乐播传媒

In the dim basement of a rock club on Manhattan鈥檚 Lower East Side, Blair Carswell 鈥�00 hunches over his turntable, cueing up a record. The crowd of twentysomethings at The Delancey is there to hear four indie rock bands and dance between sets to the tunes Carswell鈥檚 spinning.

Some learned of this March 2007 event from Carswell鈥檚 posts on music.for-robots.com, a new-music blog he started three years ago with two college chums, J.P. Connolly 鈥�00 and Mark Willett 鈥�00, where visitors can download songs, read posts, add responses, and follow links to bands鈥� Web sites and MySpace pages. In a world of some 70 million blogs, Music For Robots has a solid reputation among rock fans in the New York metropolitan area and music-industry followers, attracting up to 8,000 readers a day and producing a modest income stream from ad and merchandise sales.

J.P. Connolly ’00 (left) and Blaire Carswell ’00 (right) on Ludlow Street, Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen.

This is 29-year-old Carswell鈥檚 second deejay gig for the week, with another planned back at 乐播传媒 the following weekend. But despite his growing immersion in the music world 鈥� he now rents space at the club Element for a monthly dance party called 鈥淧eople Don鈥檛 Dance No More鈥� 鈥� Carswell, a technology specialist at the private Churchill School, is keeping his day job.

鈥淚t actually pays reasonably well, and nothing in the music business does,鈥� says Carswell, who lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Daphne Gomez-Mena 鈥�01, a rock singer and freelance video editor. 鈥淚t also means I can have some balance in my life, between the work I do for Churchill and the work I do for fun for Music for Robots and deejaying.鈥�

Music For Robots emerged from a familiar post-college dynamic as the friends tried to keep in touch in the real world. As students, Willett and Connolly were in Strange Bedfellows together, while Connolly鈥檚 and Carswell鈥檚 social circles overlapped. The three became closer friends during senior year, and after graduation Connolly headed to Dartmouth to earn his master鈥檚 in microbiology, while Willett worked at his hometown newspaper in Laconia, N.H. Carswell had just moved to New York City after having worked for 乐播传媒鈥� media services department and deejaying on WRBC.

鈥淚t was back in the day when blogs were brand-new, before everyone and their cousin and their cat had one,鈥� says Connolly, who now teaches science at Saint Ann鈥檚 in Brooklyn 鈥� he鈥檚 the 鈥渓eader of the hipster crowd,鈥� according to a post at RateMyTeacher.com 鈥� whose wife,

Tamara, designed the Robots鈥� Web site. 鈥淲e each had our own little blogs, the common theme was music, and we thought it would be fun hopping back and forth between our different pages.鈥�

While they thought it might have a wider appeal, they had no idea whether anyone other than their friends would find their site among millions of emerging blogs on the Internet. (A blog is really just a Web site specializing in frequently updated personal content. The word is a portmanteau of 鈥淲eb log.鈥�)

Going live on April 12, 2004, Music For Robots was one of the early MP3 blogs. 鈥淲e started to write just for ourselves, but then people started reading us,鈥� says Carswell. 鈥淲e鈥檇 ask them to put a link to our page on their blogs, and we鈥檇 link back to them. We went from dozens of hits a day to hundreds and now thousands.鈥�

Four years later, in a fluxive blogosphere where there are already 200 million ex-bloggers, the site has stamina. The blog features daily entries by Carswell and several other regular contributors 鈥� including Anders Pearson 鈥�01, Jon Cresswell 鈥�01,聽and David聽Brusie聽’02 鈥� whose eclectic musical tastes broaden the site鈥檚 appeal. Connolly says he鈥檚 into 鈥渨eird pop music鈥� from Japan and Korea, Pearson covers metal and industrial music, Willett鈥檚 into pop and indie music, and Carswell鈥檚 known for dance tracks.

Having the latest music attracts traffic from rock fans who want to keep on the cutting edge. The buzz increased early on when a major label, Warner Bros. Records, took the unusual step of encouraging various MP3 blogs, including MFR, to post free music from one of the label鈥檚 bands. But that overture became a minidrama when Willett noticed that some oddly lavish praise for a Warner Bros. band had been posted on MFR, which he traced back to computers at Warner. 鈥淚 know we鈥檙e dealing in relatively uncharted territory here,鈥� Willett told The New York Times in 2004. 鈥淏ut I鈥檇 expect a slightly different level of participation…. We鈥檙e not an AOL chat room.鈥欌��

When MTV aired a feature on the blog and its discovery of a Brooklyn band called the Hysterics 鈥� comprised of Connolly鈥檚 students, in fact 鈥� the Times again chimed in, noting that 鈥渢his is how the Internet was supposed to help music.鈥� And around this time, Willett got noticed by Motormouth Media, a boutique PR firm specializing in cutting-edge music and pop culture accounts, and he鈥檚 now on the West Coast working as a publicist for the outfit.

MFR also remains a must-read for record-label execs, The Boston Globe noted recently, such as A&R man Sam Riback at Atlantic Records. 鈥淥ur readers have come to know who we are, based on our musical tastes, and they鈥檝e come to see that it鈥檚 a brand they can trust,鈥� says Connolly. 鈥淲e鈥檝e succeeded by taking what is essentially a labor of love and catapulting it into a revenue-generating model. Whether it鈥檚 the music we write about or a compilation CD or advertising for a live performance, it鈥檚 all the same formula 鈥� we share stuff that we really enjoy.鈥�

New York-based journalist David McKay Wilson writes regularly for college magazines around the country. This is his first article for 乐播传媒 Magazine.