Hittin The Links With The Night Beat

No, this isn't the announcement of the Night Beat Open Golf Tournament (though that might be a good idea, or maybe not.) No, this will be my attempt at my first "Link Love Post" as they call them. For as best as I can figure out, link love is the Blog Worlds version of the Golden rule "Give Link unto others that they may give link unto thee, and cause thy followers to skyrocket" (St. Bloggo 1:1). Personally the term Link Love seems to come straight out of Odo and Star Trek DS9, but that's just me.

Part One: Music Blogs

• The Free Christian Music Blog
• Jay's Musik Blog
• The Flipside MN 

Of the three listed, I must confess to liking the Flipside the best. I recently bought a new flash drive with this site in mind, because this deals with Classic Vinyl (70's, 80's mostly).

Part Two: The Big Boys

• New Release Tuesday This is probably one of my prime sources for releases. They usually have one album preview a week (sometimes two), and a few free downloads that are usually up for a two week period. There is also an occasional audio podcast. Registration is required (there is also a Facebook option for some things. You can earn points for reviews, blogs, etc, which can be used to buy buttons shirts and other stuff in their store.
• Hearitfirst Another good site. Their listening parties, though more sporadic than NRT, are superior in my estimation. The listening parties take place on individual "artist pages" (ex. http://www.hearitfirst.com/Building429) and can be listened to independently by song. NRT is a complete stream, which, if you pause, you can pick up where you left, but, say, if your browser crashes, when you return you will have to start again from the beginning. Registration is not required to listen to the music, but registration gets you on their email list, where a weekly newsletter keys you in to free downloads each week. They run sweepstakes for music and shirts and the like and have occasional live video stream concerts.
• Jesus Freak Hideout The last of the big three. They don't have many downloads, but the ones they have stay up quite long. They also have occasional album streams, which also stay up for a longer period of time than NRT or Hearitfirst. Another cool thing on JFH Listening parties, apart from also being accessible by song, is that they stay while others get added, so it is possible to have as many as 8 streams up at once. This is a no registration needed site. 

Part Three: Non-Music Blogs from around the 'net 

Finally, I thought throw in a few non music blogs that I have enjoyed around the net. Sara in Le Petit Village is a hilarious diary of a Texan transplanted in France. Now Sara's not perfect (She doesn't like Walker Texas Ranger) but who is. If you ever felt a bit of culture shock, this is a blog you'll enjoy. My politics has always skewed to the right, and one of my favorites is Ameripundit. Finally, I'm an aspiring writer, so I try to keep up with other writers. Austin James, a young man from Vancouver, has an excellent blog. He poses a lot of thought inducing questions, which always helps any author. If you don't think of your characters, who will.

I think that should suffice for now. This is my first post like this. I had put this post on the back burner, but with the recent blogger outage, I thought that it best to get out some kind of post quickly. I will return to music shortly.