Tune In Thursday

As previously mentioned, there is a serious dearth of good music in this area... one count against moving to rural Idaho. Although Keith was able to help me find a local station that carries NPR programming. (On our trip to Lewiston a few weeks ago, my mom asks, "What's NPR?" Oy vey. Not that NPR is the end-all-be-all, but for cryin'out loud. This is what rural radio does to people.)

Also, the live music scene here is non-existent outside of Karaoke Night at the Branding Iron Saloon and I am just not ready to go there. (Except for during BBQ Days, of course, when there are no rules--much like 'Nam.)

So, (hopefully) understandably, I have some serious anxiety about not having access to my digital music stash in case of End Times/SHTF/TEOTWAWKI/extended power outage. I mean, music is pretty important to me. But I would rather go without (or hum in my head) than listen to what's available over the local airwaves here: Christian talk/news/music or Top 40 Country.

Therefore, I have been downloading like crazy--- and periodically saving to the hard drive--- songs that only the internet has, around here I mean.

[So, before we get started with all the musical goodness, I just want to say that if you use Firefox there is an Add-on that will help you when you browse pages with embedded mp3s: Foxy Tunes. Once you download it and restart Firefox you will get a pop-up thingy on the side of any page you go to that has music embedded and also a toolbar at the bottom of all internet windows that will allow you to skip to the next song, pause, all that. So you don't have to worry about finding the exact window that's playing the song... Anyway, handy.]

One of my favorite sites for music 'splorin' is the aggregator The Hype Machine. It gathers songs posted on blogs all over the internet and you can search by song, artist, or keyword or listen to what's popular on the whole site or what's popular in certain geographic areas. Sometimes the songs/links are expired, so the library is always changing, but such is life/the internets. And I have my banner over there on the right, which shows my favorite songs of the moment that I find on The Hype Machine. And not that I condone doing so, but if you go to the site and click on Read Full Post you can usually download the song you're playing for free. Ahem. Like I said, not something I condone, but I've heard it's possible.

Neat Music Blogs, But What Do I Know?
The Rising Storm --lost gems in the genres of garage, country rock, psych folk, psychedelic rock, and other overlooked classics
Soul Sides--"something you can feel"
Funky 16 Corners--focus on funk and soul vinyl
LaGrange --good country-ish/rock podcasts from a guy in the UK? or with a Brit accent at least
Deep Soul Heaven
The Leather Canary
The Thrill Factory>--internet peep DJMark runs this site and it's very good
Lonesome Music>--"Keeping you melancholy all day"
Coverville

And I've also made a new Muxtape. The last one was for 4th of July and you can only have one at a time, so I deleted and started over. There's no theme this time, just songs I enjoy over and over again.

Click here to listen
(open in a new tab or window)

Playlist is as follows:
♥ Lightspeed Champion-Dry Lips (I would have NEVER guessed this guy looked like this.)
♥ Bikini-1234 (Okay this is a Feist cover by a Hungarian rock band? Hmmm...maybe? Related: Feist singing this as a counting song on Sesame Street on YouTube--it's AWESOME. "Chickens just back from the shore" are the best part!!)
♥ Wakey! Wakey!- Apology Song (This song cracks me up because it mentions a ton of Missoula landmarks. It was written by Colin Meloy of The Decemberists, he's from MT.)
♥ The Dresden Dolls-Mandy Goes to Med School (Another absolutely impressive song, lyrics-wise. Pay careful attention! "the lights are staying out but no sweat I've got aim like a mack truck/guess how many fingers ok guess how many more i can fit there")
♥ Nick Cave-Cannibal's Hymn (Who doesn't love this guy?? With lyrics like this, you MUST. And that voice...ah.)
♥ The Pretty Things-The Good Mr. Square (an older UK band, this one really reminds me of Portland for various secret reasons)
♥ Manu Chao-Bongo Bongo (I dare you to listen to this song and not want to dance. We were introduced to Manu Chao by Ted Lowe [brother of the late Alex Lowe, world's best climber] back in Missoula and his music remains in our regular rotation.)
♥ Louis Armstrong/Radiohead mashup-What a Wonderful Surprise (It's so natural when you hear it...trust me.)
♥ Bon Iver-Skinny Love (As much as I try not to like this song, I just love it--a lot.)
♥ Ben Sollee-A Change Is Gonna Come (classic Sam Cooke cover, very well done)
♥ Black Rebel Motorcycle Club-Shuffle Your Feet (Not the sound I was AT ALL expecting from a band with this name, but I think I'm onto something with these guys.)
♥ Warren Zevon-Carmelita (Ah, Warren. RIP. Very few people can make heroin addiction sound this romantic. We worship at the Altar of Warren, here at Casa Blankenship. The love was handed down to Keith by his dad and I adopted Warren soon after I met Keith. This is a Dutch bootleg recording and Jackson Browne is playing the piano and singing backup vocals.)

Enjoy!!