Vodacom are doing a sick campaign at the moment where they’re asking SA’s top bloggers and influencers to share the secrets of how they unlock the power of the internet.
Naturally they called up your buddy ol’ pal Slicky-T, because it’s a well-documented fact that I’ve been unlocking the power of the interwebs since the mid-90s yo.
Back then, the internet was a joke. The information published on most websites was notoriously unreliable, pages took days to load and downloading a 10MB file would have probably taken at least three hours.
Still though, I can’t tell you how many times I listened to the dial-up tone of my 56k modem in eager anticipation as I trawled the internet for free guitar tabs, walkthroughs for games I was stuck on or dodgey free games sites.
There was just this feeling back then that we weren’t even scratching the surface of what the internet was capable of. It was the Wild West, before the social media revolution, just huge tracts of untamed super-highway.
Anyway, I digest. The real purpose of this piece is to give you guys a little insight into what I’ve learned over the past 15 odd years on the interwebs, specifically when it comes to finding new music and bands because it’s something I think I’ve gotten down to a fine art.
Firstly, I’ll hit you guys with a few of the music site links I hit on a regular basis to stay in touch with what’s going down in the music world.
To any hipster readers out there, lemme just warn you in advance: these sites are totes mainstream ok? If that has you feeling a little awks, just light up a Gauloises, jump on your fixie and go bitch to your friends at the vinyl store about what a philistine SlickTiger is.
Great. Now that that’s out the way, here are my top 6 music sites:
www.spin.com (there is a player on the top of the screen with a sneaky red down arrow. Hit that arrow to stream entire new albums for free)
www.nme.com (killer album reviews)
www.spinner.com (also great for streaming new full albums, even if most of them are so weird I’m not sure if they can be classified as music…)
www.npr.org (hit the “Music†link on this site, then scroll down and hit the “First Listen†link on the right. Again, you can stream a lot of new albums for free here and NPR ALWAYS get the albums before they’re released)
www.texxandthecity.com (and how could I not mention my favourite local music site. Texx is a total badass, this is THE site for local music news)
So that’s pretty much where I get my music fix on the ol’ interwebs.
I tell everyone who wants to get into new bands and music the same thing – as with most things in life, with new music on the interwebs the 80/20 rule applies.
In other words, 80% of what you’ll find on all those sites is a load of horse dung. Even if you give those tracks and albums a few listens, they will remain utterly shite in every way. Do not let that deter you.
I say this because that last 20% will be pure gold. They will be songs and albums that you will listen to for the rest of your life and it won’t be the same old, lame old regurgitated left overs everyone else listens to.
They will be songs and albums that mean something to you and the people you care about and when you play those albums in years to come, they will always remind you of the moment in your life when you discovered them for the first time.
It has been and continues to be a powerful belief of mine that music will save us. No other art form that I’ve come across can capture raw emotion so perfectly and communicate it with such eloquence.
Never give up on finding new music. Never fall into the trap of listening to the same bands hundreds of times over until their music is so familiar it almost means nothing to you.
Move on. Change. Adapt. Leave that old music in the past, where it belongs, and choose a new soundtrack for your life before the audience watching dies of boredom.
So that’s one of the ways I unlock the power of the internet boys and girls, but stay tuned next week because your buddy Slick may or may not have a little competition up his sleeve that will definitely help you unlock the power of the internet as well.
Later Party People 
-ST
