
What better way to kick off your Friday than with a selection of the best tracks from the It All Started archives? If I'm honest though, this is really just an excuse for me to repost all those tracks that I love and that you may have missed the first time round. It's high quality stuff, and there'll be more this time next week. Enjoy! The Hanging Tree - Nightjar | myspace Blessing In Disguise - [...]

Look at what you've found! Not only have you, lucky internet visitor, stumbled upon a collection of incredibly awesome 100 percent free and legal tunes , but you've also got some cool art to look at and learn about. What have you done to deserve all of this amazingness?? Not much. We know. Thing is, that doesn't matter to us... just being here is enough to warrant some wonderful new tunes from the likes of Antlers and Cold Cave and the National and Trans Am and so many more. As always, simply click on the band name to visit [...]

Got a string of brand new tracks in the last couple of days. No time for words, as more brand new music is pouring in as we speak. Enjoy the latest, greatest additions to my music library: Deer Tick - Twenty Miles from The Black Dirt Sessions (out 6.8.10) Band of Horses - Compliments [...]

As part of the April issue of Esquire, the almost 80 year-old men's culture magazine asked five singer-songwriters to take part in their Esquire Songwriting Challenge by inviting them to the Shack-Up Inn in Clarksdale, Mississippi to take part in a two-day fashion shoot with photographer Danny Clinch. The challenge called for each artist to write and record an original song with lyrics that included the phrase - Somewhere in Mississippi. Among those to participate was our slacker-rocker [...]

So our very own locally grown boy Ben Kweller is offering up this new track "It All Happened" for free. The song doesn't appear on any of Kweller's previous releases and apparently is just a one and done single situation. We had to shrink the quality of the song just a bit since it's so long and we can't be uploading 8min songs at super high quality. If you've got a little time on your hands, check out the extended story telling song. I still dig his simple approach. Download: Ben Kweller - It All Happened [...]
We enjoyed snippets from the new Shel Silverstein tribute album this morning for sure, but if you're like me, a free MP3 is still where it's at. Here are a few standout tracks from the download queue today… Rufus Wainwright dropped the opening track from his forthcoming album , All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu, at Stereogum . Stream/download "Where Are You New York?" here . Betty LaVette covered the Rolling Stones' "Salt of the Earth," and Paste Magazine (whose taste in Tumblr [...]
CoS favorite Ben Kweller is busy at work on his fifth studio LP, but he did recently find time to take part in a photo shoot for Esquire Magazine . Kweller, along with Dierks Bentley, Charlie Mars, Bob Schneider, Griffin House, were flown to Clarksdale, Mississippi and given cool new robes for their shoot with Danny Clinch. They were also given a challenge: to write, perform, and record an original song with lyrics that include the phrase "Somewhere in Mississippi". Mr. Kweller's finished product is an acoustic selection titled "It All Happened (Somewhere [...]
Grab 'It All Happened' via Esquire. Last year, Ben Kweller performed at NYC's Town Hall. Visit Ben Kweller on MySpace. MP3: Ben Kweller - Sundress

Sometime in 2000 or 2001, some friends of mine and I went to see Ben Kweller at the Bluebird Theatre. The crazy thing was that there was some erratic Southern rock band named My Morning Jacket was opening up for Ben Kweller. Sha Sha. Little did we know that they were going to blow up. Esquire has been offering free downloads of their favorite musicians-Dierks Bentley, Charlie Mars, Bob Schneider, Griffin House, and Ben Kweller since this past Monday and continues till Friday. They asked them to come to the Shack-Up Inn in Clarksdale, [...]
Head over to Esquire to download a new Charlie Mars track. More like it: CD Review: "Yung Mars" by Yung Mars FREE MP3: Jonsi, A B & the Sea, Portugal. The Man FREE MP3: Dosh - "Number 413 (Feat. Andrew Bird)

Website Here's a recording I made of Ben Kweller performing on the AT&T Stage on a typically hot afternoon at the ACL Festival in Austin, Texas. Ben's performance was a return visit to the festival after cutting short his set the previous year due to a nosebleed of epic proportions. Ben makes reference to the incident during the performance, which featured many of his trademark powerpop classics. The set also gave a first glimpse of the new country direction which would become apparent with [...]
![[PTGEAIYGTSBWLAEIYWG Mix - Part 1]](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/2411016_lg.jpg)
The People To Get Excited About If You're Going To SXSW But Would Like Anyway Even If You Weren't Going Mix Part 1 of 2 You're probably wondering what the hell all those letters mean. Kicking off South By Southwest coverage this year is a massive mix for a massive fest. There's been quite a bit of material I could have covered before the fest officially goes down, and the operative phrase there is "could have." Undoubtedly, it's a gargantuan amount, and the time I've had lately has [...]
Singer/songwriter Amy Cook 's masterful new April 6 roots/rock album Let The Light In is blessed with a number of musical guests who, in a way, help define the gutsy and extraordinary diversity at work here. For starters, there's Alejandro Escovedo, her prominent and praised fellow Austinite who marks Light as his first job as producer and adds his own distinctive guitar edge as well. Ben Kweller, another Lone Star luminary and friend, teams up with Cook for a co-write credit while the gifted Patty Griffin and Tosca String Quartet add harmonies and orchestration [...]

|:| Ben Kweller. The other long-haired Ginger. |:| I have been trying to keep up with the Olympics. I hope we can fend of those bloody Germans for the rest of the week. And as you should know by now, one of the most decorated US Olympians, Shaun White, has been tearing it up on the halfpipe. He makes it look like he is barely trying. What's up rest of the world? Well while I have been [...]
If you're about to head out on a date or are getting back from one and you need some songs to wallow or sulk in, take heed.

Part five in an ongoing series . With two little girls in the family, and a deliberate tendency towards inclusion over babysitters, Valentine's Day seems to have become a family affair by default. This year, for example, what was originally intended as a suggestion for a romantic afternoon has somehow turned into plans for a nice brunch out with the four of us, followed by a family hottub soak - though I'm not saying what might follow once the kids are abed. It's nice to think of Valentine's as [...]

Filed under: News , Exclusive , Road Report T ouring alongside and collaborating with acclaimed artists has been the norm for California folksters the Watson Twins in recent years. Some may even say it's the duo's claim to fame. The indie world took notice of Chandra and Leigh Watson after they sang back-up for Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis on her first solo album, 'Rabbit Fur Coat,' in 2006. "Our album with Jenny was kind of where it all started coming together for [...]
While he has spent time in New York and Los Angeles, to record the self-titled debut from The Greatcoats [ MySpace ], David Tenczar , songwriter and frontman, returned to his Austin roots to finish the record. The album will be released on March 9th and he'll be banding together with his usual cadre of musicians for promotional dates and, hopefully, a tour. To quote the band, you'll definitely "the music of The Greatcoats is, at heart, music that reminds you of better times." It's retro-rock (think The Beatles, Supergrass or [...]

Let's go back to 2006 for a sec. Ben Kweller is full of life, love, and raucousness - like the little brother you ignore, until the day you discover he's raided your record collection and well... is now writing pretty fucking amazing quirky love songs and contemplative ballads. I have much respect to him for opting to plays all the instruments himself and pulling off an album that comes across sounding like a full band. Stellar song below, enjoy. MP3: " Thirteen " by Ben Kweller