Jueves 20 Abr 2006, 13:02
My head is spinning from the overwhelming abundance of choice new music that is piling up on my computer. Between the recent explosion of great mp3 blogs, recommendations from you people, itunes & file-sharing, cheap vinyl, my new satellite radio, and podcasting, I have just started to collapse from the virtual weight of hundreds of random tracks by random bands (as well as thousands of great tracks by more established bands). When could I possibly listen to it all?
Not at home, I try, but what with all the crazy politics and warmongering going on around here, my attention is distracted my the news. PLus, I work and stuff. And I have a DVR, and Invasion just started up again, and American Idol is finally getting interesting. Thank god Battlestar is on hiatus and the new Dr. Who is even worse than the old Dr. Who. It's not like when I hang out with friends we can sit around the old computer and survey new songs that I have no idea about. half of them suck, and that's a private little adventure I prefer to do on my own.
At the gym? Maybe. In order to block out the nasty funk and grunting that threatens to sicken the sensitive exerciser like myself I have to blast the outside world out of my periphery. For that, I like to rock out to the likes of Franz Ferdinand, The Hives. and more recently and slightly less reliably, The Arctic Monkeys. So it's hard to get new music by randoms into the rotation there.
A few that have made it: The Gaskets' "Hold Steady, Hot Weather", The Lovely Feathers' "In The Valley", Demon's Claws "Hypnotize", and Von Iva "Not Hot Too Trot". But seriously, who are these people? They all rock, but I keep checking to see if I have anything else by them, and then I forget what I was doing… sure I could research them on the nets, and I probably will. But what usually happens is that these guys were all in anoither band, and they have an mp3 to download, and that sounds like these other guys who have some stuff on mySpace, and customers who bought that also bought something else that sounds pretty good, and next thing I'm right back where I started. Who the fuck are The Rakes? I dunno but everythime I hear them it's like the first time again.
Plus, that's just the gym, and I can't listen to the mellower stuff there. I loved some of Nicolai Dunger's old material, but I just haven't been able to find the time to get into the few new tracks I've heard. Same goes for the new Man Man that everyone's been swearing by.
I have a long flight to Dallas this weekend, maybe I can make up some time there. I certainly try to squeeze in some listening at night, ut there are other distractions to contend with. I'm getting a new kitten in a week, so even more of of my spare minutes will be spoken for.
Is it any wonder that I've been driven back to older, safer, more familiar territory lately? I got a great live R.E.M. show from WLIR in 1984 (a peak of theirs) off of rbally, and all of a sudden I'm listening to R.E.M. non-stop. What'll happen is that I'll quickly get bored of them, maybe retreat further to a few days of The Rolling Stones and whatever else, and then I'll strake back out into new stuff again. My top playlists here on audioscrobbler still reflect the great Jonathan Richman recession I went through last year after a crazy indie and reggae binge.
anyhoo