Nothing special, as anyone can create a Pandora station. But in case you want to cut straight to some killer Marvin Gaye, Barry White, Motown, etc. radio I’ve created a Pandora station that has been putting out some quality r&b. Now I gotta see if I can jam with it…

Keith’s Pandora R&B station.

Now I’m thinking one of these tunes needs to be declared a Thanksgiving song. The Christmas song overload has gotten BAD…seriously. There are no Turkey songs, but there are so many X-mas ones the malls are starting to play them BEFORE Thanksgiving! We must stop it!

The secret to becoming a better musician without picking up your instrument?

Here it is…

Listen to music.

DOH!

I know, it would have been much more mainstream to create a pill for it and advertise it during the Superbowl, one more to take along with your allergy pill, your ED pill and the one that makes you run smiling through a field.

And this advice is probably pointless to most serious players because chances are if you like guitar you already have a passion for music. But most of my blog guitar posts are aimed at folks like my students, players just starting to get that driving desire for improvement. They want scales! Chords! Theory! Make me a Guitar God NOW!

Then I ask them what they’ve listened to lately and I get a blank stare. Turned on the radio? No. The iPod? Lost it.* At best they might recall hearing the new Green Day song because a bunch of their other friends were playing it.

I don’t get it. Listening to music made me want to play guitar. Listening to music MAKES me want to play guitar.** I want to learn what my heroes are doing, maybe even take it in a new direction, take it further.

LISTENING to music might be one of the easiest joys given to humanity. It can trigger any emotion, inspire you to take action, to think, to love, cry, inspire. I’ve heard countless quotes from people talking about how such & such’s music saved their lives, provided comfort in dark times. Not trying to get too heavy here, but hopefully you get my point; if you want to create something that excites you LISTEN to music that inspires you.

My blues brother, Stevie Ray Vaughan was once (likely more than once) questioned about how he’d developed his playing and he gave credit to all of his great teachers, the blues legends he listened to before him. Solid advice, but let’s take it a step further…what if you listened to quality music in different genres, especially those outside your favorites?

Listen to bad music you don’t like? That sounds like a lame formula for success!

Well, maybe. I’m not listening to Britney Spears in hopes of becoming a better pop musician. But where would rock & metal guitar be without all the contributions of jazz theory and blues? Gene Simmons–like countless others–cited The Beatles as one of his earliest influences. Does KISS sound anything like them? Not offhand, but if you look closely there’s a definite influence in the songwriting.

This is one of the greatest times in history to explore new kinds of music because you don’t have to invest a fortune in CDs you might not like. You’ve got the Internet!

Can’t stand mainstream music? Check out CD Baby, independent artists of all genres creating genius you’ll likely never hear otherwise.

For the past year I’ve been tweaking radio stations at Pandora.com. It’s freakin’ amazing…you type in the name of a band and a radio station is created that plays music in that genre. And you can continue to customize it by entering the names of artists you want to hear. Pandora will play those as well as add in those it thinks you will like.

I’ve created a bunch of stations on Pandora to help you get exposed to new styles of music. It’s all FREE!

Blues!

Film Scores! Not much guitar here, but listen to the way all the different parts of the orchestra create a full song. Great songwriting ideas to be found.

Rock Shredders. Likely the one most of you will click first.

Country Shred. You metal players will be blown away by what a talented country guitarist can pull off.

Acoustic Shred. Folks showing the limitless possibilities of one instrument in your hands.

Jam Bands. Phish, Grateful Dead, etc. If you want to learn how to jam you should check out the ones who have gotten famous for it.

Reggae I’ve picked up a lot of ideas on jamming listening to these guys.

Electronic. Slim pickins if you’re seeking guitar, but don’t knock it until you’ve heard it. Maybe chain together your fx pedals to create similar ideas?

Jazz dudes. All the legends here and then some.

Nine Inch Nails Radio. A bunch of stuff in the NIN vein.

Glenn Miller Radio. 40s & 50s style music of the World War 2 era. Sinatra, big band, etc.

Bollywood! A lot of cheesy pop from India, but the East/West mixture of influences can be very inspiring.

Would love to get more station recommendations if you have them. ;0

*I believe much of Apple’s stock price is held up by kids losing & breaking their iPods, I hear the sob stories regularly!

**And bass. And Ztar. And sing…

So, yeah–I’m not going to review the Dave Matthews Band’s new album Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King.

I’m not gonna, and you can’t make me.

I’m assuming that the five readers who regularly follow me here in Aimsterville are quite surprised by this turn of events, seeing as how every time this band takes a crap, I usually feel compelled to comment on it in some way (“While the recorded version was wonderful, hitting the toilet bowl with just the right amount of sploosh, the 20+ minute live version was an exhilarating relief.” Yes–I just totally made that up). But I just don’t feel that I can review this album. Not yet.

I’ll explain.

When Stand Up came out in 2005, I listened to it non-stop, starting with its release in April and continuing into sometime in early 2006. And then I stopped–I put it away, I started listening to the old stuff, I started listening to other stuff (because, contrary to popular opinion, I am aware that other musical artists exist).

And I haven’t touched it since.

Oh, I’m sure I’ll go back to Stand Up someday–I mean, I put Everyday in my car CD player in 2004 for the first time in probably two years, and while I was surprised that I’d forgotten how good some of the songs were (I actually like “I Did It” even though most people don’t), I was disappointed at how many songs I fast-forwarded through (the same songs I was skipping when the disc came out in 2001).

So, basically, I’m afraid to review Big Whiskey. I’m afraid that right now, I’m viewing the album through Blue Water-colored glasses, through that lens of excitement that I feel at hearing the first new recorded music from this band in over four years. I feel that I’m too caught up in the hype surrounding the release and the information from other reviews to be even remotely objective (and right now, Big Whiskey seems to be earning a solid B from most reviewers).

I’m not going to review it now, because I’m afraid that it’s not as good as I think it is. And right this minute, I think it’s really, really good–possibly the best thing they’ve ever done.

So I’m not even going to try to write an objective review. Instead, with my readers’ indulgence, I’ll just gush for a moment:

After almost three weeks of listening to this album in its various forms–including its leaked precursor (the “April Sessions”) and the Pandora.com stream (which was so crappy it sounded like the album was being streamed through a tin can. A tin can buried in someone’s backyard. Someone’s backyard in China) and then the “official” version that came out on June 2–I can say that I effin’ love this album. That’s love as in take it on dates and spend the night with it and cook it breakfast in the morning and ask it to marry me so I can grow old with it. Almost every track is solid, and even the one track that I really though was a dud on first listen–”Dive In,” which is perhaps the most uplifting song ever written about global warming–is now stuck in my head whether I want it there or not. This disc covers a variety of moods without coming off as suffering from some kind of multiple personality disorder–you can listen to “Shake Me Like a Monkey” or “Seven” when you want to get your dirty funk on; you can mellow out to “Spaceman” or “Lying in the Hands of God”; when you want to rawk or jam out, you can crank “Time Bomb,” “Why I Am,” “Squirm,”or the country-flavored “Alligator Pie.” “Funny the Way It Is” and “You and Me” were made for rolling down the car windows and singing along on a summer’s day, while “Baby Blue” and “Grux,” the sax piece from the late Leroi Moore that opens the disc, are for those quieter moments when you need to contemplate life and death and the meaning of it all (I do this regularly–don’t you?).

So, right now, I’m blown away. But I’m still listening and still discovering things, and I won’t know how this album really rates until I put it away for a while. For example, I was instantly blown away by Radiohead’s In Rainbows when I first heard it, and I listened to it almost constantly for weeks. The other day, I listened to it end to end for the first time in probably six months, and I was still blown sideways by how good that album is. My hope is that Big Whiskey will still floor me months from now, when I’ve stopped listening to it in its entirety and am only listening to the songs as they randomly come up on my iPod–I hope that I can decide one day to listen to Big Whiskey from start to finish and be just as in love as I am today.

And if that happens, maybe then I’ll write a review instead of a gush.

By Adam Satariano (Bloomberg)

U.S. teenagers, a bellwether customer for the record industry, bought 19 percent less music last year and instead turned to free alternatives like Pandora.com and MySpace.com, according to NPD Group Inc. (continues @ bloomberg.com)

CD Cover to "Rip It Off"

Stroke 9 is a great gem of a band.  If you have heard of them, it is probably because of their single “Little Black Backpack,” or “Vacuum Bag.”  Their music has been played around the U.S. and Canada since they began touring as a band in the early 90’s.  I found them on pandora.com, a great site that has introduced me to many new bands I wouldn’t have found otherwise.  Enjoy some Stroke 9:

http://www.last.fm/music/Stroke+9/_/Vacuum+Bag

I started going to the gym again.  I’m so determined to be back in the physically fit shape I once was…oh so long ago…  I’m just getting so tired of feeling crappy about myself and being so lazy and tired….I hate it.  So I went last Saturday and it was great.  I went again on Monday and I totally went all out kicking my own ass.  It felt so great.  I went again today, but all the ellipticals were taken.  Running on the treadmill wiped me out much faster, and the crowd kind of diminished my motivation.  I did a couple leg exercises since I did upper body on Monday, did my crunches, stretches, and left.

When I came home, I didn’t shower, I didn’t do work, I didn’t do anything.  I barely even ate.  In fact, I haven’t really been eating that much lately.  There’s an evil part of me cheering, “yeah!  Don’t eat = lose weight!”  There’s another part of me knowing that I need to eat and that I should try to eat somewhat balanced meals.  Then there’s that part that just doesn’t seem to care either way.  I can’t let that part take me over.

I know a lot of people who want to lose weight or get in shape hate going to the gym.  But I love it once I’m there.  I blast my David Guetta station on Pandora from my iPhone and I am zoned.  Dance music gets me so pumped.  Also, if there’s any kind of fighting or action tv show or movie on while I’m doing my cardio, I always have that on the screen in front of me.  Fighting gets me pumped too.  Just wish I knew how to do it…

I’ve always wanted to take a kind of martial arts, but I so badly lack the discapline.  I’m hoping to find some self-discapline back at the gym.  There was a time where I once had the time, effort, energy, motivation, and discapline to get to the gym 4-6 days a week for 2 hours each time I went.  Needless to say, I was in amazing shape.  So I know I don’t look out of shape or even “fat” to other people – and I know I’m not “fat” persay – but I have gained weight and am not near that amazing shape I once have, and know is posible for my body type to acheive.

I think that’s where a lot of people get fucked up with working out.  They hope to get into a body that isn’t theirs at all.  I feel shitty about my body because it isn’t at it’s best – not someone else’s best – my best.  And I don’t even need to be super cut up, 2 hrs/day, 6 day/week at the gym again.  But I don’t want to feel weak.  I don’t want to be tired all the time.  I don’t want to get winded climbing stairs.  I just want to feel good about myself and fit back into my jeans that I don’t fit into anymore.

In the mean time…I still can’t convince myself to go to bed at a decent hour.   I still can’t finish my laundry or finish cleaning up my clothes.  And I definetely haven’t been able to finish school stuff at all.  I’m so close to graduation, but so. worn. out.

I will get a real vacation when I finish this quarter.  I’ll be visitin a friend in the Boston area – I’ve never even been to the East Coast.  I hope that will be good for me, but in the mean time, I still have to finish this quarter…

I can do it.  I know I can.  I fear it, I’m fighting it, but I’m fighting so hard for it.  But in the end, I know that if I can get myself back to the gym after over 3 years of being out of shape, I can get through the last two weeks of this quarter…

Variety is the spice of life. You taste like boiled chicken.

Love,
–nate

For as long as I can remember, I have mistrusted genres. This is most true in music, which seems to have the most fluid genres, but no mater the media being characterized I have two big problems with genre. One is over specificity; this is best demonstrated by all those made up music genres you see. Genres that look like Rube Goldberg machines. You are left with a random assortment of words that are supposed to give you some idea of what exactly you are going to be listening to, but just leave you feeling a little confused and alone, which is probably exactly what they are supposed to do. These types of genres are only good for exploring music academically. The specificity lends itself to a rigorous, categorical system or a completely useless system, in which nothing is like anything else.

The other problem is genres that are so general that they mean nothing. This is most other sorts of media, but music has this problem too. Burn a cd onto your computer using iTunes to see great examples of this. Everything I burn onto there is labeled “Alternative & Punk.” Those are two different genres. No one would accept this kind of shit at the public library. If you walked into the library and there was a “Mystery & Sci-Fi” librarians would start a popular revolt and I would be right there with them. No one better get their mystery stink on my sci-fi. Another iTunes genre to watch out for is “experimental.” That means iTunes thinks the band is a gateway band and the genius bar is sending your phone number, address, reading habits, and blood type to Gil Kerlikowske’s office. Another of iTunes super genres is “singer/songwriter” or “person with an acoustic guitar at least some of the time.” iTunes’ (do I capitalize that at the beginning of a sentence?) crowning achievement in genre conglomeration is the indispensable “indescribable.” Congratulations iTunes, you have created a label that doesn’t label. God damn it, every time I’ve written down one of these genres I’ve thought “What the Fuck” in my head. Another good example of overly simplified genres is found in film. The genre of documentary could use at least one good branch, between documentaries and op-ed documentaries. These genres form no meaningful relationships between the bands and musicians that fall within them. There is such a range in singer/songwriter that there is no reason for me to use the genre. What would be the point? And I’m as likely to end up with Hoobastank (I am so sad that I didn’t have to look up the spelling to Hoobastank) as Minor Threat in the “Alternative & Punk” genre.

Up until now I’ve just mistrusted genre. Sometimes I’ve even used them. For awhile I was trying to devise a genre system for my music. I’m a scientist, I can’t help but classify. But yesterday I decided to finally dump genre, the same way I dumped Heroes after the first episode of the third season. I read about the genre “shitgaze.” There are actually bands that describe themselves as “shitgaze.” Don’t run to their defense because I know what you are going to do. You are going to say “It’s a joke.” I know. I know it is a joke. It is a pun on shoegaze. I get it and I hate it. I even like the bands that describe themselves as shitgaze and that is why I won’t print their names here. I’m protecting them from themselves, smoking bans for all.

But there still exists that void which genre is meant to fill. Relating music. The specific genre structure doesn’t work because taste can be capricious, not scientific. The general genre structure doesn’t work because it basically just tells you that over there in the black part of the map “there be music.” So let’s return to the original problem, how do you relate music to other music? Well, how do you describe music to someone else? Most people rely on just naming another band, but I don’t want to do that to my favorite bands. In fact, I think it is impossible to relate your favorite band to another band because they are your favorite. You don’t think your favorite band is like anything else. Plus, I don’t want to artificially diminish or inflate my favorite band by equating them to another band. Band band relations are questionable evidence to follow, people relate bands to each other for completely batshit reasons. Pandora makes this obvious. The most tenuous relationships shove bands together. Why did Pandora make me listen to Jack Johnson on a David Bowie station yesterday? Because Pandora is insane, and is a marketing tool.

So what are we left with? I believe I have an answer. If you ask me about a band I’m not going to give you a phrase in which half the characters are hyphens, I’m not going to tell you the name of another band, I’m going to dance. Dance, the universal language. I’m going to imagine the music of the band you asked about and then I’m going to show you how I would dance to that band. This works. What do you and everyone else think of when someone talks about the Talking Heads. That’s right! You think of David Byrne boogying in that suit of his. You know what? That works perfectly! That is the Talking Heads, much more than New Wave or Art Rock or Post-Punk is. So from now on if you ask me what my favorite band sounds like. I’m going to start bouncing, I’ll spin around, I’ll yell at the top of my lungs. Because that is what Man Man sounds like and it is way more fun then telling you “Oh, you know, it sounds like a circus on stage.” But don’t ask me about the Chicken Dance or the Electric Slide, because I dance to those songs by punching people in the face.

Pandora.com is an internet radio site and probably one of the best things to hit the Earth.  Basically, you create a radio station based on artists or songs and it creates a music mix using the Music Genome Project.  I am constantly searching out new music and would eat this site if it was edible.  Check it.

This one is a great homepage.

Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator. A treemap visualization algorithm helps display the enormous amount of information gathered by the aggregator. Treemaps are traditionally space-constrained visualizations of information. Newsmap’s objective takes that goal a step further and provides a tool to divide information into quickly recognizable bands which, when presented together, reveal underlying patterns in news reporting across cultures and within news segments in constant change around the globe.
Newsmap does not pretend to replace the googlenews aggregator. Its objective is to simply demonstrate visually the relationships between data and the unseen patterns in news media. It is not thought to display an unbiased view of the news; on the contrary, it is thought to ironically accentuate the bias of it. -from http://marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/

Hype Machine is a site which showcases music popular on blogs.  It also has a good radio, but secondary to Pandora.

Ridiculously easy to waste a lot of time here.  One of the more popular blogs and one of my favorite.

I don’t believe everything I read, but like this concept.

Also, if you don’t like ads in your internets and use Firefox, there is an add-on that replaces ads with a new contemporary art piece every two weeks.  You need the Ad Block Plus add-on, and then install Add-Art.  Just trying to help.

Listening to 15 Steps by Radiohead

Pandora.com/Acoustic Guitar Genius!

I’ve been tweaking a Pandora station that only plays acoustic guitar pros. Michael Hedges, Tommy Emmanuel, Preston Reed, Andy McKee, Leo Kottke, Phil Keaggy and a bunch of others who prove how far you can go without distortion. All acoustic lends a relaxing vibe, but the combined virtostic energy of all these players should inspire you to practice until you pass out!

I don’t have any jam advice for this station. Maybe this is a good time to just listen.

about a half a year ago, I was introduced by a good friend to Pandora radio, the online Music Genome Project. By simply typing in your favorite song or artist, it custom creates based on many different protocol, a radio station for you on the fly. It works pretty good too! playing songs that relate to the style of the song or artist you picked. You can further go in and manipulate the station and add variety to it. You can have many different stations too.. my station list, custom crafted by myself are as follows:
80’s Cheese- self explanitory
Point5 ta Point5 – rock and alternative from 95 to 05
FunkyHouseTrain – Funky house music.. Justice, Daft Punk
JadedJunglist – for that nostalgic bwaa bwaaa BWAAAAA!
DarkIndustRok – thrill kill kult, lords of acid.. etc -
ElectroJazzFusion – NinjaTunes and friends
HipHopDizzle – some of the recent R&B/HipHop (gotta see what’s happening in the main stream.. don’t want to get too out of touch with society…
Sinead O’Conner Radio – been constantly thumbing down anything that isn’t “nothing compares” or a remix of it. (pure novelty)
HipHipTro – Oldschool Hip Hop from early early 80’s til Chronic..
80’sMetal – self explanitory
SuperTrampRadio – For my boss when he helps out in the back.

SOOOOOO….

What’s up with F’d in the A I bet you’re wondering.

Well today I was doing some design work in the comfort of my bed.. gotta love laptops… I was listening to the ElectroJazzFusion station as I usually do when I’m at home… it’s lovely. Quite lovely indeed… for designing… in the nude…
When all of a fucking sudden, I hear what sounds like maybe an old cheesy 45 of some commercial, as the electrojazzfusion folks occasionally use soundbytes from these oldschool commercials.. But no.. it was a real commercial. A COMMERCIAL…
You know it’s only downhill from here, right? you know that this free Pandora.com radio is done for right? Face it, it is… I love Pandora, it made me fall in love with Luke Vibert to the point of an actual CD purchase of Lover’s Acid.. It helped me rekindle some of the nostalgic sounds of my past, without having to physically purchase anything.. It was perfect. I can hear the commercials now, starting out as short little deals, to full on 5 minute breaks from the rock.. ohhh. my heart aches from the concept! oh well.
I guess if they offer a cheap commercial free version, then I guess I’ll buy it… it would be worth it. but fuck man…

* Here it is.  Strap on an adult diaper and brace yourself for Snowmageddon ‘09.

Sadly, the animation was made for HDTV, so this clip wont’ show you the awesome helicopters attacking the snowman.  And you can’t read the full “Snowmageddon” at the end.  Stupid digital conversion!

Clearly, this clip merits inclusion in Ben’s Video Vault, hereafter available through the link at the top of the blog.

And it’s made it on the almighty Fark, so I expect massive hits.  (I had 200 within 5 hours of posting the video)

* It was crazy cold walking in to work overnight.  Andy is spouting off about something like -40 wind chills later this week.  (I’m pretty sure I heard “-40″ from his mouth.)  I will probably die… or at least require some sort of amputation upon arrival.

* The debut of “American Idol” didn’t really do much for me.  The new judge doesn’t offer much, although she succeeded in being ultra-annoying when she tried to one-up a contestant by singing the song the way it should’ve been sung.  What’s she trying to prove?

A much more interesting reality show is NBC’s “Momma’s Boys,” home to one of the most insane people in America.  There’s this super-racist mom who thinks there’s no girl good enough for her meat-head son.  In the upcoming final episode, she’s going to make her boy choose between her and the blond bombshell he’s got his eye on.  Hilarity will ensue.

* Seems the Obama team is playing hardball with reporters, getting journalists to purr or risk excommunication.  People in my line of work let the country down by not questioning the Bush administration leading up to Iraq, so I hope we don’t make the same mistake again.  Let’s rattle the cages!

* The City Council falls over themselves to praise Roland Burris.  Excuse me?  Just a few days ago, everyone was breathing fire that someone was bold enough to accept the appointment from El Blago.  Now Roland Burris is a folk hero?  I don’t get it.  I question the judgment of anyone who wouldn’t hang up when called by a governor who’d been arrested a few days prior.  This feels very, very wrong.

* All your children are taking nude pictures of themselves and sending them to one another.  I was born too late.

* An obese woman is sent to the zoo for an MRI.  My brother the doctor tells me this was common practice when he worked near Detroit.  The zoo.  Hey, when you find yourself going to the zoo for a medical scan, put down the Twinkie.

* I can’t figure any good reason why 15,000 Norwegians would look up the CTA’s bus tracker website.  Hell, I don’t have 15,000 hits on this blog and I have to think there’s somethingmore entertaining than a bus tracker here.  Look, Norway!  Snowmageddon!

* Speaking of taking your pick in the dating world, Bret Michaels is cranking out yet another “Rock of Love.”  Bret says, “You can see a lot of someone in their eyes, and if that doesn’t work, straight to the breasts.”  Why women line up to date this walking herpes sore is beyond me.

* Washington courts say it’s fine if 18-year-old students have sex with their teachers.  Again, I was born too late.  (Not that I had any teachers worth consideration for that, but it would have been nice to have the option.)

* Boldly going where no Trek has gone before: The new “Star Trek” movie apparently has some super-hot scene where Uhura rips her shirt off.  How does she pull it off so quickly with that giant metal thing sticking out of her ear?

* Unnecessary remake: “The Karate Kid,” starring Will Smith’s son and… Jackie Chan as Mr. Miyagi?  Um, yeah.  Good luck with that.

* Chicago is the 3rd most caffeinated city in the U.S.  We’d be tenth if not for all the coffee inhaled by those of us on the overnight shift.

Speaking of chemical stimulation, caffeine can cause hallucinations.  That explains some of the judgment calls made in Chicago TV morning news.

* Finger length may predict financial success.  I have one particular finger I’ve been pointing at my ailing stock portfolio for more than a year now.

* “Hey son, I hear you didn’t make the team.  Here.  Have some steroids.”

* High levels of estrogen make a woman look and feel prettier, but they also turn her into a bit of a harlot. 

* Have you ever been to Pandora.com?  I finally caved this week and I have visions of all my free time vanishing in thin air.  It might be the coolest thing ever.  You punch in your favorite bands and songs and it tailors a live radio station to your tastes.  As it goes along, you give a thumbs up or down to the music it feeds you.   Eventually, it starts to read your mind, giving you an endless stream of awesome music.

Why don’t they have this with online dating sites?  It would be awesome to click through a list of boxes and have a gift-wrapped girl waiting on the other end.   I’d end up with a girl with Kate Beckinsale’s hair, Anne Hathaway’s smile, Alyssa Milano’s body and the voice of Julie Andrews.  Until such a website comes to life, I’ll just make due with another call to Ashley Alexandra Dupre.

Pandora.com

I am SO 2003, so I might be the last person who does not have an iPod of some sort. I like music, but I’m not totally into music, so why buy an iPod?

I do spend a lot of time on or near my computer so I think I’ve found the perfect solution.

Pandora.com!

Basically, Pandora lets you create your very own radio station. Simply enter your favorite artist or song and Pandora will create a radio station. As songs come up, you give the thumbs up or thumbs down, which Pandora uses to select the next song. You can add other songs and artists to create a custom mix, too.

My favorite feature of Pandora is it selects other music you’ve probably never heard. Why is this great? Well, it will be of such a similar style to your faves that you’ll probably want to add that to the mix as well. You can create different radio stations to suit your mood.

In detailed terms, Pandora is the result of the Music Genome Project. Musicians and scientists got together and determined what exactly makes a piece of music unique, what are it’s identifying characteristics. They compiled all this information into the Music Genome Project. Let me just say, the results will amaze you!

Return to Mommy Finds

So I was allowed to have the shindig, but I have to suffer through some other undecided punishment because I didn’t finish the paper by 9pm that day, even though I did finish it eventually…

Oh well.

But, at the shindig, I had a revelation, and it wasn’t a happy one.

It has to do with Brenden. Enough said, hm?

Well, we were throwing a football around in the backyard, and it was guys vs. girls, even though there were 2 guys to 4 girls (until Luke, my brother, joined in on the guys’ side). So, this one girl I invited (mostly because she saw the invite to EJ and because I supposed she was cool enough) named Marissa kept getting the ball passed to her and then just…holding on to it. Know why? ‘Cause Brenden was going quite quickly after whoever had the ball. She likes Brenden and I knew this previously but I was hoping my mom’s no PDA rules would kinda make things OK, not to mention considering he had flirting so strongly with me the past week made me think everything would be fine, but things weren’t. She tried (poorly) to make it look like she was deciding who to throw it to, but she was really just waiting for Brenden to come and half tackle her from behind, then wrap his arms around her to try to get the ball from her hands. She was having fun…and so was he.

He’s been (half) flirting with her, too, some of the week, but I shrugged it off  ’cause I was stupid and blind-ish.

Anyway, I wasn’t playing any more so he came over to where I was sitting and got so close our foreheads were touching. Sad thing is, I let him, and this has happened so many times before…I liked it (before the shindig that is) and so I shrugged it off. Why?! you ask? ‘Cause I’m a hopeful retard. He told me I should come play and have fun with everyone else ’cause it was my party, after all, and he was right, but I refused. He waited a sec then went back to groping Marissa. Well, it wasn’t really groping, but close enough…it was even worse because not only was he flirting with both of us, but he still has a girlfriend, even though he’s been saying he’s gonna dump her. He is, but he hadn’t by the time of the shindig, so the invasion of my personal space that was way too intimate for people no longer dating wasn’t appropriate.

And the whole time my mom wouldn’t leave me alone about it so that sucked…she kept coming outside and whispering to me, “I hope you realize what’s going on,” and all that crap like I couldn’t figure it out for myself.

So my revelation was this: Brenden only has one side; there’s no deep side, no intellectual side, no nothing, except for his one side – and that’s a flirt. He’s a player, and I don’t especially think it’s always intentional, but it’s because that’s what’s always worked for him. He’s really cute so getting close to someone usually probably gets him his way, and it also gets him pretty much any girl he wants, I’m willing to bet. He’s the kind of guy who can switch girls whenever; he could break up with someone then have a new girlfriend or at least another girl after him by the next day, if not the same night. Turns out most of my friends have or have had a crush on him. ‘Cause he’s just…like that. I don’t know.

Anyway, I figured out that that doesn’t do it for me.

I need someone who has a brain and some depth rather than just great kisses and a comforting closeness like him. I think all I really got caught up in was having that someone there.(Especially when that someone was erm…a uh…good kisser… *^_^*)

And so, for that reason, I’m happy he dumped me when he did; I’m happy he freed me earlier then I would have liked at the time. I mean, I still miss him and I’m still getting over him, even with the help of my newest revelation, but still.

I think all we had was a physical attraction, but not in that way, people! Puh-leez. I’m not like that… -.-”

Anyway. That’s that. I’m still uber sad and lonely and wishing I could have another boyfriend there for me right now, but not all wishes come true, immediately at least, so until then I’ll have to be patient.

But hey, the shindig wasn’t all bad! I got to meet EJ’s boyfriend, David, who I had told her she could bring if she wanted. I’m really glad he came ’cause before this I hadn’t really known any more about him then what his face looked like and what his name was. Turns out he and EJ are actually really great for each other! He’s like my group of people: hyper at times, funny, and cool to be around. He fits right in, so congrats, EJ! Also, at least he and EJ are polite! I only think they kissed once the whole time and it wasn’t rude or even when people were around, so it was nice that they had respect. I hope we all get to hang out again soon!

Erin also came and she was awesome! We swung in the hammock and just goofed off being ourselves!

Also, EJ and I have another inside joke! I made everyone a smoothie when they came, and they loved them! It was the magical smoothies that I gave you all the recipie for in a previous post. Everyone got really hyper and we couldn’t stop laughing after awhile, so we all joked that the smoothies had been spiked or something! Now whenever I say “papaya juice!” to EJ she and I crack up! It’s awesome!

So that’s the update!!

~Airolyn

</3 and <3 ….?   

P.S. In the background here at my house I have music playing from an awesome site called Pandora (pandora.com). Look it up! You create a “station” by typing in the name of a song or band you like and the site comes up with a list of songs that are somehow similar to the thing you typed in. They help you explore artists you didn’t know about through music you know you like! It’s really cool and hard to explain, so just check it out!!!

Came across this awesome track on Pandora.com. Check it out.

okay… so i know a lot of poeple know about this station online. but many of you may not. well…. All i have to say is PANDORA ROCKS MY LIFE. it makes my work environment so much better. for all of you that dont know about Pandora you need to go online to:
PANDORA.COM
It will change your life… well kinda.you pick and artist or song.. and it will only play songs that sound like that. how awesome is that? no commercials, listen to only what you want. You can rate the song or artist and if you hate the song, you can select “never play again”. It will learn and understand what you like. wow. They also make an iphone app for it. here is the professional write up:

Create a unique station based on a single artist or band
Save your radio stations to your profile, Share your radio stations with your friends
Pandora is a web radio station based on the Music Genome Project. By analyzing the essence of music and capturing aspects such as melody, harmony, rhythm, arrangement and lyrics among other musical identities, Pandora and the Music Genome Project are able to predict musical interests based on a sample selection.
This is a departure from musical social networks like Last.FM that use people with similar interests to find possible interests in music. Pandora is the perfect destination for anyone who wants to listen to Internet radio catered to their interests and their particular mood at the time. Feeling melancholy? Type in “Pink Floyd” and let Pandora take you on a wistful journey. Have a little pep in your step? Find out what bands Pandora thinks are similar to the Beatles.

This is the way I (no)
This is the way we work it out
It’s not about you
It’s not about me
This is the new beginning
This is the day we,
This is the start of what we said,
We thought was wrong was with,
The way we do things,
Let’s meet…
every chance we get

Take take take take one final look
Make make make make this one to
remember
Take our time we will get there
This house is not our home.

Can we talk about it
Can we see what everybody thinks
I know that,
You know that,
We won’t
always agree
On how to start from
Where we left off with our Resolve
But we must move
Move on now
this is our new beginning

This is the way we wanted it to be…
(With every day)
This is the way we wanted it to be…
(With every breath)
This is the way we wanted it to be..

—————————

I love what O.C. Supertones Radio at Pandora.com introduces me to

Click here to launch my Pandora Jam Band Radio Station!

Continuing my quest to create custom radio stations to improve my guitar chops, I’ve set my sights on the jam bands. Lots of classic and popular stuff here: Grateful Dead, Disco Biscuits, Phish, moe., Mofro, Rusted Root, Lotus, String Cheese Incident and more!

In fact, it’s kind of tricky programming this station as the term “jam band” has a bit of flexibility to it. Not to mention some bands debate being labeled as such. But this station has been tweaked well, lots of extended solos and instrumental jams.

How do you jam with a jam band? Especially since these songs play at random and you only get to hear it once! You might be spending a bit more time listening instead of playing, picking up some ideas for your jams with humans. A couple thoughts…

–Many songs are often built on one chord. I jammed on a Jerry Garcia Band tune earlier that was all based around an E major chord. Granted, he wasn’t just strumming the same chord for several minutes. The scales were E-based (E major/Ionian, E major pentatonic or maybe E Mixolydian), opening up lots of cool riffs that fit the key. Different types of E chords, from bar chords to triads and other chord partials keep things fresh while restricted to one chord.

–Not a lot of I-IV-V progression like you’d find in blues jams, but the progressions that go beyond one chord are still pretty simple, for the most part. Sometimes you can guess what key will work from these chord changes. For example, if the verse is hanging on a Am to Bm progression you could experiment with minor pentatonic scales for either chord or a G major scale, since the key of G contains these two chords (the ii and iii, respectively).

–It’s hard to learn all the chord changes or riffs when they’re going by so fast, so I tend to seek out the broad ideas of the tune, mainly the key or the most obvious chords being used. Maybe I can’t hear the guitarist playing E major, but I can hear the organ playing it, so I know the E arpeggio I goof off with on the high strings will at least contribute supporting noise.

–A lot of jam tunes have cool breaks heading into new sections. Something to spice up your next human jam.

Any other jam bands you can recommend I add to the database? Leave a comment and I’ll plug it in.

Here’s my blog about my Pandora blues station, which has helped me learn lots of riffs from the legends.

“Attar”

-Nick Castro and the Young Elders

This song just gets me to movin’. It ignites the creative spirit and helps you get into the zone. The tribal drums give this tune a natural and primitive sound that evokes the purity of music that comes from the sheer joy of playing an instrument with a group. I especially love the addition of musical lines and instruments as the mantra progresses. Visit pandora.com or itunes for a preview.

-O

GateHouse — With the economy falling to pieces, the country ensnared in two wars, Greenland down to about the size of a decent-size sirloin steak right now, instant replay coming to baseball, asteroids flying through space to kill us all, Sarah Palin getting airtime like she’s some sort of legit political figure, and the national mood sour and black, it’s only reasonable to wonder: “But what of the major record companies, how are they holding up, and is there any way they can maybe spread a little evil this fall while simultaneously chopping holes in their dated, ever-sinking business model with a large, metaphoric battle axe?”

Good question. The four major record companies, who collectively enjoy public approval ratings about as jolly as if you stapled President Bush to that woman who called Obama an Arab at a McCain rally, tied them both to the reunited New Kids on the Block and dropped them into Alfonso Soriano’s house (still not over it), have spent 18 months pushing an increase in royalty rates for online radio stations.

The current rate was set in a decision last year by the Library of Congress’ Copyright Royalty Board — boy, are those people bad at beer pong — and is high enough that Tim Westergren, one of the founders of the popular Web radio site Pandora.com, said his site uses 70 percent of its gross revenue to pay for just that.

An royalty bump would, as such, bankrupt Pandora, which is already laying off employees like they’re a newspaper or something. Millions of the site’s users would be forced to go back to obtaining music online like they did before, which was stealing it wholesale off of LimeWire and BitTorrent and not feeling terribly guilty about any of it.

If you have not availed yourself of the joys of Pandora, please stop reading this column right now, find the nearest computer (if there’s someone in front of it, just shove them out of the way, as this is totally more important), and go to Pandora.com.

There you can create your own “stations” by telling the site which musicians you like already; Pandora, using your recommendations, listening history, bits of your DNA it can sweep up from your keyboard and occlumency, will offer suggestions for other songs you might like. It’s sort of the same idea as iTunes’ new Genius Bar, but it won’t make you spend $20 impulsively while drinking wine at night.

Pandora doesn’t always work – my Bruce Springsteen station once turned up Rick Springfield, which, needless to say, propelled me into a fit of rage in which I threw a flaming Honda Civic into a youth center. But by and large, Pandora will, over the course of an hour, turn you on to about a half-dozen artists or songs you probably didn’t know about before. The site currently boasts about 16 million users; an iPhone app is a smash.

Such a device – sending music fans off to explore new and/or unknown artists – is, of course, an unbearable hell on the record industry. They’d prefer you just listen to the new Britney Spears single, preferably by buying it online for a price that that if it wasn’t for Apple they could get away with, which is $28.99, and then shut up, other than to thank them for their generosity and ask them politely if there’s any way they could speed up the new releases by Nickelback, Kenny Chesney and the droid with the “I Kissed A Girl” song.

(Listen, I know I’m driving right on the music-was-better-in-my-day lane here, but, seriously, that kid needs to try vocalizing more than 2.5 notes. Start with something easy, with G, then branch out from there. The possibilities are just wild.)

Thanks to a quick (and unlikely) deal earlier this month, the Senate approved a bill that gives the record industry and Web broadcasters until Feb. 15 to renegotiate a new rate. The deal gives sites like Pandora and Live365.com a few more months of existence, and allows the record companies some time to sue some more 11-year-olds while they wait.

Yes, yes, stealing is bad; we all went to elementary school. But I’ve yet to hear someone argue how exposing music fans to more music is a bad thing for an industry that sells music — like, for instance, how they do it on terrestrial radio, except with about 90 billion fewer songs. They’ve got a few more months to figure this out, and it could happen, although if you believe in the good-faith, negotiating power of the record industry, I have some Rick Springfield CDs to sell you.

I won’t lie, I’m a huge fan of Pandora and I hope they will win the battle with the record companies so they can continue to provide a great service and run a profitable business.

The real reason for this post is regarding advertising on Pandora. The ads on Pandora are the most effective ads I have been exposed to. The Pandora advertising team is so creative; particularly when it comes to the site skins. Check back now and then to see what new site skins are up on the site. I truly believe their advertising model is going to set the standard for online advertising best practices. Most recently, I noticed the “I’m a PC” campaign on Pandora.com. The way that they tied in the “I’m a PC” slogan with a “mash-up” mix was brilliant. I found myself listening to the mash-up station within seconds. On the down-side and to show that I’m not completely biased, I wasn’t very impressed witht the station they put together so I ended up switching back to my Coldplay station after testing out a few songs. If I were planning a media buy targeting a 18 – 35 demographic, Pandora would definitely be part of the campaign. Comparing the same advertisement seen on television versus Pandora, Pandora’s advertisement was at least 75% more effective on me. I don’t even like Wendy’s, but the Wendy’s Baconator site skin had me craving bacon for weeks. At any rate, way to go Pandora! I like your style.