First, I wish that Blogger had some sort of feature where when someone comments, you can respond to it, that way they know you responded to what you said, instead of always looking at the comments. LiveJournal has such a feature, but I like the Blogger interface much better.
But, this post is in response to what Jennifer had asked about music.
You shouldn't feel old. All those bands hardly hardly ever get air play. Stephin Merritt's bands especially. Public Radio seems to dig him. He doesn't perform under his own name(ok, he has two albums under his own name) and he has I think, five bands. But they are just him, with help from his friends. Anyway, I'm getting off topic.
How do I find out about these bands if they aren't on the radio you ask? I'll start by saying that music is an obsession for me.
At first, I was much like a casual listener. Music was on at work, or on in the car when you went from place to place. Strangely enough, my first CD I bought was a country music CD. I got into country music for a few months. After a few months I found that there wasn't much different at all in country. I had outgrown it and wanted more. So I went to other radio stations. I started getting into Top 40 stuff. I grew out of that as well in a few months. But since I was so into music I was picking up magazines and voraciously reading what my favourite artists were saying. They'd mention these tiny independent bands that they were really digging. So I'd go out and get a CD of that band. Then it would just become reading reviews and if the reviews of said CD sounded very interesting, I'd get it. I remember my first blind purchase not hearing a single note from the band, but almost every music magazine out there was saying "this is THE album!". I bit and bought "OK Computer" from the band Radiohead. I was so paranoid that I'd thrown away money by buying a CD that was going to just be horrible. By the second track, "Paranoid Android", I was absolutly in love. THIS was the most amazing thing I'd ever heard. As I said, I was getting tired of what was "popular" on the radio and wanted something different. Here it was. Three guitars playing completely different things, yet sounding so great together. Thom Yorke's signiture british whine, which seemed so much more sincere than anything the pretty boys on the radio were singing, and if you'd ever seen Yorke, you'd know he's not one of those guys either. Horrid teeth, one of the biggest lazy eyes you've ever seen and he always looks like he just got out of bed. THIS was what I had been looking for.
I, of course, ran right out and bought anything that Radiohead had put out. Since then, this is how it's been for me. If someone in a band I liked, played guitar on some other bands CD for one song, I go get it. I've downloaded a ton of live shows off the interet, because I'll read that live a certain band played one of their songs different than it is on the album.
I've went to all sorts of genre's too. I've listened to them all. I've become disgusted with them all, just to come back to them. When I was in college I was really digging punk music, and then got tired of it, just to come back to it now. (and not the "punk" that seems to be on the radio now. Green Day is a hybrid of true punk and this punk crap that is labeled that now. Give me my NOFX, or Rancid...hell, go classic, Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys...now that's punk!)
But that's my obsession. Ask anyone about theirs. I'm sure if you ask Bryan about board games, the story would be very simular to this. He played one, and had to try more, and then there was just one that blew it open for him. Same with Carmen, I bet there is some mini painting story where he said "Oh My God, this is just the greatest thing in the world!"
Heck, my obsession has went as far as I'm contemplating getting myself a guitar for Christmas. I'll probably be crap, but I want to mess around on a guitar.
Ok, that was fun.
Until later.
America's Cup boats
3 weeks ago
