friends and websites in Turkey...

Todd Thille, Synesthete is one of the most creative video artists out there today. And I mean out there...
Ulas Özdemir - Alevi musician and musicologist
Aytekin Atas - arranger and composer of film and TV music
Aysenur Kolivar - professional singer and passionate scholar of Hemsin, Laz, and other Eastern Black Sea local musics
Neoplast is Turkey's only true goth industrial darkwave band
Sinan Erdemsel is an Istanbul-based multi-instrumentalist who often teaches at various camps in California
Gitar Cafe (Kadiköy) - my favorite venue in Istanbul for interesting concerts and good conversations

friends and websites in the US and beyond...

Baby Dee, piano, harp, and queen of organ grinding
The Warheads - an original San Francisco music concoction of Ron K and JRS
Kid Kameleon - a great blog by DJ/music writer Matt Earp
DJ Ripley - researcher, club DJ
Tricky Redkin is a funky psychedelic children's group whose album I mixed
Eric Ederer is a man on a mission: ultimate esoteric knowledge about the cumbus and the makam system...
Myra Melford is an experimental jazz pianist and inspiring teacher of the works of Leroy Jenkins, Dave Douglas, and Henry Threadgill
Jonathan Kessler and Beth Moscov do many things - raising goats, archery, and playing doumbek...
Aharon Wheels Bohlsta is one of the craziest tabla players and drummers ever. And that's a good thing...
Four Flea Circus is one of the stranger new groups to emerge from Cal. They were just in Japan last summer...
John Carlos Perea is a fellow Berkeley student, grooving bassist, and powwow drummer
Cemali is a Turkish industrial band primarily based in the Bay Area

(in alphabetical order)

Benjamin Brinner - ethnomusicology (UCB), specializing in issues of musical competence, interaction, networks, and memory.
Jocelyne Guilbault - ethnomusicology (UCB), specializing in cultural politics (particularly in the French and English speaking Caribbean).
Donna Kwon - ethnomusicology (U of Kentucky), specializing in the music of Korea.
Scott Marcus - ethnomusicology (UCSB), directs the UCSB Middle Eastern Ensemble and Music of India Ensemble, and specializes in the musics of Egypt and India.
Robert Provine - ethnomusicology (UMD), specializing in the music of Korea.
Graham St. John is an anthropologist doing the most interesting and important academic research on electronic dance music right now.
Martin Stokes - ethnomusicology (Oxford), specializing in popular music in Turkey and Egypt.
Paul Theberge - technical mediations of culture (Carleton), specializing in new media and the music industry.
Bonnie Wade - ethnomusicology (UCB), specializing in the historeography of Indian music and contemporary Japanese music.
Lawrence Witzleben - ethnomusicology (UMD), specializing in the music of China and popular music studies.