pandora

One of my clients at work turned me on to this great music resource: Pandora. I think I'd heard of it before, but never played around with it.

Basically, you enter music you like (either an artist, a band, or a song) and it finds that music. Then it feeds you similar music. You tell the program if you like it or not, and it tailors the music to your tastes.

I also get a kick out of reading why it plays each song. Some reasons it's given me include "extended vamping", "acoustic guitars", "a great tenor sax solo", and "minor tonality".

Registration is required, but free. Enjoy!

slackin' & thinkin'

I've been really terrible about bothering to update. It's not that I don't have great ideas, it's that they inevitably occur when I'm nowhere near a computer or blogger. Naturally I immediately forget these great ponderings and am left with the mundane details of life.

If they are too boring for me to post, they are way too boring for you to have to read.

Or they are still jumbled up thoughts in my head, and not coherent enough for me to post, and then by the time they are, I've forgotten them. It's really a vicious circle.

The current internal ramblings of my head include thoughts on music scenes. How participants in these scenes get involved, immerse themselves, view "outsiders", etc. How those of us outside these scenes interact with them, directly and indirectly. Why it matters in the scheme of popular culture. (Probably it doesn't matter much, I admit).

This is probably fueled by my recent binging on books by Chuck Klosterman. I saw him read last fall (my first - and to date - only - book reading I've attended) and enjoyed it. Oddly, my mom worked with him indirectly for a period of time. She told me she thought she "raised me better than to read anything Chuck wrote". She said he was weird, but she liked him, and he was generally nice.

ANYWAYS (<--- that's stolen from Klosterman) I am also reading a book titled My So Called Punk. And I'm struck by how entrenched the author is into the punk culture, particularly by his apparent lack of recognizing much value outside of the "punk" genre or scene. (I've read less than 100 pages, so maybe it'll change. The reviews on Amazon are not giving me that much hope).

I've always jumped around in my musical leanings. My favorite types of music include the following: bebop jazz, modern classical, early to mid 90s alternative/grunge, old school punk, 60s surf rock*, reggae, jam bands, 70s funk, and Celtic/Irish punk.

People identify verify personally with music. Most people, particularly from the approximate ages of 12-25, choose their personal clothing and hairstyles to match their taste in music (or maybe for a select few it's vice versa). I'm not sure why this is. But I would look pretty silly wearing bright orange bell-bottoms and a flannel shirt with safety pins sticking in it.

I think the idea of being a "true fan" of a band, a "poser", all of that is actually pretty interesting. It's a driving force in our social circles and, again, in others' interactions with us.


*I'm just getting into the surf rock stuff, but so far I'm in love.