BAGeL Radio, one of the iTunes radio station streams, often plays stuff that I haven't heard before. Gimme Noise is another great stream, but typically sticks to the more widely known bands. These two stations help me tolerate the workday and sometimes turn me on to new stuff.One of my BAGeL Radio discoveries was [the] Caseworker. Both the radio station and the band are out of San Francisco. Apparently [the] Caseworker's first album came out in 2003 on Manifesto Records, an independent label with a weird grouping of acts such as Dead Kennedys, The Wedding Present, Cranes, Lilys and Tom Waits, among others. Now they are on Pehr.[the] Caseworker's song The Kick is one of my favorites. I have a soft spot for the girl/guy vocal thing, especially doubled up the way [the] Caseworker does it. They have an old school shoegazer sound without sounding like a cheap rehash of the early 90's. http://www.myspace.com/thecaseworker It's great how the Internet is helping independent music to flourish, in all its forms. It's a lot easier to simply click on a link and listen for free than how things used to be, when word of mouth, college radio and chance purchases were the only ways of discovering new music, which usually required being in the right place at the right time.I used to bemoan the loss of things such as fanzines, the little mom and pop record stores, and the 7" bin. The commercialization of music in general seemed to be undoing all things cool, like The Nothing in The Neverending Story. But we don't live in Fantasia and "cool" had no meaning to begin with. Maybe the exclusiveness felt by those considering themselves "in the know" is gone. Maybe ink stained fingertips from pouring over the latest issue of Maximum Rock & Roll isn't as glamorous as it once was. Who cares?The only crucial need is that we continue talking about the music regardless of what facilitates the communication.