The history of banned music, with brief but fascinating entries on everything from the 1951 radio station ban of Dean Martin's Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am to last year's banning of clothing emblazoned with rap group Insane Clown Posse in Ohio, is at Eric Nuzum's site. Join the censored discussion group or listen to banned MP3s at http://ericnuzum.com/banned

Blues fans can hang out at the Blue Flame CafΘ. Log on to check out an impressive, wide-ranging collection of biographies, from Bessie Smith to Stevie Ray Vaughan, blues links and audio, at www.bluefamecafe.com

Search the DJ Rhythm Dance Music database by artist, title or label, from Aaliyeh to ZYX. Focusing on club dance music and providing track, mixer and BPM detail not widely available, it also has links to sites on other dance music, e-zines and artists. At www.djrhythms.com/db

Song lyrics on the tip of your tongue? The Songfile database has the lyrics of more than 62,000 songs and provides a searchable database of hard-to-find CDs, tapes and pre-recorded music on the Net.

Also with links to a sheet music database and much more. At http://songfile.snap.com/index_2.html

smarriott@irish-times.ie