”Hey everyone,

KRASH will be on my friend’s radio show this Saturday 1/9/10 at 12AM-1AM your time. The link is www.wsum.org/home/shows/now-playing. Be sure to check them out….that’s tomorrow!”

First of all, happy new year to all our visitors from us here at Islandnoise.com. We hope you have a bright, prosperous and blessed 2010!

As 2009 is now over, I decided to take a screenshot of Islandnoise’s site stats for the past 2 years:

The stats clearly shows that we’ve made a huge jump in the number of page requests in 2009 (I’m sure the redesign of the site played a major role in that, as it’s now more interactive). I’d just like to say thanks to all our supporters on behalf of the entire IN team and we hope you continue your stay with us throughout 2010 and beyond!

The last time I checked Islandnoise.com’s Trinidad ranking on Alexa over a year and a half ago it was something like 700. Recently I’ve been checking it out and I see we’ve been in the top 100 for some time now. As I type this message it’s currently at 86, meaning that this is the 86th most visited website in Trinidad and Tobago out of all the media sites, entertainment sites, social networking sites, email providers, YouTube, Google etc.

I placed an Alexa image on the side panel that you can click on to go directly into the Islandnoise.com ranking page to keep updated on how the site is doing in Trinidad and Tobago.

Within the past couple of months, my friend Pady (a Guyanese living in NYC) has been checking out a lot of local bands and has really gotten into some of them to the point where she wrote 3 articles; 2 about individual bands (Cabezon and Krash) and 1 about the music in general.

Here are the links to the articles she wrote:

Article on the band Cabezon
Article on the band Krash
Article on the different genres of rock music

She introduced me to ”Taqwacore”, a genre that I had no idea existed. It’s actually the Muslim version of Christian rock. Al-Thawra is one of the bands in that genre and you can check out their stuff at http://www.myspace.com/althawra.

You can vibes Pady on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pcakes to check out your music and if you’re lucky enough you might get an article written on it.

— EDIT —

Here are 5 songs from an Afro-Punk band called Amul 9 that she wants everyone to check out:

Amul 9 – Black Jack
Amul 9 – DNA
Amul 9 – Execution
Amul 9 – Hardcore
Amul 9 – Triad

MySpace http://www.myspace.com/amul999
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/AMUL9/26726407576?ref=ts

Oh and I was also told that Taqwacore isn’t always about Muslim lyrics but other stuff as well :-).

I had intended to do this several months ago but didn’t get the time.

This new site blog is where I’ll be posting announcements and updates concerning the site as well as other miscellaneous announcements, similar to the ”announcement” column on the older version of IN’s homepage.

Comments can be posted but will need to be approved before showing up publicly. You can also click on the RSS feed icon on the left to subscribe to this blog.

Islandnoise.com t-shirts are on sale now. They’ve got the IN logo on the front and the URL on the back and are going at $60.00 TT each.

Currently we only have 1 Medium, 1 Large and 2 XL, and we’re taking orders for the next batch. We’re looking at doing baby tees etc. in the next batch so you can order those if you want.

Show your support for the site by purchasing one today! Be amongst the first to rock the Islandnoise logo at shows or wherever =).

You can contact either me (islandnoise@gmail.com), Jiggy (StatiC) or Merineo to place your order.