Beware! The Leopard

Listening to music during nicotine withdrawal

As I stand here putting my body through a withdrawal of the soul on purpose, I am forced to ponder how listening to music has changed in the last decade or so. 

When I was a kid we listened to casette tapes, bucket loads of casette tapes.  Of course vinyl was still around, but it was deemed to delicate for my little grubby hands to touch.  My first tape was Huey Lewis and the News "Fore!", for a long time I was ashamed to admit it, but now I wear that badge with pride, it was an awesome album.  Now if you wanted to "shuffle" your tunes/albums as you do now so easily, you made the all important mix tape.  My first mix tapes were recorded off the radio and frequently had the DJ making stupid remarks or the beginning of advertisments on them. 

Then came the CD.  Right about Gr. 9, everyone started buying these little plastic and foil round things called Compact Discs.  I wonder how many kids today even know what CD stands for.  Of course the mix tape stuck around for a while, as many people either didn't have CD players, or wanted to put multiple artists on the same tape.  My first CD player was a Sanyo, and it lasted me until the end of my second year of university.  7 years.  Not bad for cheap bits of plastic.  I got the CD player for christmas along with two CDs, Pearl Jam's "Ten" and Green Day's "Dookie". 

After that first Sanyo I took a jump and bought a Pioneer 150+1 CD player,for me this made mix tapes obsolete.  Now I could put my entire collection into one player and shuffle to my heart's content.  Round about the same time, MP3s were making headway and Napster had just begun its dominance as the poor college student's illegal music purveyor of choice.  Throughout my undergrad and graduate school days I was a download junkie, I'm not ashamed to admit it.  I couldn't afford $17 a CD, and I'd be damned before doing without new music.  I was never big on sharing though, because I was too afraid of being caught. 

As I entered the workforce again, I switched back to CD's as I wanted to support the artists, and call me a purist, but I like having something physical in my hands.  I like the ritual of turning the player on, selecting the track and sitting back to enjoy.  With the move to London, I ripped all my CDs at home and brought them as MP3s on an external hard drive.  It's extraordinarily convenient, the only downside is the loss in quality, but given that I'm using a couple of horrible computer speakers to play them through, its manageable. 

Now the reason for this post, at work, without MP3s we normally listen to a radio station on Itunes, or we play youtube videos.  This is a big pain in the tukkis, as it means you either listen to load of songs you don't want (on the radio), or you have to choose each song individually (youtube).  I keep listening to the same things over and over again, and I'm starting to get sick of them.  So I was hoping that you, dear readers, would have some solution.  What is the best way of listening to music via the internet that gives you a constant stream of good music?

Any ideas?  Comment below.

Bands to Watch - Sonny J

Sonny J

Disaster is exactly what you would expect when you hear that someone has taken all of their charity shop record finds, sampled them, and added some beats.  Visions of Joan Amartrading singing on top of a Toto riff fill my head.  Fortunately for us, Sonny J has come up with something as entirely unlike a disaster as Stephen Harper is as unlike a Prime Minister.  That is to say that Sonny J's phenomenal debut "Disastro" is a catchy piece of pop history. 

The beats fly fast and furious, the vocals have the Jackson 5 written all over them, but they still exude catchiness.  Think MGMT without the synths.  This is "retro" electronica that will definitely get you bopping you head at the very least, or running out to buy the album so you can play it in the car incessantly for weeks on end at the most.  His single, Can't stop moving, is one of those songs that you put on when you get up in the morning and it makes you happy.  Instantly.  Try it, and I swear your day will look brighter as soon as you do.

I find it hard to provide a decent review of electronica, because it's not a genre that I'm terribly familiar with.  I can say that the mixes are all well done, not too bassy or too vocal heavy, and the samples are perfectly chosen to complement each other within the individual song structures.

At any rate, Disastro is definitely worth checking it out.  Click the link up top to get a flavour.

Oh yeah, and I love the fish dude.

Friday Update

Bachelor-dom is over, my partner is back from an extended vacation in Canada, so I'm getting off the alcohol and tobacco fueled binge I've been on for a week and trying to get back to work on the music.  I've only got 9 days until my first headline show, and I'm excited and anxious.  Not only is this the first time I'll have played a full set in front of any sort of audience by myself, but it is also the first time my parents will be there to hear my original material. 

I've done loads of shows as parts of a band, but there's something about going on stage by yourself, with your music and your lyrics, that feels a bit like stepping on to the tube naked, but not in a good way.  I don't know if any of you have seen Coupling (BBC's version of Friends), but there's one episode where Jeff, the "Joey" of the bunch, ends up naked and surrounded by his entire workplace at a party in his honour, and he is stone sober.  My anxiety levels are about where his would have been if he had had an inkling that he was going to find himself in that kind of predicament. 

First things first though.  I've got to comb through my songs and figure out which ones I want to play to give me my 30 mins.  Then I have to put the finishing touches on the few that will use my new looper.  I also need to pick-up that Nord quick so that I have time to practice with it before the show.  I've been sneaking in a quick song or two here or there at work, but some serious woodshedding needs to happen before I'm stage ready.  So that's what I will be up to this week.  Exciting stuff eh?

Oh yeah, and the picture was taken by yours truly in Whitechapel.  In an effort to give the blog more of a visual aspect, I'll try and include as many of my decent photos where possible, even if they have nothing what so ever to do with the post. 

You will be mine....yes you will.

Selling things cleans the soul.  It brings us back to our native state of not owning things.  We don't enter this world with any possessions, and when we sell something it brings us closer to this state,  although when I sold my P-120 digital piano last week it did put a few Pounds in my pocket.  Unfortunately, like the vast majority of humanity, I have very little desire to remain in this "piano-less" state for very long.  I took the money I made, and plopped it down as a deposit on the piano I desperately want. 

And voila!  In a week or so's time, this baby will be all mine :-)

Yep, that's the Nord Electro 2, 73 keys of pure piano/organ/electric piano bliss.  This machine is kick ass and I can't wait to get it home and run it through the paces with the looper.  I promise to do a full review at that time.

I also promise to review a new band sometime in the near future.  Right now I'm on a Ron Sexsmith/Hawksley Workman kick and it might take me a while to get off it.  I think I'll have to find something new when M throws a shoe at me for hearing "Piano Blink" for the 47th time in a week (awesome song).