Track of the Day - Gonna Be Sick by The DO

great song - check it out!!

The DO - Gonna Be Sick

Track of the Day - Open Rhythms by Bodies of Water

Great folk/indie rock track by Bodies of Water.  A bit of a Grateful Dead feel to it.

Bodies of Water - Open Rhythyms

 

Track of the Day - Rusk by Coolrunnings

 

Rusk by Coolrunnings

Track of the Day - Slow Doomsday by Elvis Perkins in Dearland

This track is off an album that came out a couple years ago, but I had never heard of these guys until I found them on songspin.fm.

It's a slow build with a funereal vibe to it, and the guy can really sing.

Slow Doomsday by Elvis Perkins in Dearland

 

Track of the Day - Sweetest Sleep by Mascara

 

These guys remind me a bit of The Field. This is a great track. Enjoy!

 

Mascara - Sweetest Sleep

Track of the Day - Skullcrush by Salem

This track came out a couple of years ago but kind of went under the radar.

It's got a dark feel to it - I guess that's why they call it this genre "Witch House".

Anyway - have a listen!

Salem - Skullcrush

 

 

Track of the Day - Faith Unfolds by S.C.U.M

Good song by London post-punk band, S.C.U.M. 

Check it out!

S.C.U.M - Faith Unfolds

Track of the Day - We All Buy Stars by The Cairos

The Cairos are a band from Australia.  I don't know a lot about them, but I really like this track.

The Cairos - We All Buy Stars

 

Track of the Day - Great Unknown by Various Cruelties

Nice track from this UK band.  Reminds me a bit of Manic Street Preachers. They're on the hideout recordings label  - I think they have a bright future ahead of them.

Check it out here:

Various Cruelties - Great Unknown

Track of the Day - Damn Your Eyes by Alex Clare

Loving this track by newcomer Alex Clare.
It's a nice little snippet of modern soul from England.  There seems to be a real soul revival going on, no doubt largely thanks to Amy Winehouse, who Alex Clare once dated. There are a lots more soul gems you can find on Songspin.FM and we'll feature some of them in the next few weeks.
Check it out here:
Alex Clare - Damn Your Eyes

Getting traffic for your site - a couple of tips.

One of the things that can be hard when first starting out with a new website is getting visitors to your site. Here's a couple of suggestions for getting a a bit of traffic.

First is Yahoo! Answers.  I know - it's widely regarded with derision and not a place any sane person would go looking for real solutions to life's problems. However, it is a place where you can answer questions with links to your site, and I guarantee you'll get some traffic.

For example, my site songspin.fm is a music site.  There are tons of music related questions on Yahoo Answers.  So every now and then I go browse the music category for some questions where people are looking for new music and I answer their question with a link to my site.

I seem to average about 30-40 visits from http://answers.yahoo.com/ per day. It's not a ton of traffic but it's steady and free.  With a little imagination I think you could find the right categories and questions for almost any website. Give it a try.

Next is Reddit.  Reddit has "sub-reddits" (think of them as specialized forums) for almost everything you can think of.  Cars, music, electronics, sports - everything. If you can find a sub-reddit that relates to your site and become a member you can drive some good quality traffic to your website.

For example, one of my favorite sub-reddits is "listentothis" - a place where people share their music discoveries with other people who love newer, lesser known bands.  This is a perfect fit with my site, so every now and then I post a link to a great song I think people will love to hear.  Today alone my site got 100 visits from posting one link on listentothis.  And the traffic is good quality with an average time on site of about 6 minutes.

One caveat though about reddit - they don't take kindly to spammers and you must participate in the community. However I see this as a win - win because it means you have to provide the kind of quality content that will make the site a success in the long term anyway.

I know a lot of people might think answering questions on Yahoo Answers and slowly fostering a relationship with a community on reddit are a waste of time.  But these are strategies that will build a steady stream of traffic over time.  Yes it would be great to be on the front page of reddit, but it's not a realistic expectation and even a big burst of traffic doesn't always lead to repeat visits.  But if you can consistently get 50 or 100 visits every day from a site and you can get that from a bunch of sites, eventually it all adds up!

I'll post again soon with some more tips about places I get traffic from.