Everclear

Everclear Online (<– clickity-click)

I’m not really sure when, where or why I discovered Everclear. I was probably in my late 20′s I suppose, but something caught my attention. I believe it may have been around the time their album Songs from an American Movie Vol. 1: Learning How to Smile was released, so that would have been around 2000. That would have put me at 24, actually! The song A.M. Radio was in constant rotation on the radio, and because of that one the d-jays were also throwing up songs like So Much for the Afterglow and Everything to Everyone. Well, to make a long story short, I fell in love with their music. It lit a spark in my brain, travelled down a nerve and that was it. Sadly, as with my reading, I had a period where I fell out of the music scene. Hardly listened to anything but talk radio and a few podcasts for several years. Recently, though, I’ve started digging out those old cd’s.

I’m not a one trick-pony, though — or in this case, a one genre listener. I know folks that only listen to one type of music – be it country, rock, pop, grunge, rap, metal. But I like to sample all the flavors at the dessert bar. I suppose if I had to pick a genre of music, I’d lean more toward either country or pop, but that’s fairly recently. Some of my favorite artists include: Dave Matthews Band, Alan Jackson, Brad Paisley, Meat Loaf, Linkin Park. You may get the idea. And yes, I did just type Meat Loaf in that little list!

One thing I have come to enjoy, when it comes to my music choices, is some of these “struggling” or up and coming Youtube musicians. There are some really, really good folks out there. A couple right off the top of my head are the duo groups of A Band of Ninjas (who do an awesome rendition of Ice, Ice Baby) and Michael Henry & Justin Robinett. Highly recommend checking both of those out. There is also Tyler Ward, but he’s leaving behind his roots, it seems and doing more professional music videos and singing with other guest artists. It kind of diminishes the appeal I had for his music – but that’s just me. He is still a very talented young man. Of the three, I’ve actually bought a couple of Michael and Justin’s cd’s from iTunes, and I’ve picked up a couple of individual songs from Tyler Ward. Good music, folks.

And now, if you will excuse me, I believe I need to get in my reading for the day. I’m not cheating on my music, though. I’ve been sitting here listening to some tunes while writing this. Have a good night!

I Am So, So, So, So Very Sorry. Forgive Me

I was running errands the other day, and on the way home a song came on the radio. I’d never heard it before, but it was fun, catchy and upbeat – the kind of things I look for in a lot of songs I enjoy. At first, I placed it as possibly Hot Chelle Ray, but now I see I owe that band an apology. The song I heard is in the video I am posting below. I’m sorry, internet, I truly am. Forgive me for listening to this and liking it.

Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young: Sexy & I Know It

http://www.nbc.com/assets/video/widget/widget.html?vid=1388766

From Late Night w/ Jimmy Fallon, Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young present their version of Sexy & I Know It.

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle … :)

Is iTunes Match Worth Your Money?

Is iTunes Match Worth Your Money?.

Above is an article from MacLife.com concerning Apple’s iCloud music storage option. I’m thinking about trying it out, though the article doesn’t really sway me to one side or the other, it does give a nice rundown of how the service works.

A blurb:

Apple’s latest service puts all of your tunes in the iCloud, for a fee. Is it a must-have for music fans, and is it worth the $24.99-a-year asking price?

David Jones (1945-2012)

I am a huge fan of the wonderful music put out by The Monkees back in their day. I’ve also enjoyed seeing their various appearances through out the years on television shows, talk shows, the occasional reunion and so on. Very sad to hear yesterday that Davey Jones had passed away from a heart attack.

Thanks for the great music, the fun television series and years of entertainment, sir.

Related articles

• Mourning a Monkee (fernrocks.wordpress.com)
• The Monkees singer Davy Jones dies at 66 (ctv.ca)
• Monkees Lead Singer Davy Jones Dies Of Heart Attack (newyork.cbslocal.com)
• The Monkees’ Jones dies (cnn.com)
• Monkees’ singer Davy Jones dies of heart attack (thestar.com)

Building My Spotify Christmas Tunes Playlist

Before continuing with this post, let me say that if you do not know what Spotify is, please go here: What is Spotify?

Put simply, Spotify is a free music service with premium offers as well for those that want to pay for some pretty cool features. If you want to put up with some audio and banner ads from inside the software, you are allowed to listen to a huge library of music from nearly every artists you can imagine. You can create playlists, star your favorites for easy access later, share what you are listening with on popular social media sites, add your media to theirs as searchable content, and it will even sync songs to your iOS device! This last part will only sync your own music unless you pay for Spotify premium, which will allow you to sync songs from their library as well. And the selection is pretty recent, the Michael Jackson Millennium Collection, for example or Justin Bieber’s Christmas cd is already up there, and you can listen to the entire cd for free.

Spotify and its large library of songs has allowed me to construct my own Christmas Playlist this year (without having to buy it all!) There are ads between every other song, but they’re only a few seconds long. Now, all this just to share with you my small but growing Christmas Tunes playlist via Spotify. The reason I’m sharing it this year is because I’m really digging the Christmas music on the radio this year. Everyone else around me seems to be in a bah humbug mood as far as radio stations playing 24-7 holiday tunes this year, but I’m loving it.

Regardless of everyone else being down in the dumps, the following songs are some of my favorites.

• Christmas Canon Rock – Trans-Siberian Orchestra
• Sleigh  Ride – She & Him
• It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas – Michael Buble’
• Last Christmas – Wham!
• The Entire MercyMe “The Christmas Sessions” cd

1. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
2. Gloria
3. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
4. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
5. Christmas Time is Here
6. Silent Night
7. Away
8. Little Drummer Boy
9. I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
10. O’ Holy Night
11. Joseph’s Lullaby

• Angels We Have Heard on High – Third Day
• A Mad Russian’s Christmas – Insturmental – Trans-Siberian Orchestra
• I’ll Be Home for Christmas – Josh Groban
• Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town – Bruce Springsteen
• Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! – Frank Sinatra
• Little Saint Nick – The Beach Boys

 

There’s An App For That

Starting this topic, I honestly do not know why it hasn’t crossed my mind before. Apps are an every day part of life for so many people that I couldn’t imagine not having access to them. Quick and convenient solutions right in the palm of our hands.

With apps (short for applications) we have on us at all times instant weather reports, movies, television, games, task schedulers, medical information and diagnosis, social media networks, news, stocks, city guides — you name me anything and we can find an app for it.

I suppose apps are like anything else, though. What a person uses will be based on their individual tastes. Some might prefer to pay a little extra to get a better app or one with more features. I can understand, I’ve bought a couple myself. But mostly I go with the free stuff. That being said, what apps do you use everyday?

My list includes:
Facebook
Echofone ( a Twitter client)
Nook (mobile ebook reader)
GetGlue (social media check-ins)
Redbox
Netflix
FeeddlerRSS (rss subscriptions)
Wordpress
Goodreads (printed media social app)
Tiny Tower

Not a huge list compared to most, but they get daily use on my iPhone. What do you use? More business oriented apps, entertainment apps? No matter your interest, there is something for everyone.

Tick Tock Goes the Clock

A parody cover of Ke$ha’s “Tic-Toc” song, except it’s set to the 6th season events of Dr. Who. I give the guy points for trying, but sadly he’s no worse than Ke$ha herself.

Rollin’ With Mad Deeps (Parody of Adele’s Rollin’ in the Deep)

A World of Warcraft in-game music video set to Adele’s Rolling in the Deep.  Very nicely done.

 

New Headphones!

My old Sony headphones died a couple of months ago, and I was very sad.  They were perfect for traveling around in your pocket or lunch bag.  They were an odd pair I’d stumbled across by accident at Circuit City several years ago.  Round silver clip-on style, the kind that go over your ear, not the annoying buds that slip inside your ear.  What made them perfect was that they had retractable cords!  Each earbud had a notch on it, and if you pushed the left button, it would retract to sit beside the right bud, then you thumb the notch on the right earbud and it would retract the cord that plugged into your mp3 player/music device.  Awesome!  They were $49 at that time and I’ve never found another pair like them since.

Today I picked up the Skullcandy Lowrider SC Black headphones.  So far, they are very nice.  Good sound.  They fit comfortably over the ears and do fold up for portability, but nothing like what I’ve been use to.  Picked these up at Target for $32.  Exact same pair, same specs, but in a blue color right next to mine, $45.  I checked out both packages and saw no difference, so I’m assuming black is just not a popular color here :)