMS. And DIRT CHEAP.

I guestimated my CD collection investment at around $9k - 1/10 the price of buying it track for track. I know a lot of musicians, and would estimate that at least 100 of my CDs are gifts or trades.

I'm kind of jazzed with this new iPod. If it can really handle my collection, I can FINALLY put my CDs in storage - that'll open up a lot of room in the Living Room. Makes Wife Happy. I'll stick it all in the basement where I'll put the "Listening / Video room"... Aaaaah - the miracles of cheap energy....

RS

http://www.shitkatapult.com/

http://www.areal-records.com/

http://www.mego.at/

http://www.kompakt-net.de/

etc.,etc.,....

There's so much good electronic music out there, it's silly to make such a statement. Not all of these labels will necessarily be your cup of tea, but these are the first five or so that popped in to my head without looking on the back of any CD's. Check out some record store sites like:

http://aquariusrecords.org/

http://forcedexposure.com/

or a site like http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/

for new music releases from several genres. It's all out there for the listening!

Most people listen to shitty music. If I had your friends, I'd probably feel the same way. (If genre is a big deal for you, then you may have a similar problem.)

Several of my friends have incredibly fantastic music collections, and they all keep growing. Mostly thanks to Aquarius Records.

The interview with Crosby is just heartbreaking because you know what he is saying is true. You are not going to find anything at the store other than what WalMart or BestBuy thinks will be a hit with teenagers. I wonder how much great music is out there languishing like it wouldn't have 20 or 30 years ago?

I have an unrated list too, but the unplayed list is kindof key too. I've got huge, huge amounts of music on my iPod that I've never heard of, let alone listened to.

My friends and I use iPods to do off-the-grid P2P. The only downside is that this has increased our CD purchasing habits dramatically. Dunno if that's the fault of the increased power of our purchase, or having moved near Aquarius Records in San Francisco. They should just deduct directly from my paycheck.

review from aquariusrecords.org:

THAI ELEPHANT ORCHESTRA s/t (Mulatta Records) cd 15.98

First it was Frogs of North America invading our record bins, then it was Antarctic Seals and Penguins, followed by Insects in Stored Foodstuffs... now it's Elephants from Thailand! Brilliant recordings by non-human, um, sound-artists that we just can't get enough of here at Aquarius. In this case, the elephants are not just making their natural noises, they are indeed playing instruments! You may have read about this project in the New York Times -- when we found out about it we immediately contacted the label and ordered a whole bunch (based also on the on-line sample we heard at www.mulatta.org) and now here they are. These are elephants from a elephant preseve in Thailand who have been trained to play specially-built instruments (many marimba-like instruments similar to the traditional Thai renat, as well as such things as harmonicas, drums, and even a stringed "electric bass"), but they haven't been trained *what* to play, it's all improvised with minimal human guidance! Yet it's definitely music. It was kind of an experiment to find out how the creatures might express themselves, and we'd say it was very successful indeed. If we didn't know these were elephants, we'd think this was a strange No Neck Blues Band recording or something. Imagine a stumbling, primitive hippy folk jam on gamelan instruments, but not one that's random or erratic. The elephants play steady beats, the struck gongs or chimes interspersed with their vocalizations as well. With no overdubs and few edits this is certainly a very impressive recording!

The Thai Elephant Orchestra was dreamed up, and this disc produced, by David Soldier (New York musician and academic) and Richard Lair (American expatriate elephant expert, who advises the Thai Elephant Conservation Center where this project goes on). The two came up with the idea that elephants, being social animals, might enjoy playing music together, and proceeded to investigate... Happily, not only did the elephants enjoy playing, they were good at it, demonstrating that they were able to decide what sounded good (to them) and what didn't.

The booklet features photos and detailed, fascinating liner notes by both men. Here is what Soldier says the criteria was for the construction of the instruments, which were made by New York instrument builder Ken Butler (of "Gravikords, Whirligigs..." fame):

"1. The instruments must be suitable to the elephant's anatomy, which means large instruments operated by the trunk.
"2. The instruments must withstand jungle heat, humidity -- and the elephants.
"3. The instruments should require minimum upkeep.
"4. The instruments should have a Thai sound, because the regular daily audience is Thai, the mahouts would enjoy the music more, and the elephants have heard Thai music all their lives."

Some more great tid-bits from the notes: "The elephants took easily to the harmonica, which sparked the first elephant music fad: one morning I arrived to hear the sound of harmonicas from all over -- from the hills and from the river. The elephants were walking in from the forest playing harmonicas, which they hold easily in the tip of their trunks."

"The elephants didn't seem interested in the bells or theremin. At first they were spooked by the synthesizer keyboard, but later two animals were entranced by it. They disliked playing Ken's reed instruments with a large mouthpiece, or rather, trunkpiece. A mahout told me they were afraid that a snake might jump into their nostrils!"

As sort of bonus tracks, in addition to the forty-plus minutes of elephant improv, there's also some non-instrumental elephant field recordings, several tracks of humans and elephants playing together, and even a few traditional Thai songs played by humans, abou

Sites like Epitonic and Parasol have steaming audio and are not 'radio' per se. Parasol is a distributor and Epitonic is a site like MP3.com but with a more condensed selection of signed indie artists (not the myriad of DIY stuff that might be fun to wade through at MP3.com, but since you said google was dense, then this is a valid comment). Epitonic's radio stream is cool because you can listen to what they have programmed or 'walk through' genre, labels etc or create a playlist for the broadcast.

Allmusic is very good at guiding yo to stuff you might like. By checking roots, influences, followers and similar artist of an act that you like you might stumble on some new stuff.

Weblogs, forums... of course.

Then there is the old reliable. Magzines, college radio and record store clerks.

Some of my favorite mags: Magnet, Wire, Signal to Noise and CMJ.

You must have some local college stations... some of them do internet streaming if there is none near you. Local to me (Northampton, MA) there is WAMH and WMUA.

There are a few great record stores that send out new release emails of obscure titles. Also, they have employee lists. I have bought many titles without listen by looking at the employee lists. If 10 people that work in the store say it is great, then it more than likely is. Here are two great stores on each coast: Forced Exposure in Boston (click on "Employee Top 10") & Aquarius Records in San Fran (click on "Favorites" for each employee)... for both sites, sign up for the email updates for weekly new releases.

If anyone is into Free Jazz, check out my site.

from zines to msg boards to slashdot similar thing to online stores to even online encyclopedias... there's a variety of information sources...here's just a few of the ones i know.

the fake matador bb
i love music
aquarius records
pitchfork
pataphysics research lab
mideheaven mailorder
all music guide

m.