All-local iPod

A year ago, I got a new laptop. It was a total surprise - random birthday present - I'm not really one for material gifts, but you're not gonna look a macbook in the mouth, are you?

I never rebuilt my music library. My iPod, therefore, is still synced to the old laptop, where all the old music is.

The old music library has its issues, though. Over the years and transfers from machine to machine, things had been miscategorized or mislabeled. One of my favorite classical albums somehow got each track separated into its own album folder, making it impossible just to shuffle within the album. Plus, there were artists in there that I didn't really want - except for a few songs here and there, I generally skip past Rammstein and Nine Inch Nails. I'm not entirely sure how they got in there, honestly. Oh, and if you ever studied music history in college, you'll sympathize with this one: fractions of songs. I actually love to listen to the stuff I studied in college, but some of the packages contained CD's that split songs into segments of a minute or less. This made it easy to study, but man, if you want to just listen to the piece - good luck. It also means that when I put my iPod on shuffle, I might get just the middle section of the Introit of Mozart's Requiem (beautiful beautiful beautiful). Similiarly, folks who record short demos or song ideas also have such other fragments floating around their libraries.

Okay, so it's got problems. You get the picture.

Well, this presents me with a few options. I could just put up with it. But that's not really in keeping with my character. I could just go through the library and ditch the stuff I don't want, and try to re categorize everything.

OR... I could re-build. It would take time, and it might be a gradual process, but it would ensure a well-organized library.

I got to thinking, though. If I'm a supporter of local music community, shouldn't I put my money where my mouth is? There's plenty of awesome local musicians, most I've met, some I haven't. I have fond memories associated with these people and these albums. Let's rebuild only the local music.

So, that's my current task. And here's what I've got to work with:



Yeah, it's not a ton, but it's a start!

If you care to read on, I'll list what I've got:

Artist - Album

Ba-Durr! - Demo (Newark punk band, I love these guys!)
Battleshy Youths - Grow (YES! Michael and the gang!)
Matt Brown - My Native Home (Great old-time folk musician, has since left for Chicago.)
Tina Colon - Taken Up (Met her at a young adult Christian conference in Mass, she is in NY.)
John (???) - some kind of a demo wrapped up in sheet music. His facebook page seems to be gone :( (johnsounds??)
Mark Engebretson - Where Does Love Go? (my composition prof at UNCG)
John Francis - The Better Angels Project (Saw him at a house show in Wilmington. I helped fund this CD and got a signed copy in the mail when it came out!)
Glad Hearts - The Oak and the Acorn (Actually have no idea where I got it. I think it was gifted to me by someone who thought of me when they saw their show.)
Matthew Halley - Birdsongs (Just met Matt a few months ago and we've had some awesome jam sessions. I'm so happy this album exists.)
Matthew Halley - some rough demos (this will be worth a fortune one day)
The Look Machine - Above this Clouded Mind (They're not together anymore. But I love this album. Shane was the drummer and he was kind enough to let me have a copy. Listen to a track here.)
Em McKeever - Demo (Graciously recorded by Shane Palko)
Em McKeever - Videogame music (written for Jed's videogame! I just put it on a CD so I could drive around and listen to it.)
Erik Mitchell - All These Words (got it at the Christmas show we played at the Queen!)
Shane Palko - Pretty Good Songs Volume VII (The first one.)
Shane Palko - Going Places (The second one. I think I attended the CD release show for this? It would have been very shortly after meeting him.)
Shane Palko - Songs from Pretoria (Shane's currently back in South Africa releasing his CD all over. And doing research. His blog's here.)
Rainy Day Cacophony - Dirty Words (Met at a Palko Basement show. Tim, I think? Cool guy, was glad to make his acquaintance.)
Jess Ray and the Rag Tag Army (Doesn't seem to have a title and I don't know where it came from! Possibly another gift.)
Rachel Schain - Happy Happy (Yeah, lady singer-songwriters!! Rachel is awesome.)
Victory Shoes (no idea??? I think I got it at a show, possibly Palko show.)
Windowview - Pine Island (Picked this up at an inDEpendence networking event, I believe actually the first one, from a bandmother. :)

Compilations:
A Diner Club Christmas (The Paper Janes, Battleshy Youths, Em McKeever and friends)
Christmas on the Block (WSTW/Graffiti Radio)


I actually don't yet have some of my favorite bands, like The Hundred Acre Woods and Bullbuckers, but I'll fix that soon enough!

A Diner Club Christmas! Now available!

This is technically my first album release. ^^ These are 7 of the 11 tracks recorded. Make sure to get a hard copy if you'd like the FULL album! All the proceeds to to charity. ^^



And don't forget about our upcoming show at the Queen!

And there's a possibility I'mma be on the radio Sunday. Stay tuned for deets!

Zeal, and Pre-chickens

There has been a lot of this in my life lately.

It's a terrific thing.


In case you can't tell what "it" is, it's musicing. Musicing with people randomly, awesomely, at odd hours of the day and night. Running around water fountains, instruments in hand, yelling the lyrics to a minutes-old song (aptly named, I think, the "one chord song"). Improvising a song on Main Street in the rain about how we weren't busking. Guitaring on the beach with four friends and ten-foot breakers. Referring a new friend to a store that sells balalaikas.

You know how when you leave a place for a long time, you come back and it feels wrong? The doorknobs aren't at the right height, you can't remember the little tricks to all the sticky locks, the faucets turn the wrong way? This is like the opposite. This is like arriving at a place where all the little things actually feel familiar, even though you've never lived there before.

Honestly, there is so much freedom in my life right now, and if somebody saw me running around in the rain singing Puff the Magic Dragon in vocal harmony with my friends, they would seriously doubt my sanity, they would say something disparaging about how kids these days should get a job and become contributing members of society. And, you know what? I wouldn't care. Because I am contributing, just not in one person's narrow mindview. I'm really happy just being crazy. If this is the only life I ever live, I hope I've done it well and much to the consternation of narrow-minded people.

Lately I have been doing a lot of networking, though, and some playing out (most recently, the Queen's open mic). Things are happening, things have been scheduled, mulled over, talked about, collaborated and elaborated upon.

However, I do not count my chickens before they hatch. Ideas are not actual things. So expect updates when the actual things happen, but feel free to ask me in person about ideas, if you want to get your head talked off.

There's a lot of excitement. A lot of potential and energy (potential energy!!) and I hope the momentum doesn't get lost, I hope crazy new things start happening, I hope I will have the courage to take some steps and leaps and bounds when they start manifesting in real life.

Basking in some local music...

TA-DAAAAAAAA~!

Camps are over. I prayed hard and I worked hard and it turned out beautifully. We had a pizza party on Friday, and there's a few of us who'll go in and deep-clean this week... but it's pretty much... done.

The monsoon cancelled our weekend programs, so I just got to sit around the house. It was a good thing... I was in a little physical pain and a little spiritual pain, neither of which I'd like to go into detail about on this here blog. Most of my weekend, therefore, was NOT dedicated to cleaning (so the house still looks like it's the last week of camp), but rather to sitting in my favorite recliner and busting out some Final Fantasy III.

Anyway, it was a good weekend, full of music and people. I had the chance to see a couple different shows... Bullbuckers played at Home Grown in Newark on Saturday night. Facebook informed me of it about 8 hours prior. I have my ups and my downs with social media, but that was a definite UP!

Bullbuckers is a local ska band - I saw them open for the Toasters here in Delaware a month or two ago. (Another one Facebook told me about.) I lost my favored FAWM hoodie there, but the bands did such a good job keepin' everyone skankin' all night that frankly, I just didn't care. Bullbuckers are a seven- or eight-piece band, and they rocked at Mojo 13 that night. I couldn't believe they were a local band - with a sound that polished, they had to be touring from somewhere. Anyway, I'm glad I had the chance to see them at a bonafide ska show surrounded by that ska energy... they did a great job at Home Grown, don't get me wrong, it just wasn't a ska show. ^^

I go out by myself with moderate frequency. This was the case all this weekend. It's not like I have no one to ask, but I just like adventures sometimes. Going out with people is a very safe thing. Safety is the hazard.

But the cool bit was running into some old friends from high school who are also ska aficionados. Sitting at the bar alone would have been just fine, but it's great to be at a show with fellow appreciators who will yell and clap in appreciation when the saxophone player mutes the low note with his knee, leaving himself to stand on one foot while blaring the sax.

Sunday, I went to a house show here in Newark, DE. This is a relatively new venue. The family just loves local music and having folks over and I'm not sure if this was the case, but it seems very much like the house was designed just for those two things. Runa is an awesome contemporary Celtic band. One of their members is genuinely Irish... :) His wife is American but she did a great job singing in Gaelic on many songs. They are just an incredibly enchanting and mesmerizing group. It was wonderful to see them in such an intimate setting - there were about 12 or 14 audience members, so I got to meet a lot of new folks and I got to chat with a good number of the band members. I had thought the guitarist was classically trained (got excited when he had to pause mid-set to file a broken nail), but it turns out he has just busked a lot. ^^ I have to admit a bit of guitar envy because his guitar sounded positively magical. He played a steel string like it was a classical. I have yet to figure out how one does that without destroying the nails. :( Shannon, the singer, told me a good deal of her story, how she was working and trying to make ends meet that way (in the "normal" way that so many people know), and that her husband (the guitarist) encouraged her to quit her job and see if they could make the band work. She commented that it's been three years and it seems like most small businesses need those three years to actually start taking off. They're now playing tons of festivals and it's really easy to see why... they are just a fabulous Celtic band and they have definitely come into their own.

And let me not forget to mention - the awesome drum battle! Bodhran versus the drum kit. (Well, it wasn't really a kit, but it was the best acoustic percussion setup I have ever seen, played by a great percussionist from Canada.) (Did I mention that the fiddle player was from Japan? None of them was from the same country. :)

Apart from being a tad jealous ;) it was a great weekend for music. Now that the summer's more or less over, it's time to burn more demos, cut more business cards, and renew myself musically.

And clean the house.