Local/regional hip-hop consortium Ironworkers Guild has put out March of the Martyrs, which has recently been reviewed on the Star Press. "Whether it's the chopped-and-screwed vocals on Life's Moment (Bricks) from Big P.I.P.E. and Woodenchainz, the surprisingly literary Bookworm of Land Pirate Army or Muncie's own Merc Versus rocking the track with a dead-on rhyme on Cotton Gin Revenge with Azreal of Anderson, it's one gritty, intelligent, hard-nosed track after another."

Check it out at
http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080626/ENTERTAI...

Tommy (of Tommy and the Tommies) has just released Tommy and the Tommies - Tommy and the Tommies (A Self-Titled Album), which is the first release from this project (which I am to understand is called Tommy and the Tommies). It's free to download and has been released under Creative Commons (meaning the tracks are fair game for all of you mix artists out there).

Project Muncie Scene is looking for eager volunteers to assist in the planning, development, promotion, and maintenance of TheMuncieScene.com. If you'd like to help this scene information directory, communications hub, promotions tool, and local media repository get off of the ground, post in the message board or send me a message via the site contact form.

What can I do?
Planning: The vision of what a Muncie art/music community website should be needs to be developed with as many voices as possible. We need to all get together and discuss what the community needs, and what online tools can be developed to help meet those needs. Project Muncie Scene got started with a big community meeting at the MT Cup back in 2003, so let's plan out some more roundtable discussions and chat on the message board in the mean time.
Development: I'm volunteering to take the lead in developing the software behind whatever awesome web applications we dream up, but the project will still benefit from the involvement of more web developers! Furthermore, designers are desperately needed to help develop the project's image.
Promotion: The website will be most useful as a networking and promotional tool if more people are visiting it! Flyers, stickers, link exchanges, and word-of-mouth will get us far.
Maintenance: We need volunteers to help hunt down events to place on the community calendar (in development), post event flyers that they find scattered about the internet, and submit stories about our community to be published to the front page.

What's on its way for this "Muncie Scene" website thinger?
Revisions of old features: The old 'Scenester Database', along with the listings of local bands, artists, and venues are all coming back to help people find their way around our tangled scene and network with likeminded Munsonians.
Community calendar: A new calendar, maintained by the public and integrated into the band/venue database, is on its way. The goal here is to provide the city with a centralized resource for event information. Concerts, community meetings, art exhibitions, and anything else will be fair game.
Media repository: I want all of the downloadable/streamable music and videos relevant to Muncie to be accessible in one place.

From the message board:

How does a SOLD OUT crowd of 35,000 people sound?

The 500 festival is looking for entertainers to be part of the largest four-hour music festivals in the nation. Applications are now being accepted from live bands, cheer groups, DJs, and dance groups to cheer 35,000 runners and walkers to the finish line of the OneAmerica 500 Festival Mini-Marathon and Finish Line 500 Festival 5k. Live entertainment will provide motivation for participants making their way through the 13.1-mile course on Saturday, May 3.

Last year 120 live groups performed along the course of THE NATION'S LARGEST HALF-MARATHON. The application deadline for those who would like to participate is March 1st. The 500 Festival urges those interested to apply early- space is limited.

Along with performing in front of 35,000 runners and walkers, all entertainers will have the opportunity to:
- have their group name and link to group website listed on http://www.500festival.com
- group name listed on the WISH-TV Channel 8 Mini-Marathon Telecast
- group name listed on "Thank-You" ad placed in local newspaper
- Personal signage can also be displayed at location

Groups can register online at http://www.500festival.com or by mailing an entertainment registration for to Allie Mantel, 500 Festival, 500 Festival Building, 21 Virginia Ave, Suite 500, Indianapolis, IN 46204. A demo tape or CD and photo must be included with the application.

For more information, call (317) 614-6118 or email Allie at amantel@500festival.com

One of the long-term goals of Project Muncie Scene has finally completed. We now have the internet's answer to a flyer kiosk. Now, you can get your promotional material on the front page of this website as easily as tacking a flyer up at the campus Scramble Light.

Head over to the left side of the page, click on Post Flyer, upload your JPEG image, and specify the date of your event. The staff here will approve the image and it'll be online until it reaches its expiration date.

If this resource gets utilized like crazy, it'll get more real estate on the website (like a full page of current flyers instead of just the little box on the right).

Spread the word!

This is a few weeks old, but still worth a plug. Philadelphia band Soraia came through Muncie (twice) on their December tour and wrote about their love of our humble town in their MySpace blog. Read on for quotes.

Six feet under since the first Concert From Hell (Halloween 2004), the industrial songs of Muncie/Anderson/Indianapolis band Monster Pagan Death Ride are getting fabulously remastered and released for public consumption. Stay tuned for more updates from this project in development.

In the summer of 2005, Eric "Doog" Alexander (of ...Revel in the Morning, Clearance, and innumerable other arbitrarily named bands that helped define a brief era of Muncie indie rock) produced a full-length CD of his solo work titled Some Kind of Sex. Here we have that dancy, quirky seductress of an album available for download!

Eric Alexander - Some Kind of Sex.zip

The Star Press recently reported (erroneously) that the Full Circle Arts Co-op has leased The Launching Pad. It is, however, true that the two groups are working closely together now and are looking into signing a lease.

That means that the management of The Muncie Scene, Doc's Music Hall, the Full Circle Arts Co-op, and the Launching Pad now all overlap to cover some of the most important areas of our local art/music community:

The Muncie Scene: Online information database, communication center, promotional vehicle.
Doc's Music Hall: Muncie's premiere 21+ venue, recording studio, art gallery.
Full Circle Arts Co-op: 501(c)3 non-profit group dedicated to local community work, backing grants for local projects, and building a downtown all-ages community center / venue / gallery.
The Launching Pad: Muncie's premiere all-ages venue.

Alan wrote in to make sure that our new site didn't overlook PunksOnBikes.com, which he describes as "a Punk/bmx zine based here in Muncie".

The site's impressively slick, relevant, and updated frequently. Check it out!