I am a music lover without a doubt. I am into all kinds of music, from Jazz to Rock, from Country to Blues, it’s all good to me! When Napster was the king of free “file sharing” I was in my glory. Back in those days I was broke just about all the time and had very little spending cash for food much less Cd’s. So when a friend of mine who had a computer and high speed connection told me about Napster, I couldn’t believe it. Then I gave it a ride for myself and sure enough, it actually worked! But it did have that “too good to be true” feel to it and as it turned out… it was.

So what can people do who dig music but don’t have the extra cash to spend on it? I have come to find that while you might not be able to download your all time favorite band’s music library, you can still find some very good & very free music on the Internet that is available for download, you just have to know where to look is all.

Independent bands these days are finding it harder and harder to acquire fans, it’s especially difficult to get fans to attend shows & concerts. The days of sleeping overnight in line to get tickets are gone! Nowadays people would much rather save their money on the cost of tickets, fuel and beverages and simply stay home and stream their entertainment. So in an effort to acquire fans, many independent bands & artists are offering free music as a way to entice their potential public.

So, in just a few minutes of surfing the net I came across a number of sites offering free and legal music downloads.

For instance: Typhoon Ferri is offering what looks to be an entire album, for free. A smooth-groove sounding band with a touch of light 70’s in their sound.

Then we have: Full Caliber – a good hard rockin’ old school-influenced band who is offering two free mp3 tracks just for subscribing to their emailing list! If you dig AC/DC, Sammy Hagar, Billy Squier…. you will most likely find that these guys suit your taste!

Or maybe your into country music? Well: Uncle Lucius is offering their music for download and it’s  free of course.

By all means, we can’t leave out the fans of something a little progressive, for you I found: Band Of Horses of which should suit your needs for good melodic rock.

Oh… Blues you say? Well, I think we can take care of that with no problem t’all, just check the Tommy Castro Band – listen and sing those blues to yer heart’s content!

I could go on and on but I think you have the idea as well as a good foundation to start with.

The only thing I ask is; not to exploit these fine and hard working musicians. By all means they are offering their music for free and if you enjoy it then go ahead and add it to your library. At the same time, perhaps you could offer them something in return? Instead of downloading and running off to the next site, give their websites a good look and take it all in. You could also send them an email telling them that you enjoy their music and appreciate them putting it up for all of us to download. Musicians typically find it far more satisfying when people take the time to thank them for making their music as opposed to having people simply purchase it and move on.

Allow to me add one final note, I would suggest avoiding sites like Kazaa (and others like it) for obvious reasons of spyware & malware.

How I found the sites that I listed was to look up actual bands and artists using Google with key words like: “mp3, free, band, download, artist, group, rock, blues” – of course I played around with the order of the key words and the phrasing, but the point is; go to actual band sites that control and distribute their own music, instead of using those all in one free sites for fear of malware, spyware and possible issues with legality.

Happy listening!

JT-