Merlin In Rags Returns as The Dancing Master

In keeping with the tradition of informing the music blog community of news concerning our favorite blogs, I am happy to report that another long-time blogger has rejoined our ranks after recently having his blog removed by Blogger. The person I'm referring to in this instance is "Merlin", the former admin of the blog "Merlin In Rags". Merlin has returned with a new blog, titled "The Return of the Dancing Master" (or the Transfiguration of Merlin), which can be found at: http://thereturnofthedancingmaster.blogspot.com/

Merlin picked up where he left off, apparently without missing a beat, already having posted 16 albums for the month of August. As with his former blog, The Return of the Dancing Master delivers vinyl rips of rare, out of print albums. His specialty is blues and roots music, including country, rockabilly, folk, and related genres.

It's great to see that another blogger has refused to call it quits, opting to keep pushing forward, rather than choosing to lay down and die as so many other blogs have. Please be sure to pay his new blog a visit. I would like to thank the Irate Pirate, who runs the Wrath of the Grapevine blog for the tip.

The Return of the Dancing Master:
http://thereturnofthedancingmaster.blogspot.com

Merlin In Rags Returns as The Dancing Master

In keeping with the tradition of informing the music blog community of news concerning our favorite blogs, I am happy to report that another long-time blogger has rejoined our ranks after recently having his blog removed by Blogger. The person I'm referring to in this instance is "Merlin", the former admin of the blog "Merlin In Rags". Merlin has returned with a new blog, titled "The Return of the Dancing Master" (or the Transfiguration of Merlin), which can be found at: http://thereturnofthedancingmaster.blogspot.com/

Merlin picked up where he left off, apparently without missing a beat, already having posted 16 albums for the month of August. As with his former blog, The Return of the Dancing Master delivers vinyl rips of rare, out of print albums. His specialty is blues and roots music, including country, rockabilly, folk, and related genres.

It's great to see that another blogger has refused to call it quits, opting to keep pushing forward, rather than choosing to lay down and die as so many other blogs have. Please be sure to pay his new blog a visit. I would like to thank the Irate Pirate, who runs the Wrath of the Grapevine blog for the tip.

The Return of the Dancing Master:
http://thereturnofthedancingmaster.blogspot.com

Help Wanted

I will be moving to Oklahoma in two days. I have no idea how long it will be before I have internet access again. During the last few months I have had a number of very important responsibilities to take care of in my personal life. Please see this post for a more detailed explanation: http://digitalmeltd0wn.blogspot.com/2009/07/regarding-my-absence.html

I am currently looking for someone who would be willing to contribute over at my regular music blog, Digital Meltd0wn. At the moment I have a few guest contributors helping out, and they have done an amazing job. In fact, I wouldn't have been able to keep the blog going without their help. However, two of those contributors recently started college and live very busy lives, so it is unlikely that they will be able to contribute much until their semester is over. J-Unit1 has agreed to post for a couple of weeks, but will be resuming work on his own blog once he is finished. NØ originally agreed to guest blog here for a couple of weeks, but fortunately for me he decided to stick around and continue to post. Being the absent minded person that I am, I have neglected to send him a message regarding this, but I'm not sure how long he plans to help me out.

What I'm looking for is someone who can regularly contribute on a permanent basis. The only requirements are a large music collection, the willing to share the more obscure albums, and the ability to post a couple of times a week. Knowledge of HTML and the Blogger platform would be a plus, but is not absolutely necessary because I can always go back and edit the posts if I need to.

If any of you are interested in this position please try to contact me within the next two days. I will be unable to check my messages or comments after that. You can e-mail me at Shockw4ve_X at hotmail dot com or leave a comment here with details about how I can contact you.

Help Wanted

I will be moving to Oklahoma in two days. I have no idea how long it will be before I have internet access again. During the last few months I have had a number of very important responsibilities to take care of in my personal life. Please see this post for a more detailed explanation: http://digitalmeltd0wn.blogspot.com/2009/07/regarding-my-absence.html

I am currently looking for someone who would be willing to contribute over at my regular music blog, Digital Meltd0wn. At the moment I have a few guest contributors helping out, and they have done an amazing job. In fact, I wouldn't have been able to keep the blog going without their help. However, two of those contributors recently started college and live very busy lives, so it is unlikely that they will be able to contribute much until their semester is over. J-Unit1 has agreed to post for a couple of weeks, but will be resuming work on his own blog once he is finished. NØ originally agreed to guest blog here for a couple of weeks, but fortunately for me he decided to stick around and continue to post. Being the absent minded person that I am, I have neglected to send him a message regarding this, but I'm not sure how long he plans to help me out.

What I'm looking for is someone who can regularly contribute on a permanent basis. The only requirements are a large music collection, the willing to share the more obscure albums, and the ability to post a couple of times a week. Knowledge of HTML and the Blogger platform would be a plus, but is not absolutely necessary because I can always go back and edit the posts if I need to.

If any of you are interested in this position please try to contact me within the next two days. I will be unable to check my messages or comments after that. You can e-mail me at Shockw4ve_X at hotmail dot com or leave a comment here with details about how I can contact you.

Join me on Blip.fm

I just recently discovered a promising and relatively new site by the name of Blip.fm. Blip allows it's members to DJ music using a Twitter-like interface, with a massive selection of songs available from Imeem to choose from, in addition to the content uploaded by members on third party sites.

I first decided to use the service to share music that I wouldn't normally post here, such as recently released material or music that is commercially available. However, since I have started using the service I have come to realize that it also happens to be a great resource for discovering music that I am unfamiliar with, and has also allowed me to rediscover a few old favorites.

As with Twitter, members have 140 characters to play with when writing their messages. Despite the simple interface, there are a number of options available to blippers that allow them to share music and interact with one another. If you are familiar with Twitter commands, such as replying to another person using the @User command, then you will have no problems using the service. Despite the similarities to Twitter, there are a number of music related features that set it apart from it also. DJs are able to create playlists, "reblip" their own blips and those of others, find other members who have blipped the same artist, search blip.fm receive artist's tour info based on your their area code and more. Members are also able to upload their own songs to third party hosting sites, import the url, and blip the song. This is the best method for sharing music that isn't available on Imeem. I recommend using http://opendrive.com, which starts you off with 5 gigs of space with a free account, if you don't already know of a host that allows hotlinking to mp3 files. Blip.fm has also added integration with other services. At the moment you can scrobble songs you have listened to on blip.fm to your last.fm account, and post updates to Twitter, Ping.fm, FriendFeed, Tumblr, and LiveJournal.

Blip has also set up a system for showing your respect to other DJs for the songs they select. Each DJ receives 15 prop credits to award other DJs when they first sign up. At the moment the props have no practical purpose, other than to show appreciation; however, the developers have hinted around on the blip.fm blog that this will change in the near future.

If you're looking for a truly eclectic listening experience I would recommend going to the public page where you can view every blip being posted in real time. Every style you can imagine eventually makes its way on here. The majority of it is mainstream music, although there are several DJs who make it a point to offer up lesser known yet interesting music. After only a few days of using Blip.fm I have already discovered a few people worth following, and have gained a few followers myself. I would like to invite you all to join me on blip.fm. Please use the invite link that I have posted here, as blip rewards you 10 prop credits to dish out to other members for each person you invite. I hope to see some of you on Blip.fm soon. Please don't be comment shy if you join up. I love interacting with others, especially when dealing with music. I've been sharing music with visitors to this blog for nearly three years now. Now some of you can finally introduce me to the music that you love in return.

Blip.fm: http://ping.fm/vu2yY
My Blip.fm Page: http://blip.fm/Zer0_II/Zer0_II

I would also like to thank OneLuvGurl for inadvertently introducing me to Blip.fm. Check out her blog @ http://dorkmuffin.com

Join me on Blip.fm

I just recently discovered a promising and relatively new site by the name of Blip.fm. Blip allows it's members to DJ music using a Twitter-like interface, with a massive selection of songs available from Imeem to choose from, in addition to the content uploaded by members on third party sites.

I first decided to use the service to share music that I wouldn't normally post here, such as recently released material or music that is commercially available. However, since I have started using the service I have come to realize that it also happens to be a great resource for discovering music that I am unfamiliar with, and has also allowed me to rediscover a few old favorites.

As with Twitter, members have 140 characters to play with when writing their messages. Despite the simple interface, there are a number of options available to blippers that allow them to share music and interact with one another. If you are familiar with Twitter commands, such as replying to another person using the @User command, then you will have no problems using the service. Despite the similarities to Twitter, there are a number of music related features that set it apart from it also. DJs are able to create playlists, "reblip" their own blips and those of others, find other members who have blipped the same artist, search blip.fm receive artist's tour info based on your their area code and more. Members are also able to upload their own songs to third party hosting sites, import the url, and blip the song. This is the best method for sharing music that isn't available on Imeem. I recommend using http://opendrive.com, which starts you off with 5 gigs of space with a free account, if you don't already know of a host that allows hotlinking to mp3 files. Blip.fm has also added integration with other services. At the moment you can scrobble songs you have listened to on blip.fm to your last.fm account, and post updates to Twitter, Ping.fm, FriendFeed, Tumblr, and LiveJournal.

Blip has also set up a system for showing your respect to other DJs for the songs they select. Each DJ receives 15 prop credits to award other DJs when they first sign up. At the moment the props have no practical purpose, other than to show appreciation; however, the developers have hinted around on the blip.fm blog that this will change in the near future.

If you're looking for a truly eclectic listening experience I would recommend going to the public page where you can view every blip being posted in real time. Every style you can imagine eventually makes its way on here. The majority of it is mainstream music, although there are several DJs who make it a point to offer up lesser known yet interesting music. After only a few days of using Blip.fm I have already discovered a few people worth following, and have gained a few followers myself. I would like to invite you all to join me on blip.fm. Please use the invite link that I have posted here, as blip rewards you 10 prop credits to dish out to other members for each person you invite. I hope to see some of you on Blip.fm soon. Please don't be comment shy if you join up. I love interacting with others, especially when dealing with music. I've been sharing music with visitors to this blog for nearly three years now. Now some of you can finally introduce me to the music that you love in return.

Blip.fm: http://ping.fm/vu2yY
My Blip.fm Page: http://blip.fm/Zer0_II/Zer0_II

I would also like to thank OneLuvGurl for inadvertently introducing me to Blip.fm. Check out her blog @ http://dorkmuffin.com

A Few New Features and Plans for the Future

As some of you may have noticed, I have replaced the Grazr widget that I used to display the latest blog updates with a new method. The Grazr widget was great, and is a more user friendly method for displaying blog updates, yet it only allowed me to list 50 blogs. I would like to thank Mindfield, who runs the Xchannel aggregator for introducing me to the Google Feed Ajax API, which is the script used to display the updates. It will allow me to list updates for every blog on the list. As of yet, I've only managed to add a few dozen blogs, but I will work my way through the entire list over the next few days.

I'm still not entirely pleased with the appearance of it though, yet my javascript skills are rather weak, so I will have to need further assistance before I can make any more modifications. I plan to increase the amount of text from each post that is displayed, and list the title of the blog instead of the post author, as I'm sure more of you are familiar with blog titles rather than their respective authors. If you're familiar with javascript and willing to help me out, please leave a comment.

I also plan to overhaul the custom search engine that I created. I just recently found out that more people are using it than I realized, so I will do my best to make it more user friendly. I will be adding more sources to search, changing the appearance, and possibly integrate it directly into the blog so that you don't have to exit the page.

The last bit of news I would to announce is that I have created a new button for the blogroll. The old button looked nice, but it gave one little clue as to the purpose of the site. I think the new version does a much better job of that. If you are currently displaying a button for the blogroll on your site, please replace it with the updated button. The new button can be found below, and if you need the code to display it click here. For future reference, you can find the button and code on the main menu where is reads "Show Your Support". I would like to know what you think of the recent changes, and the possible new features. Please leave a comment.

http://zer0ii.zer0ii.googlepages.com/dmblogroll.png

A Few New Features and Plans for the Future

As some of you may have noticed, I have replaced the Grazr widget that I used to display the latest blog updates with a new method. The Grazr widget was great, and is a more user friendly method for displaying blog updates, yet it only allowed me to list 50 blogs. I would like to thank Mindfield, who runs the Xchannel aggregator for introducing me to the Google Feed Ajax API, which is the script used to display the updates. It will allow me to list updates for every blog on the list. As of yet, I've only managed to add a few dozen blogs, but I will work my way through the entire list over the next few days.

I'm still not entirely pleased with the appearance of it though, yet my javascript skills are rather weak, so I will have to need further assistance before I can make any more modifications. I plan to increase the amount of text from each post that is displayed, and list the title of the blog instead of the post author, as I'm sure more of you are familiar with blog titles rather than their respective authors. If you're familiar with javascript and willing to help me out, please leave a comment.

I also plan to overhaul the custom search engine that I created. I just recently found out that more people are using it than I realized, so I will do my best to make it more user friendly. I will be adding more sources to search, changing the appearance, and possibly integrate it directly into the blog so that you don't have to exit the page.

The last bit of news I would to announce is that I have created a new button for the blogroll. The old button looked nice, but it gave one little clue as to the purpose of the site. I think the new version does a much better job of that. If you are currently displaying a button for the blogroll on your site, please replace it with the updated button. The new button can be found below, and if you need the code to display it click here. For future reference, you can find the button and code on the main menu where is reads "Show Your Support". I would like to know what you think of the recent changes, and the possible new features. Please leave a comment.

http://zer0ii.zer0ii.googlepages.com/dmblogroll.png

Major Update Tomorrow

As some of you may already know, I spent the majority October working on uploading material for my other blog in celebration of the blogger community's Halloween Countdown. During that time I managed to put together two lists of blogs offering Halloween treats, but my work on these projects didn't leave me much time to update the blogroll itself.

Tomorrow I will be making extensive changes to the list. Unfortunately, several blogs have been deleted since then. I will update the urls if they have moved, and remove them from the list if they haven't. There will be a number of new blogs appearing on the list, and a few old blogs that I've only recently discovered.

I also plan to replace the grazr widget at the top of the page. The grazr widget is great, yet it limits me to including only 50 blogs, and I've also recently been made aware of better methods of sharing unlimited blog updates. It may take some time for me to implement this change, but it will definitely be worth the wait. I hope you all will enjoy the changes and additions to come. As always, please leave me feedback to let me know what's working, what isn't, and what could be improved.

Major Update Tomorrow

As some of you may already know, I spent the majority October working on uploading material for my other blog in celebration of the blogger community's Halloween Countdown. During that time I managed to put together two lists of blogs offering Halloween treats, but my work on these projects didn't leave me much time to update the blogroll itself.

Tomorrow I will be making extensive changes to the list. Unfortunately, several blogs have been deleted since then. I will update the urls if they have moved, and remove them from the list if they haven't. There will be a number of new blogs appearing on the list, and a few old blogs that I've only recently discovered.

I also plan to replace the grazr widget at the top of the page. The grazr widget is great, yet it limits me to including only 50 blogs, and I've also recently been made aware of better methods of sharing unlimited blog updates. It may take some time for me to implement this change, but it will definitely be worth the wait. I hope you all will enjoy the changes and additions to come. As always, please leave me feedback to let me know what's working, what isn't, and what could be improved.

Recommend Your Favorite Blogs

I should have made a post like this a long time ago. Some of you may be aware that I run another blog in addition to this blogroll simply titled Digital Meltd0wn. Several months back I requested that the visitors to DM suggest their favorite blogs to me. The response was overwhelming, and prompted me to start a list, which would eventually evolve into this blogroll. However, since that time I've been doing all the work on this list. At times it can be rather time consuming to track down blogs, review them, edit the list and keep it organized, etc. I work 11 hour shifts each day, so it's refreshing when people suggest their blogs or others to me because it saves me a lot of work.

So now it's time to give you all the chance to help. Your mission is simple: If you know of any music blogs that deserve recognition, but aren't on this list, just leave a comment here. All I need is the name of the blog, and the url. If you would like to include additional information that would be nice, but it's not necessary. I will review these blogs and add them to the list if they meet my criteria for being listed. Thank you all once again for your support. I hope to see a lot of responses.

Recommend Your Favorite Blogs

I should have made a post like this a long time ago. Some of you may be aware that I run another blog in addition to this blogroll simply titled Digital Meltd0wn. Several months back I requested that the visitors to DM suggest their favorite blogs to me. The response was overwhelming, and prompted me to start a list, which would eventually evolve into this blogroll. However, since that time I've been doing all the work on this list. At times it can be rather time consuming to track down blogs, review them, edit the list and keep it organized, etc. I work 11 hour shifts each day, so it's refreshing when people suggest their blogs or others to me because it saves me a lot of work.

So now it's time to give you all the chance to help. Your mission is simple: If you know of any music blogs that deserve recognition, but aren't on this list, just leave a comment here. All I need is the name of the blog, and the url. If you would like to include additional information that would be nice, but it's not necessary. I will review these blogs and add them to the list if they meet my criteria for being listed. Thank you all once again for your support. I hope to see a lot of responses.

Digital Meltd0wn on Twitter

After hearing constant buzz about the phenomena known as Twitter, I've finally decided to give it a try. When I first read about Twitter, I thought it was a useless idea, as I'm sure many others have. However, I noticed a few users who were able to put the service to good use by being original, and I thought perhaps I could do the same. At the moment I'm only using it to post updates to my blog, but if enough people are interested in following me on Twitter, I will eventually incorporate other ideas. Of course if no one is interested, then I will eventually abandon this idea. So without further ado, here is the Twitter page for Digital Meltd0wn:

Digital Meltd0wn Twitter Updates:
http://twitter.com/DigitalMeltd0wn

Digital Meltd0wn on Twitter

After hearing constant buzz about the phenomena known as Twitter, I've finally decided to give it a try. When I first read about Twitter, I thought it was a useless idea, as I'm sure many others have. However, I noticed a few users who were able to put the service to good use by being original, and I thought perhaps I could do the same. At the moment I'm only using it to post updates to my blog, but if enough people are interested in following me on Twitter, I will eventually incorporate other ideas. Of course if no one is interested, then I will eventually abandon this idea. So without further ado, here is the Twitter page for Digital Meltd0wn:

Digital Meltd0wn Twitter Updates:
http://twitter.com/DigitalMeltd0wn

Finally Back...

I was without internet access for much longer than I anticipated, but I'm finally back. I will resume adding blogs to the blogroll, and sort through those that were suggested to me over the next couple of days. I noticed that traffic didn't drop down at all during my absence, which is great. Thank you all for your support. Take care.

-Z

Finally Back...

I was without internet access for much longer than I anticipated, but I'm finally back. I will resume adding blogs to the blogroll, and sort through those that were suggested to me over the next couple of days. I noticed that traffic didn't drop down at all during my absence, which is great. Thank you all for your support. Take care.

-Z

Be Back Shortly

I'll be without internet access for a short time. Hopefully it won't last more than a couple of days. I wish that I could have found someone to guest blog during the meantime, but unfortunately I didn't have much notice or time on my hands. I'll be back before you know it though.

Update: Unfortunately it looks as if I'm going to be without internet access for a few more days. I'm intercepting someone else's connection at the moment. Over the next couple of days I'll do my best to add a few more blogs, respond to comments, and check the blogs that have been requested to be added to the blogroll. Stay tuned for more updates.

Be Back Shortly

I'll be without internet access for a short time. Hopefully it won't last more than a couple of days. I wish that I could have found someone to guest blog during the meantime, but unfortunately I didn't have much notice or time on my hands. I'll be back before you know it though.

Update: Unfortunately it looks as if I'm going to be without internet access for a few more days. I'm intercepting someone else's connection at the moment. Over the next couple of days I'll do my best to add a few more blogs, respond to comments, and check the blogs that have been requested to be added to the blogroll. Stay tuned for more updates.

Please Give Me Some Feedback

Although the main function of this blog will always be to strive to serve as the authoritive music blogroll on the internet, some of you may have noticed that I periodically post information concerning music blogs, music related software, industry news, etc. Before I continue with this tradition, I would like to get some feedback from you fine visitors. Is this something that you would like to continue to see in the future, or would you prefer only to see the blogroll when you visit this blog?

I'm particularly concerned with reorganizing not only the blogroll, but the blog/site as a whole, in order to make it easier to navigate. The list has grown much larger than I had originally invisioned, and I realize that it has become rather tedious to navigate. I was considering either adding a main menu, with the subcategories 'Blogroll', 'Music Blog News', 'Music Industry News', and 'Resources' under the welcome/intro. I've also considered adding either a drop down menu, with which I could add the previously mentioned menu categories, as well as a way to skip straight to the category you prefer on the blogroll. Another option I've considered is to use a tabbed layout once again using the menu subcategories. Of course I could always just leave everything the way it is.

I've been getting close to 1,000 visitors a day here, and sometimes more, so I'm going to be disappointed if there aren't any comments in response to this.

I want to know what direction you would like to see this site go in, and it's impossible for me to know unless you provide me with feedback.

Any feedback, suggestions for improvement, innovative ideas, and critiques are welcome. Lay them on me.

Please Give Me Some Feedback

Although the main function of this blog will always be to strive to serve as the authoritive music blogroll on the internet, some of you may have noticed that I periodically post information concerning music blogs, music related software, industry news, etc. Before I continue with this tradition, I would like to get some feedback from you fine visitors. Is this something that you would like to continue to see in the future, or would you prefer only to see the blogroll when you visit this blog?

I'm particularly concerned with reorganizing not only the blogroll, but the blog/site as a whole, in order to make it easier to navigate. The list has grown much larger than I had originally invisioned, and I realize that it has become rather tedious to navigate. I was considering either adding a main menu, with the subcategories 'Blogroll', 'Music Blog News', 'Music Industry News', and 'Resources' under the welcome/intro. I've also considered adding either a drop down menu, with which I could add the previously mentioned menu categories, as well as a way to skip straight to the category you prefer on the blogroll. Another option I've considered is to use a tabbed layout once again using the menu subcategories. Of course I could always just leave everything the way it is.

I've been getting close to 1,000 visitors a day here, and sometimes more, so I'm going to be disappointed if there aren't any comments in response to this.

I want to know what direction you would like to see this site go in, and it's impossible for me to know unless you provide me with feedback.

Any feedback, suggestions for improvement, innovative ideas, and critiques are welcome. Lay them on me.