We’ve talked a lot (sometimes heatedly!) about what we listen to nowadays since heading our separate ways into adulthood. But I’m also curious about where we’re listening to music new and old.
The musical authorities of our youth (from record stores to select radio shows) have given way to whole new avenues for musical exploration, and I have to admit I have trouble knowing where to start. I watch and listen to a lot of music on YouTube; I spend some time with Pandora; I don’t personally own an MP3 player, although my family has a few. Satellite radio is a mystery to me, and I don’t really have much of a line on radio of the old-school terrestrial variety, either.
Where should I turn my dial, browser or head if I want to catch up with the stuff you enjoy the most?
Paul H’s streaming Internet show (on now). Sirius International stations- Bandeapart!Small venues. I buy random unknown bands’ CDs off the street just to encourage the noise. This summerI liked a street guitarist enough to give his recordings as gifts. I like Gary Heffern’s current sound- gotta order that cd this week.
pirating! arrr…
If you have a computer that has iTunes , there’s a radio feature that has about a thousand stations to choose from . We used to have Sirius at work but when we found out about this we dumped it .
It’s super varied and you can listen to any kind of music ( literally ) all day long with no interruptions . It’s pretty sweet .
Thanks for the plug Robin! By the way, my weekly Radio Show/Podcast is in the I-tunes store now. Just click on my name above which will take you to my blog, from there click on the I-Tunes logo. (No I-tunes usin’ mugs can also subscribe using the podcatcher of their choice here.) If you browse around my blog a little you’ll see a few of the other places where I find out about new music, namely, other peoples blogs. Blackdown’s, The Chrome Kids Blog, and The West Norwood Cassette Library are a few of my faves.
I listen to a fair amount of internet radio (although sometimes it seems like I miss more of the shows I like than I actually catch!), mostly UK FM pirates that also have internet streams such as RinseFM (who recently received their license after 16 years as a pirate), FlexFM and InnacityFM as well as stream only internet pirate style stations like SubFM and Phatbeats.
Blentwell is, in their own words, “an ongoing document of the evolution of blended music. A daily link log of all of the hot mixes and beats found online. Blentwell’s Links is based on the online linking system Scuttle which in turn is loosely based on the del.icio.us online linking system.
There are two link sections:
1.) Blentwell Links -- excellent mix links editorialized by the mysterious Mr. Blentwell.
2.) The People’s Link -- get in touch with the mix link zeitgeist through the posting power of the People.”
I buy records a couple times a month from online shops like Chemical Records and Rooted Records. Record stores haven’t died, at least not in bigger cities around the world. A lot of stores have a physical shop and an online presence these days.
Discogs is also an excellent resource, particularly for vinyl junkies like me.
I also buy .mp3s or preferably .wavs from a couple different online digital retailers. Places like Digital Tunes and Boomkat whose 14 Tracks digital label does an excellent job of opening windows in to various genres.
Speaking of digital releases, one of my favorite labels at the moment is digital only. L2S Recordings. A pivotal label in the “Future Garage” movement, they’ve been firing out quality releases since Early 2009.
Soundcloud is nice, you can start a profile, upload your tunes for others to listen to or download, and follow other artists to keep posted on their latest productions.
I’ve got a few other tricks, but I can’t tell all my secrets. Anyway, that oughta keep you rascals busy for a while.
I listen to a local college radio station that plays swing on Tuesday mornings, Jazz Decade on WGBH, Boston, Sunday nights, and some youtube videos. Don’t listen to much music anymore…
I like the Terry Gross and Tom Ashbrook interviews with past and present music makers…Patti Smith, Leonard Cohen, anyone….they give good interview.
just got a very interesting cd from jeff schwartz
upright bass player from la
cant wait to see them play at MOCA la jolla
despite his modern creative endevors
there is a symphany he plays in….
WMBR, M.I.T. College radio in Boston also WERS Emerson College,
88.1 and 88.9 Boston. I call and request my own stuff from time to time, prison walls gets red flagged for to much f-word.
I’m frustrated! I just realized my kid didn’t give me the cell modem back, so I can’t check out any of Mr. Howland’s links on this train ride home. Instead, I’m doodling around on this old BlackBerry. (Maybe I do need a more multimedia-friendly smartphone.)
Well,
I’m not sure what to make of the noise coming out of my 15 year old daughters room !!!! Death Metal to Rap to POP. No real musical pressure these days, they seem to float all over the map.
Me:
I listen to talk radio in the car or on my Iphone with the cool radio app. ” have to get my fill of right wing hate ” HA HA
At Home I have tons of stuff on my computer, Morlocks ,Blues , 80’s Punk , old rock just to name a few. Over 25 Gig’s- would take weeks of straight listening to get through it. Cool thing I found was a $80 box at Best Buy, this little Sony box sits out back on my Tiki Bar Patio and via wireless lets me see everything on my computer in my office at the front of the house.. I can sort by album, artist and so on. I also can switch modes and have it send out anything playing on my computer -- like Pandora. Really solved a big problem for me, love it.
Now !!!!
I would really like to listen to the first 2 Morlock albums out in the Tiki Bar. I have no record player and do not have these digital. Anyone want to share these 2 gems with me. No worries about copyright police….I give you permission.
I’ve been checking out Mr. Howland’s links all morning … Lots of innerestin’ fuzzy warbles thanks to his careful curation of who is posting quality work in the genres that he cares about most.
Does anyone else have tactics for finding new music by artists you don’t already know? Do you tune into stations you trust and listen for novel work, or do you actively go out searching?
We’ve heard concerns before that there are a million stations and nothing on. I don’t think that’s true at all … But I do think the wealth of choices does make it a little overwhelming unless you have someone like Paul to play Virgil to your Dante!
http://milkcratebreaks.blogspot.com/ has links to (offsite) downloads of complete albums of classic jazz, jazz funk and soul records.
THIS JUST IN
JUSTINTV.com
“CARDIACKIDZ”
on line concert live at lestats coffeehouse
fairmonts extention -the pman and hing to play
9pm pacific
obviously a midnite party for you eastcoasters
>>JUSTINTV.com
Lou: I suspect the actual URL might be http://www.justin.tv … The .com version redirects to some non-video-streaming site called “Tiki Who.”
Do you fellas know if this will be archived for us Easterners who can’t stay up too, too late?
I scrape around the blogosphere -- googling the names of Artists I love, like Dinah Washington.
If I restrict my searches to “site:blogspot.com” or the like, I come up with NEW stuff, and old -- that I’d have never hipped to, any other way.
But…
I am still waiting for the male soul singer worth a damn to emerge. Sorry, John Legend or Jaheim don’t cut it. If we can have a Ledisi or Leela James, even Fantasia Barrino, why no guy carrying on from Marvin Gaye or Teddy Pendergrass?
I will make room for Cee-Lo Green, tho’. He has a limited set of tricks, but knows jus’ what to do with ’em.
Enjoy.
grooveshark is a site that lets you play any song you want. They don’t have everything, but there’s lots to listen to… especially if it’s more mainstream stuff… and no commercials, either. Pandora has become kind of a drag, because there are commercials every time you switch stations. I don’t want annoying interruptions along with my free music.
180 gram vinyl…..nothing like opening up a brand new LP.
I missed that Sony killed the Walkman!
I still have the heavy-duty recording Walkman my folks bought in ’81. That is a great machine.
I guess the end of the record player kind of wrecked music listening for me. I loved putting on a “record”…snap, crackle, pop…very organic.
Even when I had a great system I liked the real-ness of listening to an LP…you didn’t just click around so much…you had to listen, or get up!!
I keep a Martin backpacker acoustic guitar and a ukulele by my desk at work … I look up tablature and alarm my colleagues!
Jeremiah.
I actually liked some of Jahiem’s stuff, but I think I know what you’re saying.
I went out and bought the album this single was extracted from a few years back. I wasn’t knocked out by the rest of it.
Musiq is pretty damn good,
So’s D’Angelo
I’m sure I’ll get a lot of grief for this next one, but I do think that a lot of the energy of “Soul” has moved in to “Rap”. Nate Dog sings the hook on this.
This should probably be in the guilty pleasures thread, but what the heck.
Sean Paul certainly doesn’t compare to the guys you mentioned, but I like his style, halfway between what Jamaican’s call “DJing” and singing. I give him full credit for having a US hit in 2004 with a rocksteady song.
This is all pretty far afield though. The title of the thread is “The way we listen now.” One of my very favorite ways to listen to music these days is to go out dancing to DJs.
>>I’m sure I’ll get a lot of grief for this next one, but I do think that a lot of the energy of “Soul” has moved in to “Rap”.
Paul: Ahhh, tough nuts! It’s the truth. Here’s a Nate Dogg number I like quite a lot (even though I find his vocal skills limited):
Surely Nate Dogg is no Johnny Hartman
but the two singers do share a few things in common, relaxed tone and phrasing, good intonation. Nate Dogg is not an “R & B Singer ” he’s a “Hip Hop Singer”. What I mean is, his songs are Hip Hop, not R & B, but he sings instead of rapping. Pretty neat trick if you ask me. I think he purposely holds back on the pyrotechnics to keep that distinction in place.
So far, it sounds like most of us are listening primarily via computers or radios … Not much talk of portable devices.
I personally am a little neurotic about walking around with music piping into my earholes. I often use earplugs to muffle ambient city noise, but I don’t like the feeling of not being able to hear what’s going on around me. And given my druthers, I’d druther listen through speakers.
But do we have advocates for iPods or other portable-music gizmos?
I’m in the S.F. Bay Area, which has a plethora of great radio stations. My favorites are listener-supported KPFA, which is part of the left-wing, non-partisan Pacifica Network, and KLAX, which is UC Berkeley’s station.
I like my SanDisk Sansa mp3 and wma player. It syncs well with Windows Media Player. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to add new music to it, because WMP quits when I try to sync lately. This happened right after I got a new version of Quicktime, so I suspect Apple is the culprit. I reinstalled both WPM and QT to no avail. I don’t want to reward Apple for screwing up WMP by getting iTunes, so I’ve been without new music on the player.
@ you, Matt,
Earbuds? I don’t wear ’em. I don’t sit with my back to a door, either. Or even wear dark glasses.
Environmental sensory deprivation is a form of gnawing discomfort!
I believe in sharing music. The ghetto blaster had it all-over the iPod. I plug my ‘pod in the car, roll down my windows and LET IT BLAST. Muthafonkers need to HEAR the Meters!
I used to use my I-Pod and ear buds every single weekday, but that was when I had a bus commute that was over an hour. What a lifesaver. I would listen to new tunes and radio shows. I’ve never been able to read on a bus like some people can. I tend not to use it in the car as much, ’cause I’m afraid someone will bust my window out and take it, or I’ll leave it somewhere. It still does the trick for plane trips though.
Lately I’ve been burning CDs for car usage, new tunes, my shows and mixes, and other peoples shows and mixes. I love tooling around town listening to some good tunes. I think smart phones are taking over for a lot of people as a portable music player of choice. A lot of cars have bluetooth in the radio now so you don’t have to plug anything in. Also there are apps, many of them free, for listening to internet radio on the go.
@ Paul Allen, yeah you’re right to be pissed off at apple/quicktime/I-Tunes. I’ve got I-Tunes installed on the computer I use for streaming and recording my show. Any time I even turn I-Tunes on, it immediately jacks all of my music related file associations without asking. Then I have to muck around in the control panel, to be able to hear anything at all out of any audio application. Unnh, what a frickin’ pain. That being said, for those who’ve already drank the kool aid, my podcast is available for free in the I-Tunes store.
@ Jeremiah, Your damn skippy Muthafonkers need to HEAR the Meters. I would even go so far as to say that Muthafonkers NEED to HEAR the Meters !!!
Sometimes I even need to hear the Meters with someone eloquent talking over the top. At those times I listen to things like these.
Preferably on car speakers, ghetto blaster or sound system.
>>Lately I’ve been burning CDs for car usage, new tunes, my shows and mixes, and other peoples shows and mixes.
Paul: Thanks again for the mix CD you gave me in Encinitas … It enlivened subsequent legs of our book tour in a variety of rental vehicles! 🙂
(My family’s old minivan still has a cassette deck … Shows how long it’s been since we bought a car.)
http://www.last.fm/user/adamkolson
6 years of what I’ve listened to in iTunes (I haven’t owned a stereo or CD player in that time span). There’s some pollution from past roommates in that list with 1980’s pop stuff but its easy to find new music based on what similar listeners like. Its similar to being able to browse through someone’s music collection with the same top ten artists.
P2P!
Loads of really good free tunes. Click here to read the full article on my blog (make sure and check the comments too, lots more links there, and leave a link if you found any good free stuff).