Bm --> A

I’m trying to do a little cleaning in my Google Reader. Brenda is at her knitting group, so I’m using her computer. I’m dumping a couple fun things here. (Here’s another! Tom Waits!) The big problem is that I have 122 things starred, and about 100 of them are articles/reviews/blog posts about bands I want to check out. They date back to August. I’ve promised myself regularly that once I get my computer situation back in order I’ll go through them in depth. What a delightful mess!

I’m listening to Tommy right now, on vinyl for the first time. It’s great listening to something so familiar with new ears, in a new context. The way records are broken up over sides is fascinating to me. Here, so far, each side begins and ends with a bang. Like, a real one. It goes BERRONNNGG!! Each side as it’s own little exploratory/psychedelic part and it’s pop song part and it’s bluesy/r&b part. I’m in the middle of “Underture” right now, which never felt so important on CD, but feels awesome here closing out the second side. I love the way the action of flipping a record refocuses the listener’s attention and gives a chance to think about where the record has been and where it’s going.

Being without a computer of my own has significantly changed my listening habits in a really good way. I was in a rut for a while, it was at it’s worst over the course of 2007, where I only got music from downloading albums off of album blogs other such probably-not-legal sources of mp3s. I would grab 4 or 5 albums every time I sat down, listen to them once or twice (if at all) while doing three other things. I was a lot less happy with my music and, by extension, my life. Now I’m back in the habit of taking the time to listen to things closely and repeatedly and boy howdy, I’m loving everything.

Acts who have released/will release things in 2008, that I have heard and love (in no order):

•  Vampire Weekend
• Los Campesinos!
• Destroyer
• Islands
• Constantines
• She & Him
• Robyn (this is obviously cheating, considering when it came out in Europe)
• Panic at the Disco
• Lil Wayne
• Usher
• Lil Mama
• Weezer

I could probably go on, and I have wanted to blog about all of these acts and hopefully I will get around to it. Or not. Whatever, man!