Guster are in the process of taking a bunch of older tapes of live shows and putting them up on the Web. You can find the first one, from their April 19, 2000 show, over at “the Pasty Tapes“.

Rolling Stone, of all things, presents this preview of power-pop supergroup Tinted Windows, which is kind of a surprise, because it has nothing to do with Springsteen, Dylan, Prince, or Pearl Jam.

Anyway, the group — featuring Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger, Smashing Pumpkins’ James Iha, Cheap Trick’s Bun E. Carlos, and Hanson’s Taylor Hanson, has a forthcoming album, featuring this track, Kind of a Girl. Enjoy.

Mike Doughty, he once of Soul Coughing fame and now a flourishing singer-songwriter in his own right, has several tracks available on his music page, including Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well, The Only Answer (live), and Thank You, Lord, For Sending Me the F Train.

MC Lars’ Mr. Raven isn’t a new track, but it’s new to me – I hadn’t heard it until I caught his show two days ago. I’m digging it because 1) it’s got a killer bass guitar riff, and 2) it’s a rap song about Edgar Allen Poe, for the love of Pete.

Front’s new CD Final Boss is out in a monthish, but for now you can download the first track, Wallflowers, for free. Margaret Thatcher would approve.

Jim’s Big Ego have just released their new album, “Free*“, to the Web. You can stream it right from their site, or get it as mp3s, and there’s the cool part: it’s got a tiered pricing system.

downloads purchased for $0 are MP3s encoded at 128kbps
$.99 to $3.99 are MP3s encoded at 160kbps
$4.99 to $8.99 are MP3s encoded at 192kbps
$9.99+ are MP3s encoded at 320kbps

You can also get a CD or LP with 320kbps downloads.

Also? It’s really good, especially “Depravity”. So download it for free — if you must.

The lead single from the alt-country powerhouse’s new disc Blame It On Gravity is Dance With Me, courtesy of the Onion’s AV Club.

Freezepop just collected three awards in the Boston Phoenix’s Best Music Poll, and for good reason. Please to enjoy Less Talk More Rokk.

The Charlatans (aka “The Charlatans UK”, if you’re an American lawyer) have released their new album for free. Free! Sure, Radiohead did it, but they’re filthy rich, so it’s pleasantly surprising to see the boys from Birmingham follow suit.

Get it via XFM.

Jill keeps an ever-changing list of free mp3s on her website. If you like Jill, and you should, then you should check out how she’s financing her next record: a fan-funded “telethon”.

$25 gets you an advance copy of the disc; $100 gets you that plus a t-shirt saying you’re a junior executive producer; for $1,000, Jill will write you your own theme song; and for $25,000, you can sing on the album.