I’ve need to declutter my iTunes podcast and vidcast listings for awhile. Some are no longer updated, some had stopped when I found them.
Some were attempted listening that didn’t even rise to the level of feigned interest.
Here they are on the flipside :::
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I’ve never liked Radiohead very much, but this is called “House of Cards.” Americans seem enthralled with once-earnest British Isles bands, long after they’ve gone stale (U2 anyone?)
(First published at Desicritics.org, Cross-posted also at ThePodcastBlog.com)
A lot of new music gets by on just being new - for about two or three listens. And then it fades away. The best thing about these guys, the band Telescope, compared to others, is their sincerity. Lead singer Seth Holland drives crackling sincerity through every word and the musicians emphasize the erupting emotions.
The 10-track album, For The Rest Of Us — download it free for the moment — is packed with self-described power pop. Think Candlebox, or a hugely more meaningful, less cheesy, Hootie & The Blowfish. Or a talented, cringeless Jonas Brothers.
Overall, Telescope's music is lighter melodic rock rather than the heavy side of things. I'm not sure if they amp it all up live, but if they do, the songs have the strength for different interpretations.
Their most popular tune, "Stormy Weather," brings to mind the mid-90s band, Live. The song is a very mellow, bare-boned production that naturally brings the lyrics and what's being said into focus.
Driving music to me has to be something catchy, sometihng that sounds good loud and, obviously in an enclosed space. It also has to be fast paced. You need to want to head bang or sing along or tap your fingers on dashboard, legs or steering wheel.
They also have to go well together; one song has to sound good leading into th enext. Sometimes this can just ruin things. It ca be a case of graduation, from one style of music into the next. Some - a lot, most - work well. Some just don’t.
Tears For Tears, No Doubt, Siouxsie And The Banshees, even most Fatboy Slim - none of it works for driving music.
I had all the above on the CD I’ve been recently listening to in the car and, though I didn’t at first, I started to fast forwarded over all of them. Out of 17 tracks that I put together, I ended up listening consistently to about five of them.
Until this year, I had been listening to a lot of sports talk and poli-talk radio, and hadn’t needed tunes, much. But the music will always catch you.
So last night, I shuffled and juggled and ripped CDs I own trying to find songs that would work together.
Megadeth, with its pounding guitars and drums is a sure winner, guaranteed along with old-school Metallica to make you discover you’ve accelerated 15 mph without noticing. A few Justin Timberlake songs - pretty much the four I can stand - are also surprisingly effective at making the journey cruise on by.
So for 0811008Drivemix I narrowed it down to the following:
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I appear to have a long-standing fascination with the cello, and for some reason it re-established itself very recently - in just the past week.
Long-standing in the sense that about the first music I bought after we moved to England was Julian Lloyd Webber’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini - for violin (24th Caprice). (Written by his more famous brother). I have NO idea why. An excerpt of it was the music to The South Bank Show with Melvin Bragg. But I’m not sure I was into that program as a 12-year-old.
Even if that’s where I heard it I really have no idea what motivated me to actually walk down to the music store, next to the small store in East Croydon where they sold Cadbury’s Creme Eggs, something else I had just discovered, and buy it. Since I was new in England pretty much everything was a discovery.
I played that tape to death for a good solid month at least. I have it still, though haven’t played it in years, In fact I’d completely forgotten about it. Until earlier this week. On July 9 I started an article here contemplating a cello suite prelude.
And I found that piece because I remembered, though I’ve never sought to listen to classical music, I loved the sound of the cello. In searching, I found that prelude.
MELANCHOLY TIPS ITS HAT
The cello to me has warmth, and a deep bravado of listening purpose. The vibrations of its large strings resonate through each other and bring forward a sound that welcomes engagement.
With that same welcoming gesture of sound comes, too, a simultaneous push away. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week, after not very many attempts at all over the last year, I finally got the downloaded last.fm software to both install and work. You have to “scrobble” your songs to make last.fm interesting, it’s pretty much its reason for being.
Now I can.
I think I last visited in Nov. 2007 and signed up sometime in February 2007. I’ve never used it to its fullest, in a similar way that I’ve never used Pandora.com to its fullest. In both cases, you can learn much about music and surround yourself in musical notes and new discoveries.
Last.fm is supposed to part of the social media verve but its tools seem a little to hard to be fun. It’s all about the music, baby.
What Last.fm does is allow you to add friends and if you wonder what people you know are listening to or what those you don’t but who may be in different countries are listening to, it can be fascinating. You can watch people’s new likes, and their stalwarts, the songs they turn to time and time again to comfort, to rage, to dance, to be happy or contemplative.
Trigun (Soundtrack) - Never Could Have Been Worse
Slipknot - Resident Evil
Metallica - Fade To Black
Korn - Shoots and Ladders
Linkin Park - A Place For My Head
Kenna - Hell Bent
DJ Geezy - In Da Club Remix
Suzanne Vega - The Queen and the Soldier
Disturbed - This Moment
John Lennon - Imagine (live acoustic)
Linkin Park - In The End
Madonna - La Isla Bonita
Ani DiFranco - Both Hands
T-Pain f. Kanye West & UGK - Buy You A Drank
Bush - Glycerine
The Mohawk Lodge - Wear Em Out
I listened to these, yesterday. And yes, this post was inspired because they represent a fairly accurate snapshot of what I like. Trigun is new to me; the Linkin Park and Slipknot heavy side is somewhat over-represented but it does reflect my moods at the moment. And, most importantly, it doesn’t include that Jessica Simpson song I have. Ok, none of the three I have. Ok, ok, four.
My last.fm account is tmanstark.
