Category: Everything

Blip Festival 2008 is coming up December 4-7 in Brooklyn, NY. Self-described as a “four-day event showcasing nearly 40 musicians and visual artists occupying the international low-res cutting edge”, it sounds pretty incredible!

We’re giving away 3 pairs of tickets to the event so you and a friend can rock out to pixel pop all weekend. Simply check out the full list of performing artists on the site, and let us know in the comments who are you most looking forward to seeing and why. Is it their circuit bending skills or the way they use lo-fi electronic synthesis to create polyphonic, rhythm-driven electronic music? Explore the artists fall in love!

We’ll select 3 winners with the best comments on Friday November 28th. Good luck!

Video preview of the festival:

Anthony will be in London this week for Musexpo. They thought it’d be fun to put together a little bowling showdown with two of our favorite music companies, Topspin Media and Songkick. Come out and say hi!

When: Tuesday, October 28th @ 8:30pm to Midnight
Where: Bloomsbury Bowling
(We’ll have a few lanes reserved, but it wouldn’t hurt to call and get one yourself just in case)

More info on Topspin’s blog

Armin Schmidt of Aupeo is our final winner of the CMJ badge giveaway! Congrats!

In other news, I just got an iPhone last weekend. I know I’m behind times but it’s pretty freakin’ cool. What are your favorite iPhone music apps and what do you like about them? We’re thinking about putting together a Hype Machine app as an early Christmas present 🙂

I’m also obsessed with Photoswap, the app that lets you exchange photos with strangers. I was swapping with people in Japan and Amsterdam last night!

Today’s Winner: Anna Kesson receives a pair of CMJ Marathon badges for her and a friend! Enter now for the last chance to win tomorrow.

So there are hundreds of music startups showing up everyday. Three of my favorites released new features this week that are worth letting you guys know about!

Amie Street launches updated site

Amie Streets a digital music store that has variable pricing. Everything starts off free, and the price slowly goes up as it gains popularity, eventually hitting 99 cents. You literally get rewarded for taking a chance on new and undiscovered music!

Hobnox Audiotool relaunches

I won’t begin to pretend like I know a thing about audio production or making music, but this in-browser tool lets you create complex setups of real-life looking synthesizers, tools, and effects to edit and record digital mixes. Did I say in-browser already? It’s insanely impressive and should be very useful for musicians. We hung out with part of the team while we were in Berlin, and are excited things are moving fast for them!

Grooveshark launches playlist sharing, and widgets

Grooveshark shut down its old beta site today (buying music through p2p sharing), to concentrate on their Grooveshark Lite product that’s been getting a lot of attention. Check out the above tour (created by my roommate Ben Westermann-Clark) or see for yourself at listen.grooveshark.com

Here’s the CMJ Marathon 2008 widget I put together:

Run into any really cool music startups lately? Let us know in the comments!

Darryl Wilkin step on down. You’re the winner on The Hype Is Right!

Enter the contest now! We’ll be giving away another pair of badges Thursday and Friday this week.