Shawn

Plenty of time to catch up on Fringe, it's on hiatus for the next 4 weeks. ugh. I HATE the way TV shows are scheduled.

I think Fringe took awhile to get going this season, but since the holiday break I think it's caught it's stride. I haven't seen tonight's episode yet, but I've really enjoyed the past several weeks. I'll be sorry to see it go. Alcatraz is "ok", I haven't given up on it completely and don't think it's nearly as bad as some people think, it's just "average" which is disappointing considering the talent involved.

Apple doesn't make that high of a percentage on track sold via the iTunes Store. The label gets a bigger cut of .mp3/acc sales. Apple makes very little from per sale tracks, but they don't care because the real profit is in the sale of iPods, the store was just a necessity to get people purchasing the players.

When I was listening to CDs only I would often program the tracks, skip certain tracks, change the song order of the album to my liking, etc. I even used to do this with a 5-CD changer, spend 10 minutes looking at the backs of the CDs to figure out which tracks from the 5 discs I wanted to hear and in what order. Fast forward to right now and using the computer as the main stereo component, where I can choose from hundreds of albums to select tracks for a playlist. Or create smart playlists using certain criteria (record label, year range, genre, etc). Easily disassembling box sets into whatever configuration I want... Or just being able to instantly access the album I want to hear without having to search through a huge CD rack to find it. After living this way for a couple years I've lost any nostalgia I once had for shoving a physical platter into a machine.

The older I get the more I'm finding this to be a recommendation for me.

Robert Heinlein - Expanded Universe

Spotify has become the primary way I explore new music, because I refuse to make blind purchases any longer, I want to hear the entire album prior to plopping down money for it. What I've discovered is there is a rather small percentage of things I feel I "NEED" to own, if there's a particular album that I know would only get played once every couple years then that's not really a good enough reason for me to buy it. These days I don't purchase much music (no disposable income), but when I do it's generally for a deluxe edition that comes with a bonus DVD or other material that would be inaccessible without having the physical disc.

Welcome back!

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Until the online music stores provide lossless files for purchase CDs will remain a necessity (for me anyway). Now I don't play them after I buy them, they get ripped into the computer, the liner notes get read once, then they go into a box in the closet.

Yep, it's Alice.

hint: There is a Zappa connection.

Happy Birthday!!!

Revisited this one last night, a fantastic movie, one of the best Sci-Fi films in recent years. The cinematography is amazing, especially considering all the really long takes and most of it being handheld camera.

There are plenty of older bands that still put out great music, there's just no place to hear any of it. Classic rock stations won't play ANYTHING current by these artists, if it didn't come out prior to 1985 it ain't getting played...and new rock stations won't play it because it's a legacy artist. It's a catch-22 of stupidity.

"Rock" is way too broad a brush anymore, the style has evolved in so many different directions that term has become meaningless (just like the term Jazz). The article also doesn't take into account countries outside the U.S. where the various rock styles are more popular than here. Satire or not it's a poor article. There's plenty of good music being made, it's just not getting released in the mainstream channels. That's fine with me, music from the underground is almost always superior.

That article is a load of crap. I listen to "music where people play actual instruments", that's the only genre classification that interests me.

Any thoughts on Don Cheadle's new show "House Of Lies"?

I stopped watching the Grammy awards around 1990, never felt the desire to revisit. Horrid production numbers, talentless pop stars and ill-advised collaborations are not my cup of tea.

Thanks for posting that!

A real shame, she had an incredible voice.

Yeah, I really like 30 Rock. My favorite comedy series of the past 20 years is "That 70's Show" which I never watched while it was on, but caught up with via Netflix, one of the most consistently funny shows. I didn't watch any television from about 1995 until 2008, then Jazzbo got me hooked on Lost and I started exploring TV again. It's been fun catching up with series that came out during that time frame.

Here's another club I hear about quite frequently (though I haven't been there yet). The Blue Whale in Little Tokyo. http://bluewhalemusic.com/

I'm so new to the area that I could use some recommendations as well....