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[Va]

The ones I've never heard of are Firewater, Cracker, Apples in Stereo, Camper Van Beethovan (? LOL at the name. Beethovan?!), Clem Snide, and Tanya Donelly. If you'd like to elaborate on why I should listen to any of those I'm listening, but feel free to tell me to go look up reviews or something.

Oops, spelled Beethoven wrong.  It's Camper Van Beethoven.

I'm pretty bad at describing music, but I'll do my best here.

Firewater my husband discovered on eM.  I believe it was one of eM's "recommendations" to us, which have been pretty darn good so far.  They're loud and noisy while still being very melodic--judging by the number of instruments, I think they're a fairly large ensemble, or else they use a lot of sampling or studio musicians.  The singer has a great deep growly voice (kinda like Mike Doughty), and they also have a female singer in some songs.  I just can't think of another band to compare them to.  A number of their songs sound like something you'd hear at a funky evil circus.  Here's a few tracks.

Woke Up Down
Car Crash Collaborator
Bad, Bad World

Cracker, Cracker, Cracker.  I love them so much, picking tracks is going to really hard.  They're more or less an alt-country outfit, in that many of their songs are kind of "twangy" if you know that I mean, but they also rock very hard.  They're a real working band, so they write a lot of road songs and they are tight. The lyrics to their songs are frequently amusing.  Here's a song of theirs you might have heard on the radio, like, a million years ago:

Low

A few more:

Mr. Wrong
Big Dipper
Been Around the World

I'm going to skip to Camper Van, because Cracker and Camper Van are partly the same band.  Camper Van = Cracker - one guitarist + a different guitarist + an electric fiddler.  Camper Van are odd.  The only band I can think of to compare them to is TMBG, but that might give the wrong impression.  If you've listened to the Cracker tracks above, you might recognize David Lowry's voice in these tracks. Here's a song of theirs you might have heard on the radio, like, a million years ago:

Take the Skinheads Bowling

A few more:

All Her Favorite Fruit
When I Win the Lottery
Axe Murderer Song

We went and saw Cracker and Camper Van earlier this year, and they put on an excellent show.  When they did "When I Win the Lottery" they changed the word "communists" to "islamists".

This is long enough, I'll come back to the others.

[jough]

Also, eMusic bundles seem to come with mp3 players:

100 Free Tracks courtesy of RCA:
http://emusic.com/lyra/

50 Free Downloads courtesy of Rio:
http://emusic.com/rio/

There may be more, but enjoy!  You will need a credit card to sign up but if you cancel after your 100 dls you WILL NOT BE BILLED.  I have tried this and verified it.

I signed up, got all of the exclusive Pixies and FB stuff, plus a few Sonny Rollins albums I didn't have, and quit.

Oh, and the exclusive Joe Jackson live album they have is worth it too.

[Va]

Va, don't forget George Carlin

I didn't.  But I did forget Bad Religion.

[andalucia]

For the Camper van Beethoven recommendation list:
She Divines Water
and their cover of Pictures of Matchstick Men, which really just rocks.

[TALKYdude]

jough, I'm slow this morning. I read that and went "so why the hell am I gonna buy some crappy non-iPod mp3 player just to get 50 or 100 songs?" It took me rereading that and deciding to click your links before it dawned on my dull, uncomprehending, slack-jawed, drooling face that you don't have to actually buy an mp3 player to use the offer.
Oh!

[TALKYdude]

Arkabee and Va, thanks. And Va,

Oops, spelled Beethoven wrong.  It's Camper Van Beethoven.

Oh. I liked it better as Camper Van Beethovan. But ok, I'll settle for this :-)

I'm pretty bad at describing music, but I'll do my best here.

Firewater my husband discovered on eM.  I believe it was one of eM's "recommendations" to us, which have been pretty darn good so far.  They're loud and noisy while still being very melodic--judging by the number of instruments, I think they're a fairly large ensemble, or else they use a lot of sampling or studio musicians.  The singer has a great deep growly voice (kinda like Mike Doughty), and they also have a female singer in some songs.  I just can't think of another band to compare them to.  A number of their songs sound like something you'd hear at a funky evil circus.  Here's a few tracks.

Woke Up Down
Car Crash Collaborator
Bad, Bad World

Cracker, Cracker, Cracker.  I love them so much, picking tracks is going to really hard.  They're more or less an alt-country outfit, in that many of their songs are kind of "twangy" if you know that I mean, but they also rock very hard.  They're a real working band, so they write a lot of road songs and they are tight. The lyrics to their songs are frequently amusing.  Here's a song of theirs you might have heard on the radio, like, a million years ago:

Low

A few more:

Mr. Wrong
Big Dipper
Been Around the World

I'm going to skip to Camper Van, because Cracker and Camper Van are partly the same band.  Camper Van = Cracker - one guitarist + a different guitarist + an electric fiddler.  Camper Van are odd.  The only band I can think of to compare them to is TMBG, but that might give the wrong impression.  If you've listened to the Cracker tracks above, you might recognize David Lowry's voice in these tracks. Here's a song of theirs you might have heard on the radio, like, a million years ago:
Take the Skinheads Bowling

A few more:

All Her Favorite Fruit
When I Win the Lottery
Axe Murderer Song

We went and saw Cracker and Camper Van earlier this year, and they put on an excellent show.  When they did "When I Win the Lottery" they changed the word "communists" to "islamists".

This is long enough, I'll come back to the others.

Based on your description of Firewater and Cracker I think you would really like Lambchop, by the way. I'm on my crappy laptop so I'm not gonna download any of those tracks until I move to the desktop later. I'll try and find some Lambchop tracks to link you as well.

[Va]

For the Camper van Beethoven recommendation list:
She Divines Water

Concur.  I would also have liked to post Wasted and Better Shut Us Down, but I didn't want to go overboard.

[jough]

First of all, the iPod SUCKS compared to other MP3 players.  It is shabbily constructed, heavy, has a problem with batteries going bad (and it's $100 to have one replaced), and even when they're good only lasts about six hours.

I got one of the new Rio players, the Carbon.

It's smaller than even the iPod mini, has an extra gb of storage, and the battery lasts around 24 hours on a single charge.  Oh, plus it is just cooler looking and the navigation is better.  And it works as a USB Mass Storage device - no drivers needed.  And it's tiny and light.  And you don't have to use the crappy iTunes software.

Seriously, I know "iPOD" has somehow become synonymous with "mp3 player" but really, it is a POS.

[TALKYdude]

I know it doesn't have as many features or nearly as much battery life, but I'm addicted to the iPod way. I don't even own a mac and I laugh at Apple cultists but I really like iPods in a way that I don't other mp3 players. I've read about that new Carbon and it's definitely a sexy beast. But it's just not an iPod. I don't know if I can really explain that. Maybe I'm just addicted to the scrolly wheel dealie.

[CortJstr]

I know it doesn't have as many features or nearly as much battery life, but I'm addicted to the iPod way. I don't even own a mac and I laugh at Apple cultists but I really like iPods in a way that I don't other mp3 players. I've read about that new Carbon and it's definitely a sexy beast. But it's just not an iPod. I don't know if I can really explain that. Maybe I'm just addicted to the scrolly wheel dealie.

Not to mention the 40GB of musicy goodness!

But them I hate making playlists so for me "holds every song you own and will shuffle them" is a huge selling point for me.

I used to hate iTunes but the party shuffle feature is definitely something cool that Winamp doesn't have. And if there's an iTunes version of the WhiteCap visualization then it will rock extra. It did suck that iT tried to completely resort my actual mp3 files and trim their file names. That was quite lame.

[edit: but ear buds are shit! Who decided to use those instead of real headphones? I think I'll sacrifice the trendy white cable for headphones that don't fall out ever 14 seconds.

[St_Zartan]

I'm going to have to swing with Jough on this one: I'm not really impressed with the iPod. I've owned a Rio Karma since February, and although I'm not usually a Product Shilling Whore, this thing is the bitch. I literally don't leave home without it.

The interface is basically rad: a little joystick plus a clicky side-mounted scroll wheel. It's intuitive as hell, especially compared to the iPod's "tap and pray" system. The Karma sits perfectly in the hand, and actually feels good to hold. Oh, and the thing is a fuck*ng camel as re battery power.

Personally, I found 20 GB to be the perfect compromise between price and function: the way my moods swing, with anything smaller I would undoubtedly find myself wanting something that I didn't have on board that day, and end up all grumpy. 20 GB from Rio cost, when I got mine, $100 less than 20 GB from Apple. It's pretty much cliche to point out that Apple users pay more for like fuck*ng everything more or less for that Apple cultural cachet, but yeah; I just wanted to listen to music all the time, not provoke conversations with nu-media radsters.

[St_Zartan]

[edit: but ear buds are shit! Who decided to use those instead of real headphones? I think I'll sacrifice the trendy white cable for headphones that don't fall out ever 14 seconds.

Maybe your ear buds are shit, or you just have weirdly contoured ears. My Karma came with a tasty pair of Sennheiser earbuds that sat snug and sounded terrific. Sadly, I accidentally killed them about a month ago with my vacuum cleaner. My ~$10 replacements aren't the same, but they'll Do until I can reconcile myself with the idea of shelling out big for something I already owned and destroyed.

I dearly love headphones; I love the feel of them and the whole idea of wearing them, which is like a physical commitment to wrapping oneself in music. But the police would probably take a dim view to my driving around with a couple of fat cans strapped to my head, whereas the earbuds (to date) camouflage nicely under my hair. Earbuds, too, have portability (which is sort of the whole point of MP3 players) locked; you can wrap 'em around the player itself and stick the whole kit and kaboodle into a pocket or pouch.

[jough]

I've been eyeing up the Karma, although the new Karma 2/Chroma (whatever the hell they call it) will be 40Gb.  And that is enough to carry EVERY SONG I EVEN KINDA LIKE so I may just wait and save up for that bad-boy.

And yes, good earbuds will sound FAR better than most headphones that normal people can afford, but you need to spend about $80 to get a decent pair.

The Sony 888s are the standard-bearers for earbuds, although this guy thinks they sound too trebley:

http://www.amptone.com/audio/earbud.htm

[CortJstr]

[edit: but ear buds are shit! Who decided to use those instead of real headphones? I think I'll sacrifice the trendy white cable for headphones that don't fall out ever 14 seconds.

Maybe your ear buds are shit, or you just have weirdly contoured ears.

It must be my ears because I've tried about 10 different pairs of ear buds from the original Gameboy ones to hands-free cell phone ones to iPod and they all fall out in under 30 seconds. Or stay in for a full minute but hurt like hell the whole time.

Oddly, I routinely wear ear plugs and those don't bother me at all.

[jough]

I have this Jabra earset thing for my phone (it has a mic built in that uses my head cavity to resonate for the mic - which works surprisingly well) and their convoluted earpiece is just SO DAMN UNCOMFORTABLE that I'd much rather have a standard ear piece.

I find the Sennheisers that came with my Carbon (and Nitrus before it) to be slightly too large for my ears.  But my Sony 888s - sweet fuck*ng action.

I also have a pair of Sennheiser wireless that I use to listen to DVDs late at night or while I am cooking (commentary tracks).