What are you listening to?

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Never heard of this group before, but they do a pretty solid Blind Willie McTell cover here.

 
I've seen this guy many times. First time was at a house party behind a funeral home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with an audience of about 15 people. More recently, I've seen him play sold-out Chicago venues. Dude made a name for himself.

I enjoy how in this video, initially there's a lot of chatter in the crowd, but by midway through the song, everyone has decided to just shut up & listen.

 
He does write songs on topics other than death & dying, btw. These are just the ones that are speaking to me tonight.

 
Speaking of The Magnetic Fields, this is one of my favorite of their tunes:

 
I didn't realize Wm. E. Whitmore had any official music videos. Love this tune, though.

 
And see below for something completely different. Honestly, I strongly preferred Kiss it Goodbye's precursor band, Deadguy, but Kiss it Goodbye had 50% of the same personal and the same rad graphic design, and "oh well, we're burn that bridge when we get to it" was something I had frequently written in my journals of that era before the song came out, lol.

 
I was waiting for the solo and... wow! He looked like a machine!
 
Here's one in the grand American tradition of moonshiner songs :grin:, "South Lee County Brew."

Some folks say the jar's half empty
Some folks say it's half full
Some folks like me don't give a damn
As long as I get another pull


 



Murdoc, I'm shocked! Starting a cult based aorund yourself is a new low, even for you! Why, I can't even...

...ah hell, I can't continue with a straight face. Honestly, the only shocking bit in retrospect is that you didn't try this shit sooner.
 
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[Evolution of Rock Music]

I took a class in the history of rock music in college, and actually got to have it count as a history credit. I had a very heavy class load that semester (and during the two bracketing semesters), and needed something that wouldn't take quite as much studying as the other ones. I already listened to a lot of "classic rock," so I figured that it would just be filling in the gaps for me. The class was a mix of the professor talking about the subject and playing sound clips from songs, going back to the early blues era. The tests included listening to clips and identifying the songs and artists, and the study materials in the library were tapes (this was the 80s) of music clips. It was actually really well done, and very interesting, and almost functioned as more of a history of 20th century popular music. It probably would have more appropriately fallen under a "music appreciation" credit of some sort, but it remains one of my favorite classes of all time.
 
Get a decent microphone if you're going to do that. Mrs Nobby-W Nobby-W runs a business with a significant social media presence in Indonesia, and looked into doing a podcast at one point, so we did a bit of homework on the matter.

One term you will hear is 'XLR' microphones, which is an analogue standard where the plug design has rubber dampeners that stop vibration being conducted into the mike. These will also need a digitiser box (typically between £50-£200) to plug into the computer. XLR mikes are not strictly necessary but will avoid some types of environmental degradations to sound quality. The Shure SM7B is well regarded and popular in Youtube circles, although at about £300 or so it's not cheap.

Otherwise, a bit of google-fu should turn up suitable mikes. A reasonably decent USB mike should start about £100 or so. I got one called a Blue Snowball for teleconferencing, which the manufacturer also pitches for podcasting. That's probably about the bottom end.

One of the free audio editors is probably fine.

T The Butcher - Apropos of such things, I found out a couple of little factoids:

The Snowball's older brother, the Blue Yeti, gets a fair amount of hate in YT circles, although there are videos showing how to use it correctly (talk into the front of the microphone, not the end). It's apparently also considered that it uses components that are a bit cheap and nasty.

For an XLR mike interface for a PC, I've seen a few folks recommend a gadget called a Focusrite Scarlet in my YT browsing. One can browse around for a suitable XLR microphone. Generally folks recommend dynamic microphones over condenser types.

A lot of Indonesian content creators use a Chinese brand called Saramonic. Mrs Nobby-W has a bit of social media presence in Indonesia and we just got a Saramonic lavalier (clips to your shirt) microphone set for her - a Blink 500 UC set consisting of two wireless lavalier mikes and a receiver that plugs into a phone via a USB-C port. This was a little over £200 in the UK and is a bit cheaper in Indonesia. There's also a Thunderbolt receiver available that works with iPhones and an analogue receiver that you can plug into normal audio kit.

It arrived a couple of days ago, and I tested the sound quality, which was actually quite good. Saramonic kit is a bit cheaper than the Western brands like Shure, and it seems to be of reasonably good quality. You can also get it via channels like Amazon. For your poetry, you probably still want to get a studio mike rather than a lavalier, but they do all that sort of kit as well.
 
T The Butcher - Apropos of such things, I found out a couple of little factoids:

The Snowball's older brother, the Blue Yeti, gets a fair amount of hate in YT circles, although there are videos showing how to use it correctly (talk into the front of the microphone, not the end). It's apparently also considered that it uses components that are a bit cheap and nasty.

For an XLR mike interface for a PC, I've seen a few folks recommend a gadget called a Focusrite Scarlet in my YT browsing. One can browse around for a suitable XLR microphone. Generally folks recommend dynamic microphones over condenser types.

A lot of Indonesian content creators use a Chinese brand called Saramonic. Mrs Nobby-W has a bit of social media presence in Indonesia and we just got a Saramonic lavalier (clips to your shirt) microphone set for her - a Blink 500 UC set consisting of two wireless lavalier mikes and a receiver that plugs into a phone via a USB-C port. This was a little over £200 in the UK and is a bit cheaper in Indonesia. There's also a Thunderbolt receiver available that works with iPhones and an analogue receiver that you can plug into normal audio kit.

It arrived a couple of days ago, and I tested the sound quality, which was actually quite good. Saramonic kit is a bit cheaper than the Western brands like Shure, and it seems to be of reasonably good quality. You can also get it via channels like Amazon. For your poetry, you probably still want to get a studio mike rather than a lavalier, but they do all that sort of kit as well.
Thanks for the advice, man.

Costs put the kibosh on that plan for now.

I’ve recorded a few on my phone for practice, and yeah, I’ll definitely need a decent mic!
 
Algorithms found me a new artist.

Jennifer Thomas - The Fire Within
which I like better than the more famous/ more often broadcasted Illuminations which is on this playlisting

 
And see below for something completely different. Honestly, I strongly preferred Kiss it Goodbye's precursor band, Deadguy, but Kiss it Goodbye had 50% of the same personal and the same rad graphic design, and "oh well, we're burn that bridge when we get to it" was something I had frequently written in my journals of that era before the song came out, lol.



Screamin' with the Deadguy Quintet is a forgotten classic.
 
I'm partial to Fixation on a Co-Worker, myself, but Screamin' is also a lot of fun.
 
Japan's most notable Jazz Fusion Band





An entire video explaining why you love them if you are a videogamer
 
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I've been listening to Prince albums.
All of them, on Spotify, in chronological order.

Not sure what the trigger was - I think it may have been a rabbit hole I followed after listening to Childish Gambino's 'Awaken, My Love' album for a few days.

Surprisingly strong start with the early Prince albums.
I only got into him as a teen after Purpe Rain, and kinda followed him sporadically until he temporarily changed his name to the lovesymbol thingy and pretty much dropped out of reality for a bit.

Really enjoying going back and listening to all the albums as they came out, and hearing why he has such a rep.

When Prince was good, Prince was really good, I love that funk.
When Prince was bad, well yeah...late 1990s to mid 2010s...yeah

But then some strong material mid 2010s up until his death in late 2010s, pity I overlooked those last final albums at the time, it's still very current in flavour

But that's what's on rotation on my Spotify account at present
 
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I've been listening to Prince albums. All of them, on Spotify, in chronological order.
Not sure what the trigger was, I think it may have been a rabbit hole I followed after listening to Childish Gambino's 'Awaken, My Love' album for a few days.
Anyway, when Prince was good, he was good. Surprisingly strong start with the early albums.
When he was bad, well yeah...late 1990s to mid 2010s...yeah
But strong material mid 2010s up until his death in late 2010s, pity I overlooked it at the time
But that's what's on rotation on my Spotify account at present

Dirty Mind is my favourite.
 
Dirty Mind is my favourite.
I actually prefer the first two albums before Dirty Mind, but that third album is very good, and very Prince - the funk, the liberal hyper-sexuality, the lyrics would still be controversial if Dirty Mind was produced today, perhaps more so.
 
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When Prince was bad, well yeah...late 1990s to mid 2010s...yeah
The thing about it is that was his experimental phase. I actually liked a lot then- one of my favorites of his Musicology which was in that period.



The bit around when Musicology came out was all about real music with real musicians and there's some seriously funky stuff in that era.
 
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