Battle of the Bands: Summer 2009

It's almost time for the 3rd Annual Battle of the Bands in Town Square! The past battles were a lot of fun and reached record attendance levels. Note to any teen local bands: we are still accepting applications for this year! All you need to do is send us an MP3 or web link (MySpace, Purevolume, etc.) that showcases your music, or you can go old school and drop off a cassette or CD at the Reader Services Desk at the Central Library or any of the branches.

Just a few requirements for all applicants (pretty much the same as last year):

• No one over the age of 21 may participate in the competition
• The majority of band members must be from Schaumburg Township
• Band members must be available at 5 P.M. on the June 23rd

The actual battle day is Tuesday, June 23rd, 6-9 P.M. The deadline for all submissions is April 3oth.

To send over a link or for more info, send an e-mail to teenservices@stdl.org.

STDL Teen Single Song Contest

Attention aspiring songwriters: Whether you are in a full band or just play around with an acoustic guitar every now and then, if you think you've written some great songs showcase your talents during the STDL Teen Single Song Contest! Anyone that was at our Battle of the Bands showcase last month would agree--we have some talented teens in Schaumburg writing some good music! You don't have to be in a band to write a great song, and we know there is some great music and talent out there just waiting to be heard. If you have some songs recorded, you can send us the file via e-mail, myspace/purevolume link, or you can drop off a CD (or cassette if you're old school!) at the Reader's Advisory Desk at the main library or any of the branches. Links and mp3s can be sent to Amy Alessio. Winners will receive gift certificates to area music stores and will have the song linked from the STDL site and STDLTeen MySpace site.This contest is open to all teens grades 7-12. The deadline for submissions is November 30. Let's hear what you can come up with!

Last.fm: Share Your Musical Tastes with the World!

Last.fm -- they're calling themselves the "Social Music Revolution." Has anyone gotten in on this? If not, it's nifty little site that is pretty much the one of the coolest sites out there for finding new music. It allows you to share your musical tastes and suggestions with your friends, or you can register for free and download a plug-in that logs what you listen to in whatever programs you use for listening to music (iTunes, Winamp, Window Media). I guess that in itself is not all that exciting, but once you have started logging your music, that's when you can really get the most out of last.fm.

At the very least, your last.fm page functions as a chart of your musical history. So, 4 years from now (if the site is still around, which judging by how popular it has become, it definitely will), if you wanted to see what you were listening to your senior year of high school, all you'd have to do is click on your charts and go back to this week in Jan '07...and bam! You'll see that you've listened to Muse's "Starlight" 500 times or whatever. You can also listen to different radio stations that are crafted just for you. For example, "Recommendation Radio" is a station that plays new music that you might like based on what you've played, or you can just listen to your own radio station made from music and artists that you've already played. Now that, if you're an information archiving nut like myself, is pretty great right there. Again, there's that social aspect to it. You can add friends like on MySpace and leave them comments on their "Shoutboxes" or send them messages. You can also tag music however you want and listen to radio stations based on these tags (like, "Indie" or "Death Metal" whatever you're into...).

Gah! There's just a lot of music to be heard... check it out yourself @ http://www.last.fm