clearly I should write entries about music more often

[winterbadger]

I'm just sayin'. Quite an out pouring of comments. :-)

It would probably explain a lot to those totally horrified my my listening habits to know that I DETEST commercial radio and have refused to listen to it since some time in the early '80s. I can't abide the aural equivalent of spam that it's infested by. So the only way I hear new music is by being around someone who listens to new stuff or pretty much picking things at random and buying them. And I was married for 17 years to someone who *only* listens to folk and show tunes. ;-)

Comments

[dativesingular.livejournal.com]

Fair enough, I haven't listened to proper radio in years because it is, indeed, shite, and still get the majority of my music through hearsay. But still, U2!! :)

[jan-rosencrantz.livejournal.com]

I find I get most comments when I either

a: write one word posts or

b: question my own sexuality/lack thereof

[winterbadger]

LOL! :-)

[jan-rosencrantz.livejournal.com]

On another journal [which was erased quite some time ago] I wrote the word 'ICE'

no title, music or mood, just the word.


132 comments. my most ever.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Heh, that explains a lot.. I've been lucky to have friends with wide-ranging musical tastes.. you might want to try some of the online radio/music sites, lastfm and stuff, not many ads there. Actually, BBC Radio 2 plays some good music these days, 80s stuff and the latest tuneful things (radio 1 is all dance and rap and icky loud things), you can stream that from the bbc.co.uk website...

[snolan.livejournal.com]

I have a vague recollection of a LJ Friends list scraper that pulled the music your friends are listening to and lists it for you.

I also was recently told about a site that compares your favorite music to other people who liked that music and suggests stuff they also liked to you.

-----

Many years ago while I was stationed in Misawa, Japan (USAF at the time) our radios would only pick up about a dozen J-pop stations, Armed Forces Radio (Far East Network), and Radio Vladivostok. The J-pop stations made American commercial stations sound great (think re-cycled commercial American radio all sung by teenagers, gag). FEN was even worse, 100% pro-Reagan and pro-military propaganda mixed with recycled American commercial crap specifically chosen to be least offense (which also made it least interesting). Radio Vladivostok was also propaganda (this was the height of the cold war), but Soviet Russian efforts to influence American's in Japan is pretty laughable; the really cool thing is between the English language propaganda, and the Russian language news, Radio Vladivostok played awesome classical music and Russian folk music. Beautiful stuff.

The guys on the base had buddies near college campuses record hours of late night college radio on the stereo tracks of VHS tapes, with Star Trek episodes on the mono and video tracks of the same tapes. We'd listen to hours of 3 week old late night college radio (fabulous stuff in some places) and catch up on reruns.

Really widened my musical tastes.

[winterbadger]

john_arundel and bidger used to come over to my place in the evenings and, under the guise of painting figures, we would all sit around and talk and drink beer. And the two of them would have these fascinating long conversations about music I had never heard of. They'd start with whatever tiny accumualtion of CDs I'd have lying about and discuss the roots of this group and where the sound of the at group came from, and riff for hours about related bands and cross-cutting influences. It was fascinating and eye-opening; I should have been taking notes!

[kfitzwarin.livejournal.com]

I'm a musical magpie - I pick up something and that leads to something else, or I look for other bands that person was in, or I look for other music that folks like who also like the thing I liked in the first place, etc. (For instance, if you do an LJ interest search on some music you like, check out some of the other music those people like....)

You used Ellis Paul as an icon, so I'm guessing maybe you like him. Well, he toured for a while with Vance Gilbert (whom I actually liked more than EP, but....) Some of EP's music also reminds me of David Wilcox (who is currently living in the DC area, I think). Early David Wilcox is fabulous, and it was listening to DW that got me to Lowen & Navarro (thru concerts at the Ramshead). I found October Project by accident on someone's weblist of music they liked (they also liked Loreena McKennitt, which is how I got there in the first place), and that led to Innocence Mission and Kate Price. Stan Rogers led to Garnet Rogers, and I think that's how I discovered James Keelaghan, and Greg Brown.

And so it goes....

But you're officially added to my local concert list.

[winterbadger]

I've done similar things. Most of the people I'm most into now are either artists I came across because they toured or recorded with someone I liked to begin with, or toured or recorded with someone who toured or recorded with someone I liked to begin with, etc. Or I discovered I liked someone and used the "people who like X also like Y" feature of Amazon.

October Project is one of the strangest encounters I've had. I was in a small bookstore in Kent, CT, and they were playing one of their CDs, and I liked it so much I bought it.

I have occasionally found new artists from GFs :-). vatoengland introduced me to Billy Bragg. poliscidiva added encouragement by lending me several of his CDs and also introduced me to Ellis Paul. I think Amy was going to try to correct my U2 deficiency, but we spent more time watching movies (which we were 100% in tune on) than listening to music. azbound and poliscidiva are also U2 fans, but concentrated on educating me more about other artists.

[azbound.livejournal.com]

I don't think I realized just how commercially musically stunted you were! Because believe me, sugar, you'd have had compilation cds coming out your patootie!!

I mean, I can understand you not being up on the latest from Jay-Z and AFI - but U2?

I think I might have to rectify some of this.

Though I'm thinking somehow doing a purely platonic lapdance to the divine Ms. Aguilera's new "Ain't No Other Man" would probably be a very good thing.

[didotwite]

i started kollij with the first dorm that had been ethernetted, so i went straight from friends' mix tapes to stolen mp3s. rare is the album that's worth buying...

[winterbadger]

I really, *really* deplore that attitude. Especially when it comes to smaller artists, that sort of behavior is literally stealing people's living from them. I'm happy to listen to samples, or borrow an album from a friend to see if I like it, but if I like it enough to own it, I like it enough to pay for it.

I was a poor college student too, and I worked during the semester and summer to pay the bills that my scholarships didn't cover, but if I wanted music, I paid for it honestly.

[peaceful-fox.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I buy what I play as I support smaller artists (you know, under 6 inches high *evil grin*) like Jez Lowe, Les Barker, Keith Donnelly and other folkies, as well as Billy Bragg. Bragg, for one, has been very generous to his listeners allowing them to download a wealth of material from his site for very very low prices.

[didotwite]

yeah, it's a horrible thing, i'm just making an observation. here in internetland, you can *buy* the music you like track-by-track, meaning you can avoid radio altogether. i bet there's an internet radio station right up your alley...

back in 1998 noone had figured out how to pay artists for mp3s anyway. which is why record companies are dumb.

[dativesingular.livejournal.com]

I'm with vatoengland; I legally buy most of the music I like simply because my tasted gravitate towards independent artists. For example, I like ms_elusive's brother's band, Keith, and I know he's not making that much more than I am, so obviously I want to support his work.