Announcement: Donuts and Milk Has Moved

Attention everybody, Jordan and I have decided to move our blog space to a new domain. Over the last couple of months we started out not knowing what to name our blog and what to write about. Now however, we have found something we both enjoy blogging about, which is music.

We have been inspired to take it up a notch due to our TWO followers and a small Facebook and Twitter following. Thanks to all that have shown interest in what we are doing. Now that we are focusing on music, we have decided to move our space to a new domain that is music themed. The new blog is called Music Sourced, and it will be your source for links to downloads for FREE music that bands and artists release. We will also be blogging about up and coming artists as well as doing concert reviews. You can find this site by navigating to www.musicsourced.com.

We hope you will join us at our new location. Hopefully you haven’t lost interest over our month long bout of silence. We both have been busy updating the layout of the new site. Look for a lot of new content and posts when the new year comes around! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Garrett Gue- Unknown? Not for long!

  

As I was driving the other day I happened to come across Sirius/XM "The Coffee House", which is notorious for playing only acoustic music. After a decent cover by Maroon 5 of the old Beatles song "Michelle", a song came on by an artist I had never heard of. Normally in this situation I just hit seek and go to the next preset, but this tune caught my ear. The kind of song you hear that just makes you in a better mood for the 4 minutes it happens to be playing. The song was "Sugar" and the artist was Garrett Gue.

The only reason I knew the name of the artist and who sang it was because the car I was driving showed it on the screen. Any other time, I use my handy IPhone app "Shazaam" and it magically gives me the information. This time I did it anyway and was surprised to see that the song was not found, so I made a mental note and after a few days had passed I googled "Garrett Gue". There were very few search results other than a Facebook page, Myspace page and a few Youtube videos that someone had posted of a few songs. I decided to check out his Myspace hoping he would have a few more songs I could listen to and was happy with what I heard.

After digging a little deeper and doing a little research all I could find is that Garrett Gue is from Montana, currently lives in Seattle, Washington and is not picked up by any record label. He independently recorded his first album "Tall Drink O' Water", and continues to write music and play around Seattle anywhere he can get a gig.

As a writer of a blog dedicated to music, I felt it was necessary for me to pass along the "good word" that is Garrett Gue. His songs are warm, his voice is refreshing, and his lyrics are brilliant. It's not often I can say that I beat the majority when it comes to finding out good music before an artist hits the mainstream, but I feel that as Garrett continues to grow as a musician and gain popularity, he won't be under the radar for too much longer. I recommend anyone who enjoys acoustic music and great music all together should check out Garrett Gue. His album is available for download on Itunes, Amazon, and CD Baby.

Myspace Page

Alex Dezen of The Damnwells - Nashville Concert Review

Let me just kick this off by saying I have completely absorbed all things Alex Dezen and The Damnwells in the last few months. After hearing a nice music sampler of Alex’s songs from the movie Chaos Theory, I was completely hooked on the sound and emotion Alex Dezen emits with his music. He has been quoted as saying that he writes music about his life’s experiences and I believe that’s a very accurate statement. He writes the type of songs I wish I could write to express the emotion of the ups and downs of a life lived. As you listen through the tracks of his latest albums, it feels like a first hand account to many of the thoughts and feelings that we can all relate to. To test out this statement of mine, rent/buy the movie Chaos Theory and observe how well the music flows with the storyline.

I was lucky enough to see Alex Dezen live a couple weeks ago in Nashville. It was not your typical rock show by any means. The venue (The Dark Room) was as big as my living room and it offered an up close and personal experience of some great acoustic music from Alex and some other lesser known musicians.  I cannot express enough how much I enjoy listening to my favorite bands in a small club environment where you can sit right in front of the music and meet the artists. I got to speak briefly with Alex Dezen about how much I enjoyed the music he creates and to thank him for the great show. Wish I had the opportunity to stay afterwards and have a beer with him. Also performing at the show was Josh Fletcher. Thoroughly enjoyed his music and bought both of his albums. If I find free links to his music I will definitely post.

Alex Dezen Live at the Dark Room
Play a Live Recording of "Texas" Below

This post would be incomplete without letting everyone know where you can find Alex Dezen’s music and plug some of his great work. I would strongly suggest buying or downloading the albums “Bastards of the Beat” and “Air Stereo” off of Amazon. Also there is an award winning documentary based on the life and times of The Damnwells 5 year journey to get signed by a major record label and then go on to have their music careers nearly ended by the pitfalls of success. The documentary is named after one of their hit songs “Golden Days" and can also be found on Amazon. Lastly, rent or buy the movie Chaos Theory starring Ryan Reynolds. Very good moving featuring a lot of Damnwells music!

The good news is that The Damnwells released their latest album “One Last Century”  completely for free to their fans. Click on the link below to download the ENTIRE album for free! Also, look out for The Damnwells latest album release coming in February and pledge support for the new album on the groups website: http://www.thedamnwells.com/

Download “One Last Century” at:  http://bit.ly/b5yqdw

Donuts and Milk does Music - For Free!

The creative minds behind Donuts and Milk (Jordan and Jamen) have decided to give this blog space of tidbits a direction and vision. That vision, is music. To clarify, this won't be just your typical blog about our favorite bands and music and why their music is so spectacular. Our posts will focus on the music we are following and......... each blog post will offer up FREE MUSIC by that artist! Jordan and I dig the online music streaming you get with great services such as Grooveshark because its free and its legal! But what about taking your favorite songs with you to play in the car or at the gym? People still want the mp3's to add to their iPods and smart phones as well as burning their favorite songs to CD's.

Music nowadays is moving farther and farther away from the money of album sales. The trend is moving towards free music, free giveaways, and free perks for following bands on their fan sites with the goal of attracting people to their music and to come and see their live shows. Almost all artists and bands offer up free song downloads for their fans and Jordan and I plan to do all the legwork by posting all of the links to free music here on Donuts and Milk.

For our first free music share, I would like to personally blog about one of the bands I enjoy listening to. That band is Coldplay. Now you may all be familiar with the movie quote from the 40 Year Old Virgin that states "You know how I know you're gay....because you like Coldplay", but I honestly enjoy their music. It takes a lot of talent to have a fan following across all continents and I think a large part of their success has a lot to do with the passion and presence of their live music. A wonderful example of their live music presence can be seen at the end of their music video for the song "Fix You". Watch the video on YouTube at the following link: http://bit.ly/c5jpaR.

If you happen to be a fan of Coldplay's live music as well, you will be interested in the bands release of their live album LeftRightLeftRightLeft. It is offered up on the bands website as a FREE DOWNLOAD! Click on the link below to download the live versions of "Clocks", "Viva La Vida", "Fix You" and others! Enjoy!

http://www.coldplay.com/lrlrl/lr.html

Grooveshark Update: New Music Widget and News!

As a follow up to Jordan's wonderful overview of a wonderful music streaming service, I wanted to announce the addition of the Groveshark music widget to the right side of the Donuts blog page! The Grooveshark playlist features some favorite songs provided by Jordan and myself. Enjoy the tunes and check out Grooveshark!

Also as an update, if you are a Grooveshark junky you should know that their VIP service rates are increasing from $3 a month starting in December. If you sign up as a VIP now you can lock in that service price as well as experience some extra perks and features for VIP members. I myself have become a VIP member recently. Grooveshark itself is a free service, but it may pay to become a member. Read a more thorough review at my Tech Trends blog at the following link: http://thetechtrends.blogspot.com/2010/10/grooveshark-follow-up.html

Did you know, Grooveshark isn't a shark at all?

When one wants to listen to a new band and doesn't want to listen to all the other junk that somehow may be grouped in the same genre (ie. Pandora), look no further than Grooveshark.com.

I was shown the light by fellow writer and follower of this blog, Jamen. Grooveshark allows you to search for an artist and find albums and songs by them. You can add them to your own personal playlist and listen to them approximately 200,000 times in a row if you like. Unlike some sites that restrict the amount you listen to an artist per hour (ie. Pandora). But you may say, "well one thing about Pandora I like is the ability to have a random song that I've never heard before ". Well you're in luck, Grooveshark offers a radio function as well that allows you to listen to random songs streamed to your desk.

When Jamen first told me of this, I thought to myself "How is this legal". Well as far as I can tell it is legal, it all began when some University of Florida students created the idea for a class project (according to the sites FAQ). You can also join Grooveshark and save your playlists, share songs with friends and follow bands that you have became interested in.

In conclusion , no one loses with Grooveshark, except maybe somehow the artists providing the music. But us, the listeners can reap the benefits of finding out if an album is great before purchasing or downloading. Happy Listening !

I Could Use Some FaceTime with Jordan

It has been pretty obvious that there has been something missing this past week. Our beloved Jordan has moved back to Bloomington for his final semester of college. This has left a rather large void in the daily lives of many people at Flanders Electric and for those of us who were fortunate enough to spend a night out on the town with him. There are many things that are no longer present during my week: many things that I will miss dearly. Here are my top ten in no particular order.

• Hallway High Fives
• Words With Friends Trash Talk
• Power Lunches (CFT!)
• Daily Impromptu Meetings
• Abbreviated B’s and F’s
• Shottaye!
• Jordan driving to lunch
• Wingman
• Golf Prowess on the Course
• Seizure Inducing Eye Rolls

Needless to say, several things will be missed. My suggested solution for Jordan’s lack of presence would be a new piece of technology called FaceTime, one of the new features of the IPhone 4. Video calls would be the best interim replacement for the aura that Mr. Fenwick brings to the scene. One of the main reasons for my suggestion is based on the fact that most of Jordan’s inner circle carry IPhones. I for one own the IPhone 4 and love the FaceTime feature. A couple of Jordan’s other close buddies (as well as Jordan himself) own IPhones and need to upgrade to make the process complete and then I truly believe the world would be a better place. So what does everyone think? Sound like a good idea? I can just imagine a FaceTime conversation playing out as its shown below….

Wouldn’t this be nice???