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Let's face it: Miami sucks when it comes to music blogs. Places like New York, Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle all have better online music presence. That's not to say there aren't people out there trying. We already crowned Off the Radar the city's best music blog, while Crossfade contributor Dro has been pushing hip-hop (both local and national) hard via the305.com, and we love them both for it.

That's why we get excited when we discover new music blogs written by Miami people. So let us introduce you to two of them:
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Photo by Kristian Andrew

Goolsby is a serious band

​The charms of New Times contributor Courtney Hambright go well beyond her abilities to pen a clever phrase. We were particularly pleased with her recent profile of local singer-songwriter-goofball Mike Mineo because the reportage included plenty of passages like this:

In the spring of 2006, Mineo, who plays acoustic guitar without a pick so that he can "articulate bass lines," apparently soiled his instrument during a pretty wild gig. "When I started playing, people went apeshit," he says. "I was playing so hard that I cut my finger and didn't even know it. Mountain men were freaking out, and mountain women dragged me home. I let a few of them."

Yep. So anyhow, Hambright's blog is a great read too. After you read Travis Newbill's review of the Mike Mineo album release party, follow it up with her thoughts on the show over at Mood Vane.
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​Local South Florida music bloggers unite! Well, that's REVMiami's idea anyhow. Yesterday, the lovely logo we see above popped up on another South Florida music staple site, Made in Miami Music. The idea is simple: so many folks are toiling away covering their local scenes around the country without a larger community to promote and support the cause. As a provider of local music coverage, Crossfade co-signs 100 percent. (Totally going on our blogroll too!) We asked REVMiami's Ric Delgado a few questions about his new initiative, the Local Music Blogging Network. Read it after the jump.

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​While adding local blog RSS feeds from the Crossfade blogroll to my Google Reader, I noticed a disturbing number of dead links, which made me momentarily sad. Props to The 305, South Florida Classical Review, Radio-Active Records, The HoneyComb, South Florida Punk, Penned Madness, Crown the South, Sweat Records  and many others for your regular typing. You are safe. (Awesome-ish, you are officially on notice.) Resolved, we shall freshen that sidebar with your help.  If your site is not in our blogroll, and you are discussing local music on the regular, we want to read you, repost you and hug you.

It's not every day that music bloggers get encouraged to promote the hell out of their blog in the comments section, but TODAY IS THAT DAY.

​*It's been a while since we checked in on REVMiami, Ric Delgado's webzine that aims to capture the underground music and arts culture of the city -- well, mostly along the Biscayne Corridor. It's been almost a damn year and he's still at it, for which he deserves major kudos. In fact, one of the problems with trying to do this blog roundup is that so many sites start, then fade away a couple months later.

So, this isn't really about a post on the site, but I wanted to point out the site celebrates its one-year anniversary on February 19 at White Room, with performances by a bunch of local favorites like ArtOfficial, Astari Nite, Tristan Clopet, Radioboxer, and so on. Full details (complete with sappy thank-you letter) are here.
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via wasabifashionkult.com

Check out the rest of this collage on Wasabi Fashion Kult's blog.

​A new year, a new chance to take a look at the local music/nightlife blogosphere. At the end of 2009, things looked bleak -- many blogs had been neglected or completely abandoned. Maybe the new year will push people back towards it. Here are three sites worth checking out.

*If you're older than, say, 24, you have probably had little reason to discover Straight Up Random. But for the all-ages set, this is a definitive blog guide to all upcoming pop-punk and post-post-post-hardcore shows in South Florida. There are local show reviews, album reviews, and constant tab-keeping on who's getting signed and who's going on tour. They score extra points for a clean layout and surprisingly good grammar and spelling. Here's their list of "bands you need to know for 2010" (insert: "if you care about the kinds of bands featured in Alternative Press"). Most of the "unsigned and up-and-coming bands" listed at the end are, as expected, from around here.

*Make sure you're on a fast connection if you load up life.is, a sleekly designed but flash-heavy site based in Miami, but with a wider cultural scope. The site covers music, art, fashion, and technology, with two other sections labeled "random" and videos;" it's somewhere between a blog and a webzine. The site is carefully curated, and although it could be updated more, it's got promise. Check out this recent entry in which contributor Andy Blazquez shares a little song from Broken Bells, a new project by Danger Mouse and James Mercer from the Shins.

*Finally, while it doesn't get updated as much as I would hope, Wasabi Fashion Kult has a fun, pink-pink-pink layout and an interesting concept. Besides coverage of the local scene, contributors share these interesting, music-inspired thematic collages of fashion and make-up goodies, which they post on the fashion site Polyvore. Check out this one called "Ode to Joy," in which contributor Veronica Gessa transposes an Ian Curtis print dress with a $308 trench.

Panic Bomber lays the blog smackdown, kind of.

via lividrecords.com

The Crumbs are recording a new 10" for Livid Records.

​*The party Heat_r is back up and running, bringing indie electro back to Fort Lauderdale, now at Exit 66. We heard it was pretty well-attended. The party's ostensible web site, though, which was at heatrparty.com, seems to have been subsumed by a catch-all nightlife site called Nightcure.com -- which hasn't been updated much at all.... But, you can still see lots of photos from the rebirth of Heat_r on this page. 

via sweatrecordsmiami.com

Sweat Records' logo came to life!

​*Lots of fun stuff over at the Sweat Records site, but act fast on this first one. You can get that new JESP record that we wrote about last week, for free, from this download link. Or, you can also bite the bullet and support a local artist and, ahem, do a paid download from there for just $9.99. Also awesome in recent posts: Sweat's logo, Disko, came to life for Halloween at O.H.W.O.W. So cute. Check the photos.

via freshbasilcrew.com

Cop this new mix from Sweet Dick Vega on the Fresh Basil Crew blog.

*While Crossfade attended the Friday-night edition of Alligator Alley's closing party, Mood Vane went to the Saturday-night jam, featuring Stonefox. Check out a couple photos, a bittersweet recap, and a little local-scene name-dropping here.

*I had high hopes for the Fresh Basil Crew blog when it started, with its clean, bright layout and interestingly curated music selection -- but then there was a period there of almost two months with no update. I guess Mr. Sweet Dick Vega woke up and took over the thing, because thankfully in the last few days there's been some activity again. Check out his latest DJ mix here; it's got new tracks from Chromeo, Miami Horror, and Kid Cudi.

*Another blog for which I have high hopes: The South Florida Punk Scene promises to be a clearinghouse for underground show info, from Miami on up to West Palm. That's ambitious, btu so far it's got listings for events that happened everywhere from Churchill's in Miami to Zoo Bar in Broward to some random place in Lake Worth. The underaged should take note, most of the things listed here are all ages, or at least 18-and-over.

*Holy crap, a rhyming requiem for emo, over on the Rhythm Scene.

*And, random visual delights: At UpnUpDaily, check out some pretty-sunlight, meditative shots of hip-hop hype man extraordinaire Spliff Star.