Occasionally Wright

A New Source of Music

Prior to trying out thesixtyone.com I had never heard of the following bands and artists:

Aron Wright
Bandwagon Device (from Saskatchewan)
Dust Rhinos (from Winnipeg)
Hudson
Paul and Storm
Sarah Donner
Squid
The Avett Brothers (who are downright awesome)

I came across all of them, and more, in the past 48 hours. Based on how I heard about the site (via an overenthusiastic advertising guy) I was skeptical about what I'd find, but it turns out there are a lot of great independent artists out there. I've mostly been listening to the folk channel includes lots of bluegrass and acoustic stuff too) as well as the rock, alternative and pop channels. The nice thing about the site is that a lot of the artists provide song to download for free, which puts thesixtyone.com way ahead of most other online radio and music sites.

You can check out what I've found below.

Music Mini-Crisis

No one ever warned me  a lot of the music I used to listen to would be a whole lot less fun after I got married.

It turns out I used to enjoy a lot of angst-filled music about relationships and break-ups. Now I can't relate to much of anything Dashboard Confessional sings about.

What brings this up is the new Matt Mays and El Torpedo album, Terminal Romance. The album is fantastic but as the title kind of implies the lyrics from some of the best songs are about a failed relationship. They're still fun to sing along with in the car, but I just can't relate any more. that's a good thing of course, but what am I supposed to listen to now?

Cousin Zwerg

It's not every day that you discover that you're related (through marriage) to a recording artist. It's also not every day that you discover that that same recording artist was in The Sopranos. If I actually watched it I might have recognized him.

Sounds Familiar...

I can't be the only person in the world that thinks the Silversun Pickups sound like the presumably defunct band Spud Puddle which put out one album on the also defunct Brainstorm record label.

The difference being I listen to the Silversun Pickups on my ipod and Spud Puddle in the tapedeck of my 1989 Buick.

Live... In Atlanta

Living in Ottawa I was spoiled. Between live music at every pub in town (with no cover) and the annual Tulip Festival I saw a whole lot of live shows. Now it's been about 16 months since I've been to any sort of concert or live performance, which is kind of sad since my company runs an arena.

The last band I did see in concert was one of the best live Canadian acts I've ever seen- Our Lady Peace at the Roxy, a venue that holds a few hundred people. It was kind of weird since I'd previously seen them about four years before that at another small venue. That time it was at Ziggy's in Winston-Salem, another small venue.

But now.. now I have tickets to see the ultimate Canadian band. No- not BTO. I've always wanted to see the Hip live, and they'll be here in March, at the Roxy. The last time they played Atlanta half the Thrashers were there and friends of mine were literally leaning on the stage.

Hopefully they play plenty of their old stuff, because I've hardly listened to a thing since Music At Work.

Keeping It Free

I've been in a musical funk lately. Living in the US I've stopped downloading free music (it was entirely legal in Canada, or at least not illegal) and I think I've only bought three or four cds since I came down here 15 months or so ago. With the state of radio being where it is in Atlanta, I've had trouble finding decent new music to listen to.

Enter CBC Radio 3. I'm not sure how I got turned onto their site, and for the most part I only like one out of every ten songs they stream, but here's the thing. You can create an account and then make a playlist of the songs you like. When they play something that catches your ear, so to speak, you just add it to your playlist. You can also listen to playlists created by other listeners, so if you find someone with similar musical tastes you can just lift all of their stuff.

If you want to hear what I've been listening to, just create an account, log in, and find my playlist- bpwright. It's got lots of Joel Plaskett, the New Pornographers, Wintersleep, Stars and other fine Canadian music on there. Todays discovery was The Awkward Stage- an indie band from Vancouver.

If you know of any other places where I can listen to good, free music, please let me know.

Musical Time Warp

Not too long ago I was packing up my stuff at my old roomates place to move it over to the new apartment and I came across my box of tapes. Cassettes if you will. I no longer own a stereo, and my old walkman (a Sony Sportsman that I bought with lawn-mowing money when I was 12 or 13) is buried away in a box somewhere, but I do have a fully functional tapedeck in my '89 Buick.

Lo and behold, one of the tapes was the single best mixed tape I've ever made. It was made specifically for  listening to while playing NHL '95 on my Super Nintendo (the last EA Sports NHL game with the Nordiques, Whalers and Cam Neely) and it consisted entirely of punk/pop- MxPx, Blink182, Less Than Jake and Valu-Pac.

Unfortunately the tape was so old and worn out that it severed halfway through the frist side the first time I popped it into the tapedeck. So much for that.

Tapes remaining in my glove box include:

Rose Blossom Punch- Ephemere
Spooky Tuesday
Mike Knott- Strip Cycle
Mike Knott- Fluid
poor old lu- Pictures of the Eighth Wonder
Hocus Pick- Bookaboom (still a great tape)
MxPx- On The Cover (which includes the best cover ever of "Summer of '69")
Maritime Drinking Tunes (made by my brother upwards of seven years ago)

Musical Schizophrenia

The FX network has been running commercials for the season premiereof The Shield this week and their main teaser features Johnny Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nail's 'Hurt'. It's a great song and it fits the show perfectly, and it continues the show's tradition of using great music, like The Von Bondies' 'Come One, Come On'.

... and then there's the other commercial. The one that uses 'Bad, Bad Man' by WWE superstar John Cena. Oh the humanity. It's like going from... well... Johnny Cash to John Cena. I really can't think of two artists that would be farther apart on the musical integrity scale. A musical legend and a wrestler that fancies himself a rapper. How bad is he? Check out these lyrics:

"Give it to me straight - ain't no chasin it
Check yourself in the mirror - ain't no facin it
Cause you, playin the role and you plannin to fold
This the masterplan, we got the planet on hold
We all over the streets like your favorite sneaker
Breakin up your sound like a drive-through speaker
Everything that I be spittin is strong
After I rock, fast forward through the rest of the song"

Lyrical genius I tell ya. Right up there with Vanilla Ice and Marky Mark, who happens to be a fine actor, but not such a great rapper.

Your Own Personal Radio

This is probably really old news and there may be a bunch of other versions of this type of program/service, but I've just been introduced to Pandora. What's Pandora? It's like a personal radio station in which you say "I like Band X" and it tracks down other artists that have a similar sound to Band X. You can base it one artist or a whole bunch of them. You can have mulitple stations based on different styles. And you can give feedback on each song played so the program can adjust to your tastes. It's also loaded with dozens of bands I've never heard of which increases the chance of me finding new music.

So far I really like it and even go so far as to recomend it. It's doing wonders for my productivity at work.

"It's Nothing Personal George"

In light of this does anyone want to place bets on how much time passes before a talk radio host, Fox News talking-head or no-name Republican politician calls for a boycott of the Rolling Stones? Or perhaps Best Buy, Circuit City or some other chain will pull their albums over fears of being seen as supporting their anti-neo con agenda.