Fired up the stereo today, hadn’t listened to music for a while, live or recorded, but was in the mood today, stereo and computer were both free.

I’ve got a collection that pretty much spans time as far as what has been recorded, and genres, though popular music, what used to be called “top-40” and rock of various subtypes is the majority, though there is so much music now that blurs the boundaries. The different genres are not so clearly defined anymore and I have a lot of music that fits into the, “I don’t know what the hell you’d call it” genre.

The computer has allowed me to digitize a lot of music I have on vinyl, a lot of it was noisy, ticks, pops, hiss, and then clean it up with software, remove the ticks and pops and hiss, fix a number of other problems. It’s time intensive though because it takes a lot of tweaking for every piece of music, different threshold settings, different EQ, different unique problems in each recording.

Listened to Bob Marley – Simmer Down, Toots and the Maytals – Bam Bam, Cab Calloways – Loose Shoes, Ruth Brown – If I Can’t Sell It, I’ll Keep Sittin’ On It, Deathcab for Cutie – Soul Meets Body, Richard Thompson – Don’t Roll Those Bloodshot Eyes at Me, Belly – Feed The Tree, Madonna – Ray Of Light, 10000 Maniacs – Candy Everybody Wants, Barnaked Ladies – Brian Wilson (Live version), Red Hot Chili Peppers – Under The Bridge, Nerf Herder – Courtney Love, Neil Young with Crazy Horse – Mansion On The Hill, Puffy Ami Yumi – Asia No Junshin, Size 14 – I Touched Her Ass, Courtney Love – Doll Parts, Norman Greenbaum – Spirit In The Sky, Interpol – Evil, Oingo Boingo – We Close Our Eyes, and I’m done for now.

One thing I’m really enjoying about this era is music. Don’t like the conservative right wing wacko politics, the wars, the total lack of concern for the environment, but this is absolutely the best period in my life as far as music goes. I like a lot of older stuff as well, but I think this era has produced some of the most unique and creative music.

I think what has made this such a great era musically is the Internet, and in large part the peer-to-peer networks that the major labels were all telling us would be the death of the music. On the contrary, they’ve allowed truly artistic and talented musicians to gain an audience instead of the tightly controlled formula shit the major labels kick out.

Size 14 is a good example of a group that would have never been heard of, selling CD’s off their website, my favorite song of theirs is “I Touched Her Ass”, and it’s complete shifts in tempo and style in the song and one awesome guitar riff two minutes and forty or so seconds into the song that makes it, it is high energy, it’s BIG guitar if ever there was big guitar.

My absolutely favorite song right now is Death Cab for Cutie’s Soul Meet’s Body, I love that song, everything about it, the lyrical content, the music, the harmonies, the guitar work, it is just goes right to my soul. It’s a great song all around.

Listening to what I think is the best song Oingo Boingo did and totally out of character from the rest of their work, We Close Our Eyes, and having a birthday coming up soon, having my 19 year old daughter left home a month ago, this one really has special meaning to me right now, we close our eyes and the world has turned again.

I’m done listening to music now, that last song, too much emotion I can’t handle any more right now.