Music Interests

It occurs to me that there is probably an interesting variety of music interests among us, so I thought I might open a thread for music declarations, discussions and digressions.

What kind of music do you enjoy? Do you play, study, teach it?

I doubt I could hold much of a conversation about music, however I could discuss visual art:-) I can read music and I can hold a tune. Last few CDs bought were mostly world music: Anoushka Shankar, 12 Girls Band, and Dobet Gnahoré.

I'm probably the snooty Ivory Tower-dwelling classical music lover of the group, though I know bobmcconnaughey can hold his own in terms of classical stuff. I play (clarinet, piano), study (grad student in Manhattan), teach (currently music theory), and compose music (both acoustic and electronic). The idea is to try and get a job as a professor after I finish my education--it's a good way to draw a steady paycheck as a composer, sure, but I really enjoy teaching as well. (I'll just have to try to develop a tolerance for pointless bureaucracy.)

Favorite composers include: Gyorgy Ligeti, Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Alban Berg, Olivier Messiaen, Anton Webern, Giacinto Scelsi, Bela Bartok, Salvatore Sciarrino, Steve Reich, George Crumb, Luigi Nono, Sofia Gubaidulina, Kaija Saariaho, Tristan Murail, Gerard Grisey, Philippe Hurel, Unsuk Chin, Iancu Dumitrescu, Horatiu Radulescu, Marc-André Dalbavie, Chaya Czernowin, and Jonathan Harvey. And a lot of others. :)

I don't listen to a lot of "popular music" anymore, and I'm woefully deficient on most popular music history, but I do like electronicky stuff. Especially IDM-y type stuff like Autechre, Aphex Twin, Oval, Squarepusher, Plaid, etc. And electropop like Postal Service, Telepopmusik, Dntel, etc. I also like a Congolese group called Konono no. 1; they took the traditional likembe instrument (the "thumb piano"), made their own amplifiers out of car parts and megaphones and things, and ended up with this amazing, distorted electro-dance sound. They have a MySpace page with music here:
http://www.myspace.com/konononr1

I don't play, study or teach music, but I do enjoy rock, folk and classical music. The most recent classical concert I went to was Messiaen - last night at St Paul's Cathedral here in Wellington (NZ), in fact: La Nativite du Seigneur and excerpts from the Vingt Regards. The most recent rock concert I went to was Metallica. That neatly sums up the dichotomy of my tastes!

My favourite classical composers include Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Beethoven (all favourites of my Dad's) and also Messiaen and Bartok.

In rock, my tastes generally lie at the heavier end, although not as extreme as death metal: Metallica, System of a Down, Thin Lizzy, Led Zeppelin, Shihad; progressive rock, notably King Crimson and Yes; punk and new wave, such as The Clash; soul, e.g. Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Aretha Franklin, The Isley Brothers; and folk, notably Fairport Convention and Sandy Denny.

Oh, and I forgot Broooooce (Springsteen). Can't go far without Bruce.

File the following under "too much information":

I really can't stand most music. I used to fake it (I grew up in the 1960s, and your coolness was in direct proportion to the number of albums you had by cool bands).

But once I was out of college, I gave it up.

For me music either roils up my emotions so much that I start sobbing ("Pictures at an Exhibition," "Nessun Dorma," "Swan of Tuonela," "Amazing Grace," "Old Man River.")

Or, more often, it's all so much cacophony. I probably need a neurologist to figure that out. Possibly some type of musical dyslexia.

I find myself easily distracted by the singer's breathing or by imagining how the air or soundwaves move through an instrument.

I cannot stand to watch musicians perform live because they make faces and gyrations that people do not make in real life that embarrass me to watch. (To get an idea of how live performances affect me, watch someone singing or playing a violin on TV with the sound off.)

I have a very narrow range of music I can stand. Tom Waits, Ray Charles, Zappa, Rosemary Clooney, Louis Armstrong. Tony Bennett sometimes, but he gets a bit too smooth sometimes.

Over the years I've had a number of guitars. My favorite is a Guild electric circa 1970. I'm not really that good a player though. I've had rudimentary instruction from others so I have some sense about the instrument--definitely mediocre. I think I already said that. I noodle around with it mostly.

Coming of age in the mid to late 70's the punk rock of that time struck a nerve with me. A number of bands I like best come after that initial first wave or two. A lot of them were British--#3--The Clash was a great band. I liked Wire, Joy Division, Gang of Four, The Fall. A Polish band--Brygada Kryzys. From the United States Savage Republic, Angry Samoans and the Bad Brains. Bad Brains could as well as anyone be credited with inventing speed metal. They were maybe the first all black punk band. They did a lot of reggae as well.

Other favorite bands--Alice in Chains, Screaming Blue Messiahs, Sublime, Doors, Velvet Underground, Nirvana, Rage against the machine. Springsteen isn't bad. I like a lot of earlier Bob Dylan as well. I don't particularly like country but The Cowboy junkies who have a kind of country vibe are cool.

#5--Tom Waits--I like him as well.

#3: Some great Messiaen events happening in NYC this month (for those not in the know, it's the 100th anniversary of Messiaen's birth, Dec. 10, 1908--he passed away in '92). More performances of Quartet for the End of Time than you can shake a stick at. I'm actually orchestrating part of "Noel" from the Vingt Regards for a final project this semester. In January the NY Phil will be doing a concert of Messiaen, Murail, and Debussy--good times.

Vivaldi--Brahms...and then an mixed bag of 20thC "Classical" composers: Nancarrow, Britten, Reich/Adams/Prokofiev/Tippet/Part, Penderecki. i dunno, i might look through my cds, but JS Bach and Beethoven (and Schubert string quartets) uber alles..Tons of pop/rock - buddy holly/chuck berry/beatles/stones/kinks/moby grape/richard & linda thompson/ Elvis Costello/ Heptones/ Jimmy Cliff/ Thomas Mapfumo/ Oliver Mtukudzi (sic)/ Booker T and the MGs/ VU/ Fleetwood Mac/Vasen/Garmana/Steeleye Span/Magnetic Fields/ June Tabor/ Pogues/ Mojo Nixon/ REM/ Small Faces/ Animals/ Yo La Tengo/ Morphine/ Ramones/ Neilds/ Kate and Anna McGarrigle/ Apocoplytica/60s electric Dylan/ West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band (sons of semi-well known American composer Roy Harris..who said he felt like he had raised the musical equivalent of Hitler youth (or encouraging words to that effect). Very little jazz..Charlie Hunter Quartet, Gary Burton. Very little mid/late 19thC "romantic." I never ran a bookstore (fortunately), but i did run a record store in Williamsburg, va and could order and buy just about anything i wanted for a couple of years. Despite many years of lessons, never got beyond mediocre on piano..though my sister, father, brother, and son were/are all excellent musicians..But..while my bro & sis were MUCH better players -sister went to conservatory, brother could've..i'm the only one who still farts around..the benefit of piano over trumpet or clarinet! Slightly better than mediocre on guitar (but not good) before arthritis stopped me altogether.

#5:

"Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable."

- Dr. Johnson

This is going to take a while and the classification may get sticky (i.e., not strictly rigorous), First off, I love music. I love listening to new music. I love music as much as I love books. I envy musicians. In one of my many fantasy lives, I'm a musician. I do play the hammered dulcimer and used to play the piano (but don’t current;y own one alas). These are some of my current favorites

Alternative/rock/pop:
Ani DiFranco, Syd Straw, Suzanne Vega, Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell, Over the Rhine, Paula Cole, Rickie Lee Jones (especially Girl at Her Volcano with its awesome renditions of "Don't Walk Away Rene and "On the Boardwalk"), Toni Childs, Tracy Chapman, Imogen Heap, Frou, Frou, Sarah McLachlan, Coldplay, The Police, Sting, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Peter Gabriel, The Decemberists, The Frames, B-52's, U2, Talking Heads, RadioHead, Enigma, New Order, Iron and Wine, R.E.M, Annie Lennox, Brown Bird, Simon and Garfunkle, Dave Matthews Band, Disappear Fear, John Trudell, 'Til Tuesday, The Wild Colonials, Sinead O'Connor, 10,000 Maniacs, Bruce Cockburn, Sheryl Crow, The Pretenders, The Pogues

folk, bluegrass, country
Alison Kraus, Nickel Creek, Billy Bragg, Richard Thompson, Robert Plant, Nanci Griffin, Townes van Zandt, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Steve Earle (the greatest in left wing true grit), Lucy Kaplansky, Eva Cassidy, John "I've Got Heart in Left Activism" McCutcheon (also an amazing hammer dulcimer player), Shawn Colvin, Susan Werner (great feminist folk singer especially "Like Bonsai," and "A Long Time Between Trains") eastmountainsouth (tres fab), Cheryl Wheeler, Calexico, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie

world, world fusion, ambient
Loreena McKennitt, Azam Ali, Biran Keane, Omar Faruk Tekbilek, Ladysmith Black Mombazo, Kongar-ol Ondar & Paul Pena (Ghenghis Blues - Blues meets Asia), Brian Eno and Harold Budd, Micael Atherton, Knut Hamre and Stee Tibbets, Sigur Rós (an Icelandic group and my current nonc-classical favorite), Twelve Girls Band, Kaouding Cissoko, Gráda, Kornog, Lúnasa, Musafir, Muzsikás, Ravi Shankar, Shujaat Husain Khan, Gustavo Santaolalla, Satwa, Ale Möller, Annbjørg Lien, Ånon Egeland, Bäsk, Boot, Garmarna (awesome Swedish folk goth), Hedningarna, Hoven Droven, Rosenberg 7, Sanna Kurki-Suonio, Sorten Muld, Värttinä (a fabulous Finnish folk group), Väsen, La Musgaña, Luar Na Lubre, Milladoiro, Susana Seivane, Altan

blues, jazz, soul, gospel
Blind Boys of Alambama, Saffire-The Uppity Blues Women (awesome, funny, and feminist), Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Wynton Marsalis, Bilrou (Joao Paulo, Peter Epstein, Ricardo Dias), Bill Frisell (especially Good Dog Happy Man), Ralph Towner, Oregon, Paul Winter Consort (I know sometimes they're New Age and sometimes they're jazz), Melody Gardot

classical (in the loose sense of that word)
Lou Harrison (incredible composer and awesome person), Arvo Pärt (my favorite 20th/21st century composer, Samuel Barber, Resphighi, Suk, Górecki, Michael Nyman, Vaughan Williams, Egar Meyer, Mahler, Philip Glass, Anja Lechner and Vassilis Tsabropoulos, Aaron Copland, Rick Sowash, Joaquín Rodrigo, Virgil Thompson, Fauré, Stravinsky, Smetna, Liszt, Satie, Saint-Saëns, Rachmaninov, Purcell, Albinoni, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Verdi, Handel, Bach, Beethoven, Bolivian Baroque, Gabrieli

early music
Joaquin Desprez, Ockeghem , Palestrina, Hidlegarde of Bingen, Alfonso X (El Sabio), medieval and Renaissance dance music, Victoria

new Age
George Winston, Shadowfax

hammered dulcimerMaggie Sansone

#s 6, 11: I completely forgot the post-punk bands (Joy Division are my favourite there, but I also like Talking Heads, Gang of Four, New Order and Romeo Void); I should also have added Radiohead and, in classical, the Second Viennese School - Webern, Berg, Schoenberg - their earlier work, at least.

What kind of music do you enjoy? Do you play, study, teach it?

I did nearly seven years as an FM disc jockey.
(True confession: I even did a few weeks as a Christian broadcaster (part time, in college) before my conscience got the better of me. It kept me in pizza money, but after a couple of weeks the cognitive dissonance (...and the whole "getting up before dawn"-thing...) got to be too much for me.)

A pal of mine from radio days still has a part-time gig recording classical shows, mostly at the Troy Music Hall, and sometimes I still lend him a hand a) for old times' sake and b) to get comp'd in.

An old college roommate of mine owns his own
Ambisonics microphone (come to think of it, this guy met Messiaen at Tanglewood one summer) and has written scientific papers on it; another pal of ours is a PhD in acoustics (physics).

I like just about every genre. (See my reviews of Nick Hornby's High Fidelity and Peelie's Margrave of the Marshes)

I don't play, but back in the punk era, I used to own an electric bass (waves to lriley), but had to sell it for rent money.

I accrue CDs (and even LPs...) the way I accrue books. My collection is roughly evenly split between Serious Music and Pop Trash.

With parenthood, I quite suddenly stopped being hip: I stopped making any pretense of keeping up with pop music. I have a vague awareness of what my kids listen to, but really, my tastes in pop are now mostly frozen at just about the day I became a parent.

#3, #6, #9, #11: Too bad this isn't "MusicThing" : we should go off in a corner sometime and compare notes - I'm nodding at a large fraction of the stuff you're name-checking.

yep, Nancarrow, Adams, Reich (seen live), Richard F. Thompson (seen 5? times); six feet of Bach CDs. Wire, Gang of Four (saw the reconstituted version a few of years ago), Joy Division.

Last three shows seen live: Cecil Taylor, Napalm Death, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

I've seen the Nields, REM, 10,000 Maniacs, June Tabor, the Ramones, Fleetwood Mac.

A couple of Enthusiasms: Early Music (the Palladian Ensemble, Piffaro, Dufay Collective). The Stravinsky ballets are another.

My last Enthusiasm before parenthood put it on hiatus was Afropop, especially the sub-sub-genre of soukous. (Diblo Dibala is a household hero.)

(Hey, thanks for suggesting this, avaland.)

edited to add #11, who snuck in with another list of "Hey! Stuff I Like, Too" while I was composing

(...good heavens, there's somebody else in the world who's heard of Värttinä ...)

#14 You've heard of Värttinä? I thought only my husband had heard of them and only because he had to. I love hearing new music. If you get a chance PM me a few of your top recommendations.

Heard of them? I own a copy of Musta Lindu.

>6 lriley: - that's a good list of the punk era. I would add a couple of others to that list - the Skids (they may just be a guilty pleasure for me) and the Rezillos (if you can get hold of their cd it has a number of punk-pop classics on it - imagine the B-52's influenced by the Ramones).
If you like the Cowboy Junkies try to hear the Walkabouts, one of the best American bands of the last 20 years - typically, they don't always get released in the US.

In addition to the genres listed by everyone else already mentioned I have a soft spot for early electropop - Kraftwerk, Gary Numan, Human League, OMD, Soft Cell, etc.

Surprising omissions from lists so far include - Neil Young, Bjork, Tinariwen, Salif Keita, Roches, Billy Bragg, Toots & the Maytals, Stooges, Blondie, David Sylvian, Beach Boys, Cat Power, Pixies, Husker Du, Michael Nesmith, Sonic Youth, Gregory Isaacs, Al Green, Funkadelic, Parliament, Leonard Cohen, Prince.

What I want to know is who is buying music by Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Coldplay, James Blunt, etc, and why?

jargoneer,

I confess to beig a Coldplay fan. I learned about them through my students, who insisted I listen. Why do I buy music by Coldplay? I'll use Vida la Vida as an example, Wonderful dance songs. Songs for dancing around the hose, doing housework, flirting with me sainted husband etc. Look closely at my list. Billy Bragg is there. As for Bjork, I consider her Iceland's only disaster - apart from the current financial failure.

I just don't get Coldplay - they keep namechecking bands like My Bloody Valentine and yet end up closer to Wings! (The current question in the UK is why do all successful British bands end up trying to sound like U2?). Hard not to laugh that they are now getting sued by Joe Satriani over the track "Viva La Vida".

I admit Bjork is a fruitcake but musically she is interesting - there aren't many commercially successful (in the UK at least) artists who are as experimental. And she did sing "Birthday" (when with the Sugarcubes) which is a classic.

I have fairly eclectic musical taste, but I listen to classical more than anything else. I have an extensive collection of Baroque CDs--love anything by Purcell, Lully, Marais, Handel, Bach, Telemann, Vivaldi, Albinoni, etc. I don't listen to much beyond the Romantic period, however (and I don't listen often to that). I do have a few 20th century favorites (Janacek among them).

About the only genres I don't listen to are country western, Jazz, and rap.

My second-favorite genre is probably Celtic music. I'm a huge fan of Kate Rusby, who writes all her own material but manages to make it all sound very traditional. I also enjoy other world music, from Ladysmith Black Mombazo to Ravi Shankar to The Gypsy Kings.

When I listen to anything "pop," it's more likely to be alternative or music from the '60s, '70s, '80s, and '90s. I love The Smiths, The Beatles, REM, Nirvana, Fleetwood Mac, Squeeze, CSN, etc. I did recently discover Pink, Missy Higgins, and The John Butler Trio.

#6 How could I forget Alice in Chains? Love them!

The one classical artist whose CDs I can never pass up is Jordie Savall. Anything he does is absolutely astonishing. If you don't know his work and enjoy Early/Baroque Music, definitely check it out.

Another chance "find" that doesn't quite fit any other category that I usually enjoy is a CD of William Billings hymns, directed by Paul Hiller. I'm not at all religious, but I AM a sucker for music in the minor key (in which a number of these are written). These are early American works for a small chorus, most of them based on biblical texts. They are a bit reminiscent of shape-note singing.

#21--I consider Alice more a metal band and I'm not much of a metalhead. A lot of very heavy bottom falling through the floor dirges. Staley had great vocal range and Cantrell is a wonderful guitar player. They lacked the narcissism that is a prerequisite of many bands of that genre--but that's a good thing.

Urania mentioned the Pogues--another excellent band. I'm trying to think of a San Francisco (?) area band that plays a lot of revved up Irish music. Gogol Bordello and their Gypsy punk can be fun and at least remind me a bit of the Pogues.

If I could I would play guitar like Andy Gill of Gang of Four. It's like shrapnel going all over the place but he'd keep it within the limits of what they were working on.

#17--I'll have to see if I can find something by the Skids or the Rezillos.

Speak of the devil: tomorrow's New York Times has a great story on college radio in general, and on my station in particular: College Radio Maintains Its Mojo

Looking at that top photo is hilarious: 30-some years ago, *I* was music director - and the record library hasn't changed a bit. (I remember Mike The Carpenter building those racks. Come to think of it, I've met the guys in the third photo.)

(WRPI is something of a special case in "college radio": it's a real 10,000 watt station, run by an engineering school - and in the late '60s and early '70s, it was the top station in its market.)

Bah. Edited to swap in a working link.

In the US, the Northside label releases a lot (the majority?) of the new Scando-folk releases available readily in NAmerica: www.noside.com.
They still sell their great promo-compilations for $3.00.
At least i think all the Nordic cds i own are Northside: Hoven-Droven, JPP, Vasen, Värttinä, Swap come to mind..i can't find them physically..just looked, sigh..I know they have a separate location set aside..but WHERE? we only have ~ 1200 sq feet for me to lose them in.

What fascinated me was how similar the Nordic and Celtic "rootsy" stuff was - which, given proximity/invasions etc made sense after the fact. (I was just thinking about buying Kate Rusby's latest last time i was cd shopping..ended up not buying anything).

Oh..i don't think i mentioned one of my favorite new folk(?) groups..Rodrigo Y Gabriela's fantastic acoustic guitar duets. They're pretty unclassifiable. Heavy metal acoustic instrumental.. Ireland by way of Mexico

#35 I have the Rodrigo Y Gabriela album that goes by the same title. And yes, I'm familiar with Northside. If you like Celtic, do you ever check out Green Linnett's catalogue?

#17 - from your "surprising omissions" list, I should have added Neil Young, Stooges, Parliament, Prince. And it would be remiss of me not to mention some New Zealand music: Split Enz, Crowded House, Herbs, and the "Dunedin Sound" band of the early 1980s: The Chills, Sneaky Feelings, The Clean, The Verlaines. My nearest connection to music history is that the follow-up band to Sneaky Feelings, Dribbling Darts of Love (it's a reference to snails, apparently) once played in our living room, and my wife Kay has a credit on on of their album covers.

Turning (gasp!) to books, Matthew Bannister of Sneaky Feelings and the Dribbling Darts has written a very good book on Sneaky Feelings, Positively George Street. The title is not chosen by accident - the book is distinctly snarky about other bands, producers, promoters etc. at times - but that stops it from being a boring "first we made the album then we toured" type of read.

I share many of the above enthusiasms with the rest of you. My interests (and actually owned recordings) are mainly in modern jazz (1940-1980) and folk, with some classical, pop and rock. I like the edginess that the jazz often has, and then the folk is there for when I just want a pretty harmony and easily processed lyrics. I like classical, but tend not to have many recordings of it. I have good intentions about following more contemporary classical - have enjoyed a lot of what I've heard, e.g. the selections in this recording from Nonesuch. Particular name checks with the above are Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, and John McCutcheon. Lois and I met McCutcheon once.

My drive to actually listen to music, however, has been in a long-term decline, for maybe the last 12-15 years. For many years, a day rarely went by when I wouldn't play a bit of Bob Dylan or somebody, but now weeks can go by without me actually setting something up to listen to. I really don't know why, except that it may have to do with the mild hearing loss I'm experiencing these days. OTOH I've been listening a fair amount to my MP3 player, so who knows?

#26 - for many years i'd get an annual Green Linnett catalog in the mail - been several years since one has shown up, however.

oh..just because her stuff might not be well known...Yoko Kanno and Seatbelts. She's a terrific jazz band leader and keyboard player who did the soundtrack music for the Cowboy Bebop anime series.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-TAxm00jOg
tight? you got it.

"Neil Young, Bjork, Tinariwen, Salif Keita, Roches, Billy Bragg, Toots & the Maytals, Stooges, Blondie, David Sylvian, Beach Boys, Cat Power, Pixies, Husker Du, Michael Nesmith, Sonic Youth, Gregory Isaacs, Al Green, Funkadelic, Parliament, Leonard Cohen, Prince."

as w/ books - everyone's mileage varies...I've liked N. Young (on and off) ever since Buffalo Springfield - but i like Crazy Horse's early solo lp before they hooked up w/ Young even more; the Maytals- of course- are great (and "The Harder They Come" remains one of the best music movies ever..); have several Sonic Youth cds; like Cat Power doing covers; think Blondie is one of the most underrated bands ever. I appreciate, rather then enjoy: Husker Du, Nesmith's solo work (i actually like the Monkees greatest hits cd), the Pixies, though my son has worked hard to get me to like them, Billy Bragg (great in small doses), Pfunk. I like other people singing Leonard Cohen songs.

Maybe because i got hooked on the McGarrigles first, i never cottoned to the Roches who seemed precious to me; liked the Sugercubes more than Bjork left to her own devices; and have always thought the Beach Boys and Prince two of the most overrated acts in the history of pop. But then others think the same of the Beatles and Stones. I got called out for overlisting on a similar thread in the SF group so i, like most i imagine, cherry picked off the top of my head, in the initial listing!~And the as far as "preciousness" - i really like much of the Nields material, but they could justifiable be labeled as such, so that's a very personal reaction. Obviously this isn't picking a fight (i don't do justice to either my Jewish or Irish ancestry), just of YMMV elaboration.

For newish pop, Patty and I mostly depend upon Adam to pick up on stuff he thinks we'll like. He's usually right as he grew up listening to OUR music. For classical - either from books like Alex Ross' or (more often) courtesy of the BBC's classical music mag which i've subscribed to for years, as i don't really know that much about most classical musics but can be convinced to try just about anything once...

I need to check out Tinariwen & Salif Keita - though i seem to have fixated on Afropop from Southern Africa as opposed to either North, East or West African mergers (though i do have a great (mostly) covers cd "money no be sand" featuring 1960s Nigerian bands.

Biggest musical regret..not seeing REM during one of the numerous early club gigs at the Cats Cradle in CHill..and i owned Chronic Town so, to this day, i don't know what was wrong w/ me..it was before Adam was born, so that's not an excuse. And Moby Grape not showing for a show i had tix for ~ 1967.

A few year ago i got about half of my CD collection cataloged and then spudded out. Patty says once we finish our books, it'll be onto the cds again. I had been using a program called "Music Label" for many years..but now that they charge a fee for each CPU you install the program on, i'm looking for another music cataloging program so am very much open to suggestions. Don't mind paying a reasonable fee..but want the collection/program available on all computers i work on..both at home and at work...

Now, i mostly listen to music on my mp3 player (sometimes played through a nice, little set of Altec Lansing speakers). We have a rather nice set of Linn speakers (our wedding present to ourselves) and our house is built very much like a old fashioned horn speaker, so w/ the Linn + Bose speakers set at the base of the slant of the ceiling, we CAN produce a pretty huge sound w/ relatively little power, but even when home by myself, don't often blast myself out these days. When we lived in the bottom half of an A-Frame..when our upstairs neighbors would get too rowdy w/ their country radio, i'd open the door, turn the speakers upstairs and play Buxtehude organ music at near max. volume...Sent them packing on those rare occasions when musical push came to shove. "I HATE that classical shit" as the pickup truck door slams, remains a favorite memory.

Tim Spalding, if you're reading this, looks like there's real potential should you want to code up MusicThing - lot of obsessiveness about music around here too.

AYK_Bob, I envy your college DJ experience. I always thought it'd be cool to be free to broadcast an eclectic mix, with no corporate pressure towards junk music.

Nth-ing the idea for a "MusicThing".

Bobm at #29: I would up using the spreadsheet in AppleWorks, that's served as my music catalog for more than a decade. Doesn't do auto-look-up, or cover art, or track listings, but at least I have a database of what I own, which cuts down on duplication.

Dukedom, yes, it was great. One summer I was one of the locals who kept the station on the air (being student-run, it was sometimes difficult to keep the place on the air: and if the frequency isn't being utilized, the license can be challenged), and I was doing 20hrs/wk of scheduled time, plus fill-in shifts.

Play what you want, let the set list take you wherever you need it to go . . . good times.

On the one hand, the state-of-the-art, student-operated 10kW FM stations was one of the reasons I picked RPI; on the other hand, the distraction of the radio station was a significant part of the reason I washed out of physics. So, "the grass is always greener", and all that.

(On the gripping hand, another of my regrets is that I never did a "full climb" to the top of the 500-foot tower.)

>32 AsYouKnow_Bob: et al. yeah..."MusicThing"' is defn. an idea whose time is now!~ (or at least whenever we finish up w/ our books). I think our modest dvd collection IS completely cataloged, but that's only because Patty took responsibility for that from the get go.

"I have a database of what I own, which cuts down on duplication." - which is exactly why i started in on LT. I'd purchased a duplicate book once too often.

>31 dukedom_enough: Tim doesn't read the private groups but, who knows, he may stop in when we go public in a couple of weeks.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, just a reminder that the group is planned to go public so keep this in mind when sharing personal information:-)

>33 bobmcconnaughey: I did most of our costume dramas DVDs and a few odds and ends but we haven't cataloged the whole collection, store-bought or recorded from television. We use the tag 'DVD' and put (DVD) after the title, particularly for the literary adaptations. I'm sure I was not very consistent in what I entered in the 'author' field.

#25 Oh, Bob, don't give up on Kate Rusby. I recommend her earlier CDs, however: Hourglass; Sleepless,; ot Little Lights (in that order).

Oh..i haven't given up on Kate Rusby - just slowed down a good deal on buying cds..I own & like Hourglass and Little Lights. There's been a whole (first rate) second generation of British folk-folk-rock artists that i haven't noticed being duplicated over here except by the extended McGarrigle /Wainwright clan.
(except for Teddy Thompson, all the ones i can think of are women?)

Except for classical cds, i've succumbed this last year to buying the odd track or three off of new releases for the most part. Even buying 5 songs from the Ravonettes last (v good) cd was cheaper than buying the whole album. I feel a bit cheezy, but there it is.

I have to admit that I don't really listen to music. I probably own about 20 CDs. But in his spare time my other half puts on gigs and puts out singles with bands that in the UK would be described as indie pop, but on a very low key level. If we get 120 people at a gig, it's an amazing night! I guess the main influences for indie poppers are The Smiths, Belle and Sebastian, My Bloody Valentine, Velvet Underground and what we call Northern Soul in the UK - does that term mean anything to people in other countries??

So I just get swept up into whatever Trevor is listening to and mainly go to gigs he thinks I would like. At the moment, my favourites are Shrag, Pocketbooks, Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Manhattan Love Suicides, the Just Joans and the Smittens. Myspace is probably the best place to find these bands.

Living with a music obessive can be good - get to hear lots of things - and bad, i.e. expensive - 10 day holiday in LA just because the Jesus and Mary Chain are reforming and their first comeback gig is at Coachella!

Having said that, there are a few long-term favourites - Johnny Cash, Billy Bragg, Low, anything that Jarvis Cocker does, Fiery Furnaces, Magnetic Fields.

I also have guilty pleasures - Kylie, Girls Aloud, Sugarbabes.

As for classical music I always have BBC Radio 3 on when I work and go to concerts quite often, but I don't really know much about it and don't have any favourite composers.

#37: I know all the bands (plus Northern Soul) in your first list, and none in your second! I'm very fond of the Jesus and Mary Chain, loveable scamps that they are, and have been meaning to get My Bloody Valentine's Loveless for a while now. Never listened to Girls Aloud or Sugababes, but Kylie would be on my "guilty pleasures" list along with Abba, the Village People and the Pet Shop Boys.

Tim, if you like the Mary Chain you will probably enjoy the Manhattan Love Suicides - they sound very similar. Noisy with feedback, basically.

>39 charbutton: - to me, MLS sound more like a slightly grungier version of bands like the Primitives and the Shop Assistants: they lack the JAMC love of Phil Spector and the classic 60's sound.

>38 timjones: - nothing wrong with Abba and the Pet Shop Boys - they both wrote great pop songs.

40 - yeah, I can see what you're saying about MLS

Christopher Rouse Christmas piece - atypical for Rouse but a good deal of fun; evidently hard to sing though, because while the words are (evidently) in the language ascribed, the meanings are somewhat? totally? nonsensical...
http://www.rhapsody.com/david-zinman/karolju-christmas-music-from-rouse-lutoslaw... (#7 "Russian"? and #8, "Czech" were my favorites). Seasonal glossiolia.

OH..and i meant to mentions that Northside/Omnium who distribute modern Scandanavian folkish music just set up a google group.
http://groups.google.com/group/hearfulnews?hl=en&pli=1

MusicThing:

The National, Modest Mouse, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Nina Simone, Etta James, The Clash, Otis Redding, Damien Rice, Cat Power, Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir, Horse Feathers, Velvet Underground, M. Ward, The Ramones, King Curtis, Jose Gonzalez, Tori Amos, Henryk Gorecki, Osvaldo Golijov, Arvo Part, Joy Division, David Bowie, Radiohead, Cowboy Junkies, A Northern Chorus, Nick Drake, Wilco, David Gray, Bill Callahan, Decemberists, Aimee Mann, Rachel Smith, Elliott Smith, Kings of Convenience, Beck, Forest City Lovers, Beth Orton, Pomegranates, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holliday, Van Morrison, Jefferson Airplane, Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton, Swan Lake, Arcade Fire, Ry Cooder, Ali Farka Toure, Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir

#14, 15, 16, I occasionally enjoy Varttina too - I own Vihma

A cd I've been listening to a bit lately Fatima Mansions--Viva dead horses. Picked up a new one by Savage Republic--1938. Thinking about Slint and Arcade Fire.

Those of you looking for a MusicThing may want to check out http://rateyourmusic.com/ . My husband, who is as obsessive about music as I am about books (we currently have 3138 albums, 35,164 items, in iTunes, and he still hasn’t loaded all of our music), spends a lot of time there.

While my tastes, like AYK_Bob's, crystallized with the birth of my first child, my husband is still always exploring new music, and so for Christmas this year I am on a hunt for Cold War Kids, Cut Copy, Deerhunter, Foxboro Hot Tubs, King Khan and the Shrines, Okkervil River, and a number of other bands neither I nor the music clerk has ever heard of. Some of his explorations do rub off, so my music doesn’t ALL stop at the mid ‘90s.

Some of my favorite bands or artists: Aimee Mann, Annie Lennox, the B-52s, Barenaked Ladies, Belly, Big Train, Billie Holiday, Billy Bragg, Bonnie Raitt, the Breeders, Cake, Camper Van Beethoven, the Clash, the Cranberries, Crowded House, Dave Clark Five, Ella Fitzgerald, Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Fountains of Wayne, Indigo Girls, INXS, Jane's Addiction, Jellyfish, the Jody Grind, John Mayer, Johnny Cash, Joss Stone, the Judybats, Juliana Hatfield, k.d. lang, Kate Bush, Keely Smith, Kristin Hersh, the La's, Lyle Lovett, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Melissa Etheridge, Michelle Shocked, Nirvana, Norah Jones, Patsy Cline, Patti Smith, Pink, Pixies, the Pogues, Pretenders, the Proclaimers, Queen, R.E.M., the Replacements, Rickie Lee Jones, Sheryl Crow, the Shins, Simon & Garfunkel, Sinead O'Connor, the Smithereens, Squeeze, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Steve Miller Band, Syd Straw, Talking Heads, Throwing Muses, U2, Van Morrison, Velvet Underground, Violent Femmes, Warren Zevon, and the Waterboys.

I also like some Badly Drawn Boy, Barry White, Beck, Black Velvet Band, Blondie, the Cardigans, the Cavedogs, Cherry Poppin' Daddies, Chris Isaak, Cowboy Junkies, the dBs, Eva Cassidy, Everything But the Girl, Fairground Attraction, Fiona Apple, Frente!, Garbage, Gogol Bordello, Hole, the Legendary Jim Ruiz Group, Liz Phair, Mary's Danish, Michael Franti, Michael Penn, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Moe Tucker, Outkast, Polaris, Prefab Sprout, Prince, the Ramones, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, the Stranglers, the Sundays, Suzanne Vega, Tori Amos, X, and Yaz. And I have a soft spot for ‘70s disco and funk.

cataloging our cds just got noticeably more problematic today..i was scavenging through boxes at work trying to find some documentation i'd written in a program that disappeared a decade ago (Ecco pro - i LOVE outliners..they make me feel far more organized than i am) and opened up a heavy archive box..full of cds i'd brought to work from home..

Ecco pro is still available as a freebie and is still a great program..i still need to find some outlines from 16 yrs ago tho. Worse..i used iomega zip drives at the time so once i FIND the files, i'll need to find a reader.

#38/40 i've become something of an ABBA fan as of late - i esp. like listening to them in Swedish or German so all i hear is the sound and not the lyrics. SOS sounds terrific in German!

National Public Radio (US) has a "Best CDs of 2008" list posted:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98637616

There is also a link of a top 25 compiled from NPR listeners.

Very eclectic tastes here, but mostly jazz and classical, and some early music.

cabegley, I just noticed The Dave Clark Five sandwiched in your list of favorites. I admit to being enamored of the same in my 'early days' though I didn't own anything by them.

Sorry that I saw this thread so late. I'm a huge jazz fan, especially the modern jazz of the 1950s and 1960s, which is what I heard in my home as a young child. My favorite artists include Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner, Cannonball Adderley, Horace Silver, Eric Dolphy, Mal Waldron, Charles Mingus, Grant Green, Joe Henderson, Hank Mobley, and Bobby Hutcherson. Contemporary favorites include Brad Mehldau and Robert Glasper, among others. I'm always interested in hearing out jazz albums of interest, especially obscure but excellent recordings from the 50s and 60s.

My favorite recent discovery is Teo Macero with the Prestige Jazz Quartet (1957):



My rating: 4-1/2 stars

Many people familiar with the history of jazz are familiar with the recently deceased Teo Macero, the legendary producer for Columbia Records. He supervised some of the most important albums in jazz history, such as Miles Davis' Kind of Blue (and most of Miles' Columbia recordings), Mingus Ah Um by Charles Mingus, and Time Out by Dave Brubeck, to name just a few.

Most don't know that he was also a pretty good saxophonist and composer. This album from 1957 features several ballads played with the Prestige Jazz Quartet, a group put together as an answer to the Modern Jazz Quartet, featuring Teddy Charles on vibes, Mal Waldron on piano, Addison Farmer on bass, and Jerry Segal on drums. The interplay between Teo and the quartet is fantastic, and I've never heard Teddy Charles play better than this. Two of the songs, "Polody" and "Please Don't Go Now" have been in head on a daily basis for the past couple of months. This album is currently available in MP3 format or on CD.

I didn't know that about Macero. The albums he produced are certainly among my favorites.

avaland (#49), this is a little embarassing to admit, but the Dave Clark Five isn't actually one of my favorite groups. I like some of their songs, but I had to go look them up to be sure of which they were. In typing up my list, I went through my iTunes library of my favorite music, and somehow between eyes and fingers my brain morphed the Dave Brubeck Quartet's "Take Five" into "Dave Clark Five"!

While driving home from work tonight I heard a fantastic recording of Sibelius' Violin Concerto by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, which was conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Hilary Hahn was the featured soloist. The CD that features this recording, "Schoenberg Violin Concerto Op.36/Sibelius Violin Concerto Op.47" (Deutsche Grammophon), is a double Grammy nominee for Best Classical Album and Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra:

>53 kidzdoc: Kizdoc,

So funny you should reference this particular CD. Today, I referenced the Schoenberg Violin Concerto in my post on Netochka Nezvanova.

Urania, that is interesting! BTW, I loved your reviews of Netochka Nezvanova, which I'll probably read later this month, and The Belly of the Atlantic, which I'm adding to my wish list.

I'll pick up the CD from Borders after lunch today.

Yesterday while out running errands, my local NPR station did a piece on NYC's The East Village Opera Company which I found really interesting. I've never been a fan of opera but I was intrigued with what this group is trying to do. Here's a paragraph from their website:

EVOC has once again taken a selection of opera arias and re-imagined them as popular songs, using full symphony orchestra, R&B horns, and choir alongside the group's guitars, drums, keyboards, string quartet, and singers. Arias by Verdi, Puccini, Bach, Mozart, and Wagner collide with Rock and Roll, R&B, 60's and 70's Pop, Surf, and Soul in an explosive mosaic of sound that is deliciously eclectic and singularly cohesive at the same time. As filtered through the group's irreverent sensibility, a seemingly bad idea (rock meets opera) comes off as a triumphant celebration of all music in a musical highwire act that deftly balances tradition and renewal.

http://www.eastvillageoperacompany.com/bio.cfm

>56 avaland: - Malcolm McLaren mixed hip-hop and opera on his Fans album in 1984 - the single taken from it, Madam Butterfly is worth hearing.

Oh yes! Wow that takes me back.

Harry Smith's collection of old time folk (with Greil Marcus' famous description: "That old, weird America').

Most music post 1930 could be said to have been influenced to some degree by this type of music.

listening to a set of various pieces for small string groups by Imogen Holst (daughter of Mr. Planets, hisownself). I must say i like Imogen's music a LOT more than her dad's.

bob, can you describe her music in a it more detail. I am curious.

#60: Not a Planets fan, eh? I've always been pretty fond of it. That ostinato in Mars, the mystery of Neptune (oh, that fadeout at the end!), the jaunty tunes of Jupiter. The man certainly knew how to write catchy music.

here's the home page
http://www.courtlanemusic.com/imogenholst/imogen-holst-recording.html

http://www.mvdaily.com/articles/2009/01/imogenholst.htm
this site has a few reasonably long segments in the midst of a review. I don't really know enough about 20thC music to make apt comparisons; i find her music very quietly haunting. I esp. like a suite for solo cello, "fall of the leaf."

In the US the CD is available through cdbaby.com @ 12.95 but they've switched their preview policy from complete cuts to the usual 30 sec. snippets.

i must confess "the planets" always seemed a bit over the top to me. Though a great moment in cd buying happened years ago when we ran into a tuba(?) player in a cd shop who raved about the tuba part in some section of "The Planets."

Seckou Keita - The Silimbo Passage

"The hendrix of the Kora" Music- News, June 2008
"Keita is the Treasure of a Nation" Africa news

I tend to go for Southern African musics, but
http://cdbaby.com/cd/seckoukeitaskq2
members from Senegal, Italy, Egypt and Gambia

Aha here it is.

Being English I have inherited a weak spot for The Planets and other such works by British composers!

Anyway I'll do a no-particular-order list of my favourite composers/bands/people :)

Ades, Britten, Nielsen, Mahler, Beethoven, Messiaen, Brahms, Bax, Tinariwen, Hendrix, Fat Freddy's Drop, Gilles Peterson, Mr Scruff, ELO, Sly and the Family Stone, Jethro Tull, The Heliocentrics, Bach, Poulenc and Chopin.

I like lots of others things as well, but those are a few that come to mind right now :)

Accoustic blending from jazz through blues and rock into folk rock and just pure folk. Especially live. I often have recorded music on as a background especially when reading. But I can't claim I listen to it, or even hear more than the first track or two. I've more books than CDs but not by a vast margin. Many are one-offs from small bands that I saw live once.

I started out playing the recorder and moved through the different sizes into a group with 8 (out of the 9 available). Played Clarinet for a few years, but sadly haven't kept it up.

Nods at many of the names above. Especially the Tinariwen love. I probably most like Oysterband but other shout outs goto:
Rock Salt and Nails - haven't heard from them for ages, The Bush the Tree and Me - ditto.
Eric Bibb, Kate Rusby, Eliza Carthy, Cara Dillon, Buddy Guy, John Lee hooker,
and more popularly
Dido, Enya, the levellers, stuff like that.

I do sometimes appreciate more classical music, but it has to be fairly up tempo.

My high school and college years were filled with a great deal of "Modern Rock" and that certainly still has a strong hold on my tastes. Irish folk music also holds a large place in my heart. However, I also enjoy(ed) some folk, classics of rock, vocal jazz, and a tiny amount of classical.

Some of the Modern Rock which comes to mind (in no particular order) :

Pogues, Mountain Goats, Prefab Sprout, PIL, The Jam, Style Council, THE THE, Minor Threat, Fugazi, The Evens, Replacements, Big Black, Bauhaus, Love and Rockets, NIN, Ministry, Bowie, Iggy, Psychedelic Furs, Waterboys, XTC, Violent Femes, Joy Division, Cure, Smiths, Eco and the Bunnymen, Icicle Works, Half Japanese, Guadalcanal Diary, Oingo Boingo, Lords on Acid, Clash, Boomtown Rats, Lords of the New Church, Cramps, Ramones, Elvis Costello, Sugarcubes, Pursuit of Happiness, They might be Giants, Tom Waits, Flogging Molly, Modest Mouse, Shins, Yaz, Agitpop, Early Soul Asylum, and literally hundreds of others...

Some Irish/Celt music:
Pogues, Waterboys, M. Maloney, Flogging Molly, Boiled in Lead, Solace, Cherish the Ladies, Altan, Celtic Thunder, Irish Tradition, Capercaillie, Bothy Band.... and on and on and on...

Checked Tan Dun's "Bitter Love" out yesterday - mostly soprano solos excerpted from his 9 hr opera "Peony Pavilion." While not a usual fan of the operatic soprano voice, i WAS v. curious about Tan Dun having read a good bit, but never listened to any of his music. I'm still not at all sure how to describe it (though i liked the 14 selections a great deal). I'll settle for an bit from an interview w/ the composer in which he describes a bit of how he approaches his working:
"What’s interesting is the music before our contemporary age (I mean music before the Baroque period). Music before that point, I think, has a much similar character. There are basic qualities of spirit in common among all kinds of music—it doesn’t matter if you are from east or west, north or south. Music from the last 50 years emphasizes too much from its own geographic and cultural point of view, and sees the world and people just from its own point of view; it’s becoming more and more out of touch.

It is on the track. You cannot get rid of it. I don’t want to use “crossover” as a word to describe what’s happening now, but the result is very interesting. “Crossover,” if you have to use this term, allows for a bigger choice of resources, but meanwhile also makes “personality” more and more difficult. The most important thing is finding your own expression or language."

http://www.tandunonline.com/composition.php?cmd=view&id=15&part=intervie...

A rather schizoid selection: Tan Dun, Alice in Chains, Abba and Tom Petty.

I've been listening repeatedly to a quartet + vocalist combo, Notes from the Edge.
http://cdbaby.com/cd/nfte

The first couple of listens didn't grab me - the arrangements initially seemed lugubrious rather than - languid. But the more times i listened, the more I got drawn into this odd musical universe. There HAVE been other attempts to combine classical-esque arrangements, notably the failed cd by Elvis Costello the Brodsky quartet. For me, at least, almost all the arrangements work here -
--
this is straight from the blurb on CD baby's site - but i have to admit i agree:

"Stunning arrangements, world-class musicianship and the haunting and sultry vocals of chanteuse Kathy Fisher mark "Notes from the Edge," teetering on the boundary between pop and classical music performance. With soul, style and wit, composer/arranger Mark Governor and ensemble traverse the wilds of pop, alternative and new concert music, reinterpreting songs in ways unexpected and sublime.

An all-star string quartet, led by cellist Peggy Baldwin join Mark and Kathy in mind-blowing and beautiful arrangements of songs by Radiohead, The Killers, Imogen Heap, Bjork, Joni Mitchell, Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, Elvis Costello, David Bowie and Queen, and Tom Waits.

Kathy Fisher: Vocals
Mark Governor: String Arrangements, Piano, Guitar"
______________

The only song that doesn't work, after repeated listening, is the Joni Mitchell classic, "Blue." The most surprising success is the Nick Lowe/Elvis Costello raveup - "What's so funny about peace love and understanding" working so well at a pace somewhere between largo and lento. And i wasn't familiar w/ Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek" but this and Queen/David Bowie song "under pressure" are my two favorite cuts.

#69: Which Radiohead song do they play?

no surprises.
and on the movie/music front we watched "Cadillac Records" a synoptic musical history of Chess Records w/ a tad of romance added in. Starts at the beginning w/ Alan Lomax recording McKineley Morganfield (sic) aka Muddy Waters in the Miss. delta and Leonard Chess getting out of the junk business and into race music (his brother was omitted for lack of dramatic tension, i guess). There's not really much plot - the the music and acting/characterizations are great and most of the key elements are kept in. Jefferey Wright is great as Muddy Waters, Beyonce is fine as Etta James but by far and away my favorite was Mos Def as Chuck Berry. Of course in my book Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly were the two early rockers from the 50s who REALLY mattered.

Promised Land is a dissertation on the Black diaspora out of the south post WWII in under 3 minutes.

I left my home in Norfolk Virginia,
California on my mind.
Straddled that Greyhound, rode him past Raleigh,
On across Caroline.
Stopped in Charlotte and bypassed Rock Hill,
And we never was a minute late.
We was ninety miles out of Atlanta by sundown,
Rollin' 'cross the Georgia state.
We had motor trouble it turned into a struggle,
Half way 'cross Alabam,
And that 'hound broke down and left us all stranded
In downtown Birmingham.
Straight off, I bought me a through train ticket,
Ridin' cross Mississippi clean
And I was on that midnight flyer out of Birmingham
Smoking into New Orleans.
Somebody help me get out of Louisiana
Just help me get to Houston town.
There people there who care a little 'bout me
And they won't let the poor boy down.
Sure as you're born, they bought me a silk suit,
Put luggage in my hands,
And I woke up high over Albuquerque
On a jet to the promised land.
Workin' on a T-bone steak a la carte
Flying over to the Golden State;
The pilot told me in thirteen minutes
We'd be headin' in the terminal gate.

Swing low sweet chariot, come down easy
Taxi to the terminal zone;
Cut your engines, cool your wings,
And let me make it to the telephone.
Los Angeles give me Norfolk Virginia,
Tidewater four ten Oh nine
Tell the folks back home this is the promised land callin'
And the poor boy's on the line.

L.van B's Violin concerto has, for decades, been one of my favorite works; recently I came across a lovely arrangement for piano that i didn't know existed. The recording I have is on Naxos, DDD 8.554288. I'm not familiar w/ the players: Dong-Suk Kang, Violin, Maria Liegel Cello, Jeno Jando, Piano and the Nicolaus Esterhazy Sinfonia (the Triple Concerto is the other piece), but lovely, even on my cheesy boombox on which it's currently playing. Didn't up my boggle scores, however. Maybe one has to stick w/ Mozart ;-)

I just found this thread, so I'll jump in late. I was a professional singer, primarily early and contemporary classical music, until my second child came along. Now I teach music to kids and perform occasionally when something local without too much time commitment comes up -- I'm singing as a ringer in the chorus of Britten's War Requiem next week because the piece is great and doesn't come around that often.

My musical tastes are pretty eclectic -- yes, I own a Varttina cd, too, even if I can't spell it! I'm currently trying to teach myself the banjo and my husband is learning mandolin, so we have been listening to a lot of folk and old timey music, bluegrass and Americana -- current favorites are old recordings of Buell Kazee, Nickel Creek, Tim O'Brien, Martin Hayes, and Joy Kills Sorrow.

I listen to rock if it's on and enjoy it, but don't seek it out, and I wish I could say that I loved jazz, but really I only like it if someone is singing. I've tried to figure out why it doesn't move me -- it's not the instrumental versus vocal thing, I think it's that I'm fundamentally a melodic sort of person, and jazz is all about harmonic structure, which I just don't pay that much attention to unless I know the piece really well.

I love all sorts of world music, though, and classical music of all kinds. I have too many classical favorites to name, and the ones I love to perform are not necessarily the ones I like to listen to.

We got to hear a great performance of Verdi's Requiem the other evening @ Duke U. Chapel - a venue w/ horrible acoustic problems unless you're sitting in the first 10 rows. Since one of our best friends was in one of the two choral societies involved, we had "reserved seating" in the the front row. We were about 5' away from the bass, Raymond Aceto, and we have NO idea how one, not so very large man, can create such volume (and still sound good). Clare said the Sanctus was a trainwreck - but i think only if you knew the music very well or were one of the performers. It was fine by us. I asked Clare if any of the ffff notations ranged into exponentiation eg f**2 or f**3) as i don't think i've ever heard any performance that got THAT loud (well, except for a rock concert by Cactus ~ 1971 when i had to go outside the William & Mary coliseum - and found, to my surprise, that the band sounded pretty ok, through the walls.)

The NC Symphony and the choral societies are performing again tonight in Meymondi Hall in Raleigh, which has great acoustics, everywhere we've ever sat.

I recently purchased Conversations in Silence performed by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. "Blackberry Winter" by Conni Ellisor is particularly lovely, and unusual for a classical piece is its incorporation of the hammered dulcimer, lap dulcimer, and Tennessee music box. The music is reminiscent of Aaron Copland. I give the cd four stars.

Playing and replaying Melody Gardot - last years album and this years.

A Desperate Plea

Late last night, I was listening to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (pre-recorded live performance) of Osvaldo Golijov's piece Azul. Yo-Yo Ma was the cellist. Although the performance dates back several years ago, I have been unable to find a recording of it. I have been desperately searching Google all morning. I must have this music. Does anyone know where I might find it? Please don't tell me to listen to it on streaming music. My wireless EVDO is not that fast.

P.S. TonyH, I I play and replat Melody Gardot as well.

Can't help with Yo-yo ma -- just saw this message, totally understand about MG, the height of my addiction has passed but can still listen and listen to her. In fact you made em check out Azul as I didn't know it

edit -- ooops deleted that suggestion as i see you dont; want to listen to streaming music! sorry. not foudn it for sale! Maybe someone techy could record it (probably highly illegal).

Tony,

Do you know any techies up to the highly illegal. I will definitely purchase said recording when it becomes available - I promise to be ethical. Additionally, I spend lots of money on legitimate recordings. The music industry continues to make piles of money off of me. I am probably singlehandedly responsible for keeping little-known contemporary classical in business (okay I exaggerate a bit).

Hmm I know one techy person at least, will keep my eyes and ears peeled for you. Sadly I am not at all techy these days. but then again i am not really sad about that at all -- but am slipping terribly into stereotyping people here, I will stop. but I will think about your problem.

Did you know that Bob Dylan is releasing an album of Christmas standards? National Public Radio had a story this morning. Dylan was singing in his grainiest voice - not a good match to "Little Town of Bethlehem" and such pieces. Ouch.

i went a concert @ the durham bulls ball park,last July - Dylan's voice was totally gone - sounded like w/ all the smoking and gigging for what 50+ yrs he's got really bad problems w/ nodules on his vocal cords *(chords?). Unless you KNEW the song, there was no way in hell you'd get the lyrics. sigh. You don't expect Dylan to have any voice but HIS voice...but it aint' the voice many knew and loved - now it's Tom Wait's by way of a bullfrog w/ laryngitis.

When he was young, he could do a smoother sound - but he's never been right for Christmas standards.

#84 - i agree totally- when he went for a more "crooning" approach (Nashville Skyline) i didn't care for that styling w/ his voice - which fit his earlier material perfectly.(obviously just a personal preference on my part - but...)

Oh..should anyone be interested - for the next couple of weeks Mojo Nixon's complete oeuvre is downloadable for free from Amazon (if you're coming in from a US server). An acquired taste - but "I hate banks," "the ballad of Wendell Scott" (the first Black Nascar driver) and "Elvis is everywhere" have stood the test of time (though my personal all time Mojo favorite is his cover of the Woody Guthrie classic "this land is your land."