Today I went with some friends to the Virgin Mobile FreeFest, out at Merriweather Pavilion. For the first couple of hours I kept thinking to myself, why am I here? Why am I here, sweating and choking on pot fumes while listening to Taking Back Sunday, a band I don't actually like, in the company of pink-haired 15-year-olds wearing studded collars ( Read more... )

I listened to the breakup show today, the first half of which is the tale of one woman's quest to write and record a breakup song, despite lack of musical ability, with the advice of Phil Collins. She did eventually come up with a song, entitled "The Three of Us", though it's kind of cutesy and funny-painful instead of good juicy soulwrenching ( Read more... )

Y'all are going to have to get used to seeing a lot of posts about stuff I hear on This American Life, because it's amazing and wonderful and I'm listening to three or four hours of it a day now. Today's highlight was an interview with Alex Melamid and Vitaly Komar, artists who hired some pollsters to ask people what they liked and did not like to ( Read more... )

I love it when I start up Pandora and it plays the exact song I wanted to hear.

A friend-of-a-friend volunteers at the Smithsonian and wishes everyone to know about their YouTube Star-Spangled Banner singing contest. Consider yourselves notified ( Read more... )

I think I'm regressing. I've been on a serious '80s kick for a week or two now, watching Back to the Future and Pretty Woman (on VHS!*) and listening to lots of old Madonna and Genesis and Elvis Costello. Of course, my actual favorite recording artist in the '80s was probably Raffi and I wasn't even aware of Elvis Costello until well into the ( Read more... )

My iTunes playlist currently contains 36 songs about* dreams. It has 22 songs about stars. There are 26 about rain. There are 48 about dancing. There are 13 about tears and 14 about smiles. There are 13 about hope, 65 about time, 8 about music and 16 about sex. There are 165 about love. There are 27 about fire and 3 about ice. There are 49 about ( Read more... )

Yesterday evening I took a trip out to Annapolis with Dennis and some of his friends to see Jonathan Coulton in concert with Paul and Storm. I had never heard of either of them prior to being invited, but a cursory Google assured me I wouldn't find it too painful. Besides, it was free ( Read more... )

A couple of days ago Dad forwarded me this article about the use of music as torture device in Guantanamo and other U.S. military prisons. They use a wide variety of songs ranging from Britney Spears to the Bee Gees to the Barney theme song, but heavy metal has proven especially effective:

As an interrogator for the U.S. Army's 361st Psychological ( Read more... )

Weird Al is not my favorite musician. I liked his Star Wars-related parodies okay, and "White and Nerdy" is pretty good stuff, but generally I wouldn't say I'm a fan. However, he has had a significant influence on my lifetime music experience. Not in a good way ( Read more... )