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Baby Dayliner’s national tour, which stops in Los Angeles on Oct. 12, is being presented by

In years past, a new wave crooner such as Baby Dayliner on his first national tour might have been sponsored by left-leaning radio stations such as KCRW.

Instead, when Dayliner (a.k.a. Ethan Marunas) brings his one-man show to the Troubadour on Oct. 12 in support of fellow New Yorkers, The National, he’ll be promoted by word-of-blog.

Despite regular headlining gigs at the Mercury Lounge in his native New York City, Marunas can attribute some of his emergent national popularity to the music blog Music (For Robots), which is presenting his national tour.

“It’s uncharted territory,” said Mark Willett, a chief contributor to Music (For Robots) who organizes the blog’s Los Angeles segment. “This is (Baby Dayliner’s) first national tour and also the first national tour that we are presenting. I figure, you always see tours by major companies – a cigarette brand tour or a beer brand tour. ... We just thought a music blog tour would help get our name out there and raise some awareness for some cool and different bands.”

Amid the ever-growing slew of new music, blogs such as Willett’s have become a fundamental haven not only for the readers seeking a means to filter through the aural onslaught, but also for the bands themselves.

For an artist such as Baby Dayliner, with his innovative and often downright strange mix of solo cabaret, hip-hop and electro-pop, it is often difficult to accumulate much publicity in traditional media outlets.

“The format for (my shows) is just comprised of one person – me. So I had this idea for a long time that it just wouldn’t work on the road,” Marunas said. “And not because the rest of the states aren’t necessarily forward-thinking but because ... it takes people a long time to get acclimated to this sort of new concept without them thinking that I’m trying to pull the world over.”

The solution for Baby Dayliner, as well as many current independent musicians, lies in the vast potential of the music (or MP3) blog.

With their ability to cross national, international and, most importantly, mainstream borders, popular music blogs such as Music (For Robots), Stereogum, Gorilla vs. Bear and Soul Sides have made their way onto many a music aficionado’s bookmark bar.

There, they offer information, MP3s and personal opinions to an eager audience of readers, while also providing the necessary exposure to promising but often overlooked new artists. Music (For Robots) and Soul Sides have even curated compilation albums of their favorite artists.

“There are some bands that just may not necessarily appeal right away to Rolling Stone or MTV or something like that. We can write about whatever because we’re not pigeon-holed,” Willett said.

“(Some artists) just need a promotional outlet that is also kind of immediate. When I got (‘Critics Pass Away,’ Baby Dayliner’s latest album) from Brassland, I listened to it and said, ‘I can write something about this today,’ without having to worry about whether ... our subscription base is gonna be interested.”

Besides the immediacy of the publicity, independent artists are increasingly gravitating toward music blogs over large-scale publicity projects because blogs operate on a more personal level, offering a symbiotic promotion of both the band and the blog, without the stake of profits or reputation looming over both.

“It’s very laid back. (Music (For Robots) has) a great reputation for being a fair and interesting blog site, but the guys are just fans too. They felt like they could do a bit of publicity for us because ... they like us. There’s really not a lot of ego involved,” Marunas said.

“It just seems to work,” said Chris Cantalini of Gorilla vs. Bear, a Dallas-based music blog that has in the past put on shows for bands including Ratatat and Tapes ’n Tapes.

“We never really see it as a symbiotic thing, but it’s definitely seemed to work out that way. The main benefit is having a chance to bring bands that I love out to ... play shows when they might have otherwise skipped us.”

Doing everything from giving people an opportunity to kill time at work to offering an increasing number of blog-sponsored tours and concerts, blogs have become a panacea for the independently inclined music culture by providing information on who to listen to while simultaneously bringing them to a city near you, even if, in the case of Baby Dayliner, that consists of a man with a pompadour in a shiny button-down suit.

“I think a band like Baby Dayliner, yeah, is pretty weird but we’re ... still bringing (him) out here. We’re able to take the risk because there’s nothing at stake. It’s all just music,” Willett said.

“Honestly, we don’t know how long people are going to be reading this site and how long we’re going to hold our credibility, so for right now, it’s just like, ‘Why not? Let’s just see how this works out.’”