Becca's Blog

One does not live by knitting podcasts alone.

Here's a smattering of the podcasts I've been stuffing my MP3 player with:

KUT's Radio Without Borders
The Unbearables and Shotgun Party are a couple of bands that I wanted to check out after hearing them on this podcast. Emphasizes Austin-based bands, but not exclusively. Most tracks are from live sessions at the radio station.

KEXP's Music that Matters
I'm almost cool enough for this Seattle station's indie rock podcast.

All Songs Considered
The host is one of those music dork blowhards with typical boomer chauvinism for the good old days, but the guest DJ episodes are way cool. The latest episode, with T-Bone Burnett, is awesome. I'm now going to download every song he played (except Bob Dylan, gah), and probably then hustle to the record store for that Alison Krauss/Robert Plant album. Pounding Sand, was it? ;-]

KCRW's Good Food
I've been an Evan Kleiman fan since the '80s, but I never knew what a media star she was until I discovered this show. Listening to this podcast about food trends, cooking, and LA restaurants keeps me from dwelling on the Sisyphean nature of housecleaning and yard work as I'm doing them--so it's really a form of suicide prevention. Heaven help me, I even like the farmer's market report.

These are all public radio shows--KCRW.com has a bunch of other great ones, too--and I also listen to Fresh Air and This American Life as podcasts. (Suzie, I'm going to write a check to KQED before the weekend is over.)

Wooty woot woot.

On tap for next month:
REM concert on June 1.
True Colors Tour on June 29.

That eats up most of my "economic stimulus rebate," but it is money damn well spent. A good antidote to the persistent low-level sadness about Orange Boy's and Josie's failing health, and good incentive to keep the chin up during this month's deadline insanity.

An embarrassing confession.

For the past week or so I've been listening to our Christmas albums--the highbrow ones, and the ones that remind me of childhood, and the retro-chic ones (I'm a little tired of the Christmas lounge music, though). But my all-time favorite Christmas album is Christmas Time with the Judds, from 1987. Produced by Mike Curb. My cassette tape is so old that their voices sound extra-quavery. Maybe I should look for a CD...

High on my to-do list for the day:

1. Head over to Down Home Music before they close at the absurdly early hour of 6:00 and buy Chuck Prophet's new album, Soap and Water.
2. Figure out whether Annie Lennox's new album is worth dropping $15 or more on.
3. Wonder whether I'd love KT Tunstall's albums or be annoyed by them.
4. Buy the new Bruce Springsteen album for Jane.
5. Find a way to unload the Drive-by Truckers album I wasted $15 on a couple of weeks ago. (Pipe up if you want it!)
6. Consider doing the same with the CD by novelty-act Lily Allen.
7. Write on my arm in indelible ink: Do not buy CDs on impulse.

Useless trivia...

learned while dinking around on lala.com. Some band somewhere titled an album "RTFM." Snerk.

More on Lala.com

Wired has an interesting story with more on lala.com. Apparently the plan is to make it even more like going to the used record store, with the participation of actual used record stores.

I've received a couple of CDs from my list so far, but I'm still waiting for the envelopes to send some out, and this morning the site was a bit slow. I wonder if they're going to have some of the problems that come with success. I also wonder if its user base is going to be people of a specific generation -- those of us who never really got, or got comfortable with, Napster and the like and who still want a CD to stick on the shelf, carry to the car, etc. Semi-Luddites of a certain age, in other words.

Like going to the used record store

... except you get less exercise. I just signed up for Lala.com, and people are going to send me their CDs that they don't want (but I do), and as soon as I get the Netflix-style envelopes, I'll send some other people CDs that I don't want (but they do). You get billed $1.49 for every CD you receive, but still. Decluttering your own shelves and paying a pittance for music you want? Sounds pretty promising to me. So I've been ripping the good  song or three off many albums and then listing them. And it's fun to poke around other people's lists and see what they have and what they want.

Want to see what I'm trying to unload and what I'm trying to scrounge? Look here.

'Scuse me while I have a fogey moment.

Sugar Ray has covered  "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" Aiieee.

Oh, and check out Pandora, part of the Music Genome Project, and after you've created your perfect radio station, be sure to click on the "Why did you play this song?" links. See your favorite artists and songs boiled down to uniform taxonomic traits.