BlogWave
BlogWave is an interesting .Net based blog app that supports the scheduled generation and publishing of RSS feeds variety of sources, including blogs and NNTP, to a variety of destinations, including blogs, FTP, and plain old directories. It supports plugins so you can implement your own source and destination adapters. Sounds a lot like eSyndication, but for newsfeeds only.
SonicBreakdown.com
The two concerts that I attended were arranged by a friend of mine who was working in Armenia. He keeps up with new releases and concerts by watching music news sites and Pollstar. From half a world away, he had more awareness of local music happenings than I do. I'm just not that hip to the scene.
What I need is something like SonicBreakdown.com. SonicBreakdown.com is a site that is designed to keep you in touch with your favorite music - sort of a personal music portal/aggregator. The spyware-free SonicBreakdown client scans your music collection, uploads that information to the site, and then keeps you informed of nearby concerts, upcoming television appearances, new releases, and music news about the artists in your collection. It does this by using RSS from a variety of music news sites and Web services provided by Amazon, Pollstar, and others. I wish I had signed up earlier, then I would have known that Sonic Youth is playing the Cradle tonight. Now, if only I could subscribe to SonicBreakdown feeds in BlogLines...
The Dead @ Raleigh
The Dead show was a lot of fun. With the addition of guitarists Warren Haynes and Jimmy Herring, new keyboard player Jeff Chimenti, and Branford Marsalis on sax and clarinet the Dead has a very different sound than the Grateful Dead had in the 90's. The band seems more together and more "tight" but is still has the ability to veer off into wildly improvisational trippy jam territory and then bring it all back home again. Overall the music was good and the Dead songs they played were generally excellent, but there were times when the new songs ventured a little too far into the southern rock sound for my tastes. I'm not that big a fan of southern rock, unless you count REM, the B-52s, and The Connells. Overall review: two thumbs up. (see also: <a href= "http://www.dead.net/thedead/2004/summer-tour/setlists-photos/20040817/index.html">photos and set-list).