And Celebrate Brooklyn we will.

Bust out those Google Calenders, because the long cold winter nightmare of not seeing free outdoor shows is finally over. This year’s Celebrate Brooklyn lineup is just another annual reminder of how much better and full of free stuff summer is, which should make all the other seasons feel bad when they look in the mirror. Highlights include Theophilus London, Mavis Staples, Big Boi (as previously reported), James Lidell, the awesome They Might Be Giants and, rounding it all out… Shaggy?! Sure, why not, it’s summer! Full lineup below: (more…)

Don’t worry, we won’t tell. Photo via Flickr user disloyalorderof.

You know that collection of abandoned CDs hanging out on your top shelf growing lonely from disuse? It’s okay, we all have one. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, as most of us did, not only did we witness the transition from cassettes to CDs, we also survived the great migration from CDs to MP3s. But that only raised the great question of our generation: what are we supposed to do with all these damn CDs we bought in the last 15 years? Amazon knows your plight, and they want to help you out, with free CD to MP3 conversion.

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Soundtrack this injury and you can start your road to the Grammys. via HitFix

“My roommate” was watching Teen Mom the other day and there was one song that played on loop throughout the episode and I thought, “Damn, if I was this band I’d be kinda pissed at my manager.” But I also had never heard of the band before so it was cool that they were getting play in a show that exposes them to a (sadly) huge number of viewers. Find out how to get your songs featured in teen dramas and into the ear holes of the youth of America at a Music Industry Secrets event at Knitting Factory on Tuesday, Dec. 4.  (more…)

Get a new generation rocking. Or at least trying.

Brooklyn is big enough to incubate more child talent than just a single 8-year old DJ. But it also has pockets of poverty where the will to play is there, but not the means. So Give Kids Your Instruments, a Bed-Stuy group, has stepped up to get instruments into the hands of kids who want to play one don’t have the means to afford one. (more…)

Sure looks bizarre. Via Brooklyn Night Bazaar.

Brooklyn’s answer to the recession: make consumerism a party! The Brooklyn Night Bazaar is back for a festive holiday season run of shopping, food, music, booze every Friday and Saturday from Nov. 23 through Dec. 22, 6pm-midnight, at 45 N. 5th St (b/t Wythe & Kent) in Williamsburg. Featuring more than 200 of the top local makers, artists, vendors, brewers, and artisanal food purveyors, plus a curated music lineup each night, you can get all your shopping done while getting drunk and listening to a hip soundtrack in a massive warehouse. Multitasking, Brooklyn-style.  (more…)

Filligar returns to CMJ this year, playing two showcases. 2011 photo from the No Pulp Music showcase by Sarah Bibi.

It’s here! CMJ 2012 returns on Tuesday, and the official schedule has been posted. The long-running music marathon might be the best five days (and nights) yet, with more than 1,300 performances at more than 80 different venues. I know all y’all Brokesters already bought your $549 badge, but just in case a few of you out there chose groceries over tuneage, we’ve compiled a list of the official (and a few unofficial) FREE CMJ events for your pleasure. Sure, there are lots of big names this year — The Walkmen, Alex Winston, The Mountain Goats, Dum Dum Girls, GZA — but every CMJ fanatic will tell you that the best part of this fest is that amazing discovery of “the band that practices across the street from you.” (more…)

He’s sad for you that your fake tickets were printed on some sort of cracker-like substance. Via ILP Video.

So you were all excited about the eight crazy nights of Jay-Z shows to open up the LIBOR Barclays Center, or, as no one but me calls it, Hovanukkah. Problem is, the tickets disappeared faster than Memphis Bleek. Or you bought some scalped ones that cost $150 or were fake, as we heard someone complaining about at a bar. But now, like a benevolent deity, Hov is opening his palace of wonders to we mortals with a free live stream of Saturday’s eighth and final show, on his new YouTube channel, Life and Times.  (more…)

Do you guys accept Pitchfork points to cover the check?

Grizzly Bear is, by all accounts, one of the most successful indie bands of all time. Even non-scenesters have heard the Brooklyn-based band’s music in commercials, movie soundtracks and The Colbert Report. But what does indie success buy you in the real world in this day and age? New York Magazine takes a look at how the “aggressively well-regarded” band fares financially, and it turns out Pitchfork love alone don’t pay the bills. Their lives are none too different from the rest of us (save for the touring with Radiohead part): their days involve returning to a 450-square foot Williamsburg apartment, not having health insurance, avoiding paying for hotel rooms when possible and other signs that music “success” ain’t the bag of drugs and hookers it used to be.

“Obviously we’re surviving,” Ed Droste, one of the band’s singers, told the magazine. “Some of us have health insurance, some of us don’t, we basically all live in the same places, no one’s renting private jets. Come to your own conclusions.” Read the whole story here.

One of the more popular song selections at kids’ karaoke.

Ever notice how parents of babies are the most sanctimonious ones? Because only babies have to put up with organic kale, breast milk, unbleached organic cotton diapers, and sustainably harvested wood blocks. Not to mention all that quality message music from well-intended kindie bands. As soon as children are old enough to assert their own tastes, they want to eat crap, play with shitty plastic toys, mind meld with brain-frying electronic devices and listen to Z-100 nonstop.

If and when you’re ready to capitulate to your child’s top-40 tastes, consider taking him or her to kids’ karaoke Tuesday nights at Cheeburger Cheeburger in Park Slope. That is, if you can handle watching a gaggle of 6-to-9-year-old girls singing There’s passion in my pants and I aint afraid to show it. 

You actually might find yourself singing along. (more…)

Your songs can be the soundtrack for the next Teen Mom.

Pay attention, musicians, because we like you and want to support you, but forcing us to go to a glitter-vomit MySpace page to find out about you is like making us to go deep into the grundle of Times Square for a morning coffee. As as a way to help kill the lingering MySpace generation, MTV (which used to stand for “music” television, kids) has just launched its own free artists’ profile service called MTV Artists, where you can put up songs, band photos, interviews, tour dates, news and links to albums and merch. The service even teases that you could “get your video on air” (aw, that’s cute MTV) or submit a song to be used in a show (more likely). They even offer you ways to make money off the page. (more…)