The World Wide Web just got a big dose of funk, blues, greazy Fishhead rock, and New Orleans by-way-of Sweden funky blues/rock thanks to new sites by local veteran musicians George Porter, Jr., Brint Anderson, Camile Baudoin and Anders Osborne, respectively. Once the domain of primarily younger bands, this latest crop of sites from New Orleans roots musicians proves the Web’s continuing development into a medium used by musicians of all genres to promote their craft, as well as a way for fans of all styles to stay connected with their favorite artists.

George Porter, Jr., debuted georgeporterjr.com earlier this year and, thanks to Porter’s long musical history and extensive archives, the site promises to offer a huge cache of classic Meters information, photos and soundclips, as well as a wealth of information and multimedia on Porter’s own band, the Runnin’ Pardners, and on the various gigs he’s had as a sideman over the years, to musicians including Lee Dorsey, David Byrne, Johnny Adams, Tori Amos, Earl King and Robbie Robertson. The photo gallery at the site included dozens of scans of old Meters photos, covers of published sheet music to such funk hits as “Sophisiticated Cissy,” and shots of Porter and the Meters playing with Professor Longhair and with Paul and Linda McCartney. There are also a number of sound clips (in .wav, .aiff and RealAudio formats) for both the Meters and the Runnin’ Pardners, plus a link for a to-be-added Quicktime movie archive. Meters and Runnin’ Padners fans are welcome to send e-mail comments for inclusion on a “Fan Page” area, and plans for live chats between Porter and fans are in the works.

Brint Anderson, Runnin’ Pardners guitarist and frontman of his own band, has his own site up at a recently-debuted Toulouse Records Web site (www.toulouseworld.net/toulouserecords). Anderson’s site was designed by Chris Davenport and currently focuses primarily on his recent release, I Knew This Would Happen, and included track information, song credits, and RealAudio sound clips — each track on the record is sampled and available for download, providing a full preview of I Knew This Would Happen before purchase. Links to current tour dates and a product ordering area are currently inactive, but these should be updated as the site continues to develop.

Guitarist Camile Baudoin of the stalwart New Orleans rock band the Radiators has a site (personal.msy.bellsouth.net/msy/r/a/radi8) up that offers Fishheads around the globe access to Baudoin’s personal bio (as well as some great early history on the Radiators), a “Tech Talk” section with descriptions of equipment he plays (including the model of car the hubcap he plays is from), and photo scans of Baudoin throughout his career. The lack of commercial aspects on the site is particularly refreshing — as the statement on the top of the home page says, “we can take our time here: you can surf the website, not the crowd, and learn a little bit more about where I come from and what and how I play — and you don’t have to stand in the front row and get beer spilled on you.”

While clearly in its developmental stages, Anders Osborne’s new Web site (www.andersosborne.com) should soon become an easy way for Osborne’s fans to keep tabs on current tour and record information. Currently a few dates are listed, as is information on the new Live at Tipitina’s release, on Shanachie records (fans who visit Osborne’s site can print out an order form from there, or link to the Shanachie site and place an order on-line) and a few photos of Osborne and his band. Webmaster Ron O’Connor says new merchandise, including posters and T-shirts, will be available from the site soon, as will RealAudio clips for the new record, a discography of Osborne’s past work, and Web-exclusive sound clips of solo acoustic recordings.

Essence magazine’s Essence Music Festival will once again come to the New Orleans Superdome over the July Fourth weekend. Beginning on Thursday, July 2 and wrapping up Sunday, July 5, Essence Fest brings a number of top soul, R&B, blues, jazz, funk, zydeco, rap and gospel performers to the ‘dome and also includes a number of seminar offerings at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. The Web site for Essence Fest (www.essence.com/music_festival) includes a complete schedule of all musical performances and seminars, as well as ticket prices and ordering information. Unfortunately, the Web site lacks any significant depth of coverage on any of the musicians or speakers, so don’t visit the site expecting much more than schedules.

There’s a new software tool on the market for music composers called Autoscore. The software, created by Wildcat Canyon Software, in Berkeley, CA, allows users to play or sing into a microphone attached to the soundcard of their computer and have the software convert the tones into an actual score. The advantages to novice songwriters are obvious, but even for musicians who have practice and experience writing scores, the software can make the job much less tedious. There are a few limitations to the software. The pitch tracking only correctly recognizes one note at a time, so playing chords or multiple instruments will have pretty horrible results. Therefore, Autoscore is not a practical tool to convert, say, a track from your favorite CD into sheet music. Furthermore, while Autoscore does allow users to record voice as well as instruments, and does not require “training” like voice-recognition software (speaking specific words and phrases until the software can accurately interpret your speech patterns), it does far much better at recognizing “nonsense words” than actual lyrics (the manual suggests singing “da” rather than words). Still, the software installs easily, comes with a microphone and easy to follow manual, and is relatively easy to use, making it a great time- and labor-saving tool. It tracks both pitch and duration of each note amazingly well, and allows multiple track (well over one hundred) recording, editing, and immediate playback on any of dozens of MIDI voices. A metronome (adjustable from 20 to 240 beats per minute) starts on each recording, so synching multiple tracks is painless. In all, the ease of use of Autoscore probably belies its functionality, making it an application both effortless to learn and infinitely useful for the amateur composer.

Lastly, apparently there was a lot of ill will and anger as a result of comments made in last month’s “Plugged In,” specifically regarding a Jazz Fest performance by local trumpeter and champion of the Treme neighborhood, Kermit Ruffins. In hopes of clarifying a misunderstanding, I would like to point out that, as I mentioned in the opening paragraph of the column, all the comments were made by Jazz Fest attendees who had posted their opinions about what they saw — good and bad — while at Jazz Fest to an open forum on the Internet, the Message Board on OffBeat’s Web site. While I do not regret publishing both positive and negative criticism made by fans — I would be doing a disservice to OffBeat and our readers to only publish positive feedback — I do concede that readers of the column could misconstrue the comments as my own, due to lack of attribution (unfortunately, the nature of the medium prevents this from being possible unless the person posting a comment includes their name). I apologize for the confusion, and hope this explanation alleviates any bad feelings.