Thursday, October 06, 2005

 

Top 100

I just updated the Top 100 most played songs on my iTunes Mp3 player in the sidebar. If I haven't done so before, let me express my happiness with this Macintosh product. iTunes is simply great. I was recently quoted in The Rapid City Journal about my love of this product. Ever since I encoded my entire CD collection listening to music from my computer has been great. iTunes has changed the way I listen to music, since everything is displayed right in front of me, it's nearly effortless for me to pick what I want to play.

First of all you can simply play, pick a song and play it. Then you can make playlists. I tend to make my playlists by aritist. If I'm in the mood to listen to Abby SomeOne or Ben Folds for a couple of hours, iTunes makes it really easy to do that. A "Party Shuffle" feature was added to one of the last updates. At first I thought it was a pointless feature, I already have playlists made, but playlists will play everything in that playlist before repeating. "Party Shuffle" plays songs completely at random from a selected list. Additionally, since you can rate each track from one to five stars, you can tell "Party Shuffle" to play higher rated songs more often from any selected playlist. Pretty cool if you ask me, so much better than grabbing a CD and listening to it then changing to another CD.

I realized that some people might not know some of the artists listed in my Top 100. My tastes aren't that far out there, but some of my favorite stuff are by bands that a lot of people haven't heard of. So here's all of the artists in my Top 100 by number of apearences in the Top 100 and a little bit about that act and why I like them:

Ben Folds - Ben Folds Five 20 appearances - I absolutely love Ben Folds. I think he's the smartest songwriter out there today. I was a big fan of Ben Folds Five, and was sorry to hear when they broke up. Ben's first solo album, Rockin' the Suburbs was absolutely amazing though, and the follow up live CD, Ben Folds Live is one of my favorite live albums.

Mojo Nixon - Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper - Mojo Nixon & Jello Biafra 15 appearances - My roomie in California was a Mojoholic. I really liked Mojo when I did college radio, but figured nobody else knew who he was. Derek did, and when we found out Mojo was playing a street fair in San Diego, we drove down for the show. When Mojo asked for requests, I shouted out "Stuffin' Martha's Muffin!" Mojo played it but forgot how it went. A true showman, Mojo recovered nicely. I'll always remember this because one of the recordings of that song in the Top 100 is that performance. TSA and I perform 2 Mojo songs, Are You Drinkin' With Me Jesus and Vibrator Dependant. Both seem to go over really well.

Abby SomeOne 11 appearances - I had heard of ASO but never seen them when I moved back to the RC. I stopped into the Cheers open mic one night, Shawn Bitz was the host. The first night I was there, Shawn and Gary played Fall Down in Love a song they hadn't recorded yet. I thought it was a fabulous song. It had some nice regional success but deserves such wider play. Why these guys aren't famous is beyond me. One of the first times I played in front of a lot of people was in the middle of an ASO show with Patient 957. The guys have my endless gratitude for allowing 3 guys who really didn't know what they were doing to feel like big shots for a few minutes.

Tenacious D 11 apperances - Actor Jack Black along with a pretty damn good acoustic guitarist, Kyle Gass are "the Greatest Band in the World" at least that's how they billed themselves on their TV show. I loved the TV show, but I actually loved the muic even more. I liked the whole idea of trying to be completely metal with just two guys on acoustic guitars. Saw the D in Anaheim a few years ago and it was the most fun I've ever had at a show. If for no other reason, JB and KG deserve props for a sign outside of the open mic the frequented on the show, a sign that has meant a lot to me ever since:

OPEN MIC TONIGHT
LEARN TO PLAY GUITAR
IN FRONT OF A REAL
AUDIENCE


Supafloss 7 appearances - Think a rap version of Tenacious D. Supafloss opened for the D when I saw them in Anaheim. It's music that will never have wide spread appeal, but it tickles me, so what the hell. The do a rap about Chuck Norris that is, ironically called Chuck Norris. They shot a video for it, using footage taken from the Anaheim show. I'm way in the back and you can't see me.

"Weird" Al Yankovich 7 appearances - Say what you want about Al, I think he's a genius. Ben Folds likes him to, that's good enough for me. His latest album has a song called Bob, a Bob Dylan style song in which every line is a palindrome. Brilliant. TSA and I have talked about covering it, we already do Al's original You Don't Love Me Anymore.

Slappy is Jebus 6 appearances - Speaking of TSA and myself, this is what we called ourselves for a while. Thanks to Ken Jones for recording the Dunn Bros. open mic for a while, got some pretty good recordings.

Barenaked Ladies 5 apperances - A band I frankly grew out of. That's not fair, I think their debut album, Gordon, was fantastic. In reality, I think what happened is that they grew up and I didn't. Their subsequent albums had some fine moments, but Gordon was the first album to show me how much fun you could have playing acoustic music. I moved to Iowa a couple of years after that album came out. My first night in town I dug out Gordon and played it. Since then, Gordon has been the first CD played every place I lived.

D.V.D.A. 5 apperances - If you've seen the Trey Parker/Matt Stone movie Orgazmo, you'll know what D.V.D.A stands for. Coincidentally, Trey Parker and Matt Stone are in D.V.D.A. If I have a regret about music while living in southern California, it's never getting a chance to see D.V.D.A.

Danny Barnes 4 appearances - I became aware of Danny Barnes when he was mentioned in a song by another favorite of mine, Steve James. Danny is a banjo player and was in a band called Bad LIvers with Mark Rubin in Austin Texas. They played roots music and were completely ignored by the big roots music scene there. For some reason, the Austin punk scene loved them. Their music was rootsy but with a non-conformist bent. Danny has continued on that path solo. Very enjoyable, I highly recomend him.

Sue Foley 4 apperances - In a perfect world, Sue Foley would be Mrs. "Blind Orange" Julius. She's my dream woman, and it's not just because of her looks. She is one of my favorite guitarists, male or female, matching a very "ballsy" guitar style with a "little girl" voice. I find it irresistable. Saw her at Blue Cafe in Long Beach California, she put on a killer show and made me weak in the knees when she made heavy eye contact with me during a ballad.

Patient 957 2 appearances - TSA, JB, Brian Sharp and BOJ. Actually Brian didn't play on thse two cuts, joining the bad after we recorded. Eight Years is the only completley finished 957 track, TSA's little brother, FSA playing bass on the recording. I listen to it and I still like it. Anti Love Song could have been a regional hit, SMB once told us that there was no reason it shouldn't be on the radio. In my extremely biased opinion, he's right.

Steve James 1 appearance - A finger style country blues guitarist. Steve has a very dry wit in his music and can play the hell out of an acoustic.

James Harman 1 appearance - I first heard "Icepick James" when living in Iowa. I caught him a couple of times when I lived in the Twin Cites. I had ample opportunity to see Harman when living in Long Beach, he wintered in the area, playing Blue Cafe alot and I took advantage of it. Harman isn't the best harmonica player I've ever heard, but he's my favorite. His tone is just plain filthy, a tone I've never been able to duplicate, but it's so cool I'll never give up trying. James is an amazing songwriter, seemingly able to get songs from anywhere. He wrote Lock Doctor while stuckin traffic on the 405, taking lyrics from the side of a locksmith's van. Everybody's Rockin' (at the Zoo Bar) is about a place I've been to, the Zoo Bar in Lincoln Nebraska.

That's it folks. Hope that clears some stuff up.

BOJ

Comments:
What do you mean, Globex doesn't have fans? Do I have to show you my file? The one that indicates possible multiple personality/demonic possession. Fans.
 
Could you clear up this persistant patch of dry skin near my left elbow? And while you're busy clearing things up, how about the Israeli/Palestinian issue? And why isn't Willy Grigg in your top 100? He's certainly in mine! :)
 
You make a good point T1G (That 1 Gal, not That One Guy), a point I meant to make in this post.

My iTunes only counts total plays, not total plays over a recent period of time. That would be much cooler, especially since a couple of the things on my list got an insane number of repeated plays. Mojo Nixon's The Story of One Chord got a ridiculous number of plays one day as I was learning all of the words to it for SIJ's Heritage Festival performance (we stuck it in the middle of I Got My Mojo Workin', it sounded really cool).

Willy would probably be on my list a lot of the time if I compiled a list for any one particular week. In a short lived companion site to this blog, I stated that when I write songs I try to be Ben Folds, failing that, I try to be Willy Grigg. I fail miserably on both counts.

Can't do anything about the dry skin, but you should really have that checked..... no I don't think it's anything.... no, I don't know anything, I.... no, I never claimed to be a dermitologist, it's just that...... look, I'd just like it if you checked it out.... I am not hoping for the worst... I didn't tell you it was cancer, you said that..... look, I don't want to talk about this anymore.....
 
I don't really have a patch of pre-cancerous crud near my left elbow. I just thought a patch of dry skin sounded marginally better than a rash. Hey, the really cool thing about a number of Willy's songs is that they almost insist that you write your own verse(s)! Don't Fall in Love with a Dinosaur and I'm Not Bob Dylan are good examples. The best thing is getting to sing one of your made-up verses for Willy! He's usually flattered if your version is pretty clever or funny. He is a truly collaberative artist as well as being remarkably talented. One other thing I'd like cleared up, what precisely is the difference between a muffin and a cupcake?
 
Hi, Blogger,
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Good blog. I take my hat off to you. You’ve put lots of thought in here. If you are interested, go see my mp3 personal player related site. It’s still growing but you may still find something of interest.

Kerry
 
Hi, Blogger,
Good blog. You’ve put lots of thought in here. It looks like we have an interest in common. If you are interested, go see my mp3 player sport related site. It’s totally focussed on the Zen Micro at the moment and is still growing. You may still find something of interest. Feel free to post a link to your site on my links pages.

Kerry
 
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