Music for music's sake

I’m proud of myself. I accomplished about three quarters of the things on my to do list this weekend. Of course, the very first thing on the to do list was “write to do list” so it’s not like these were the most challenging tasks in the world. Just a lot of necessary chores that will continue through the week. Still, nice to look at a list that has a lot of check marks next to it. Makes you feel like your time is not entirely wasted.

Anyway, I saw what might be the most insane television broadcast over the weekend, courtesy of HDNet. See, HDNet is Mark Cuban’s brainchild from when he bought his digital television and found that their was no programming for it so he built his own network. Well, there still isn’t any programming for it because on Saturday afternoon I got to watch the U.S. Shuffleboard championship. And we are talking about bar shuffleboard here, like the one they had at the old Senior Bar or C.J.’s. Yes, there is apparently an official tournament for this and I got to watch it all in the beauty of high definition. Some people worry about drugs destroying their mind, I feel that I’ve lost a few thousand brain cells just by stumbling across it.

I think I made it back by watching Family Guy, though. Props for the Snorks reference, a joke that is only going to work for people from the ages of 28-33 but great nonetheless. And Stewie ripping on Brian for the novel he has been working on for three years hit a little close to home. It doesn’t help that I’ve been working on mine for, uh, sixteen years next week. Yeah, I should really finish that one of these days.

(Wow, that is right. It’s sixteen years ago next week. I might have to tell that story here. It’s kind of been told already though. We’ll see if I can find a way to write it anew.)

I have a couple of music stories to pass along tonight. The first is courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, always my source for vibrant music criticism. In their Personal Journal section (motto: the one that you read if you don’t care about the market) they mentioned that Laura Cantrell has a new disc coming out, which is really cool because she is an awesome performer. They also mentioned a fact that I didn’t know and astounded me: she used to be an equity analyst for Bank of America in New York. Yes, she would spend her days running spreadsheets and analyzing stocks and then go home and play these killer country songs. She would take vacation from work to tour. I love reading things like this. It makes me feel that I’m not the only person in the world who is trying to make art while working in a real job.

I did finally pick up the disc “Indian Summer” by Carbon Leaf. It’s not a bad disc at all, it’s got some cool songs and everything is upbeat and they are just a neat little band. It does not contain the best songs that you’ve ever heard or break the verse-chorus-verse format or span genres. It is just one of those discs that you can play in the car or while you’re cleaning your apartment and you’ll just smile and enjoy the music. There is a beauty to that type of a band. I love Wilco, but you can only listen to A Ghost is Born in segments. It’s like reading James Joyce, it’s so brilliant and mind-blowing that you can only progress a few notes at a time. There’s a pleasure in just finding some upbeat music that you can enjoy just because it is fun to listen to music. It’s a recommended pick up, if only to be reminded that every album doesn’t have to be Blood on the Tracks.

The five random CDs of the week:
1) Jon Dee Graham “Hooray for the Moon”
2) Tom Petty “Full Moon Fever”
3) The Jayhawks “Rainy Day Music”
4) Various Artists “Here Come the Irish”
5) Various Artists “Les Miserables” (yes, there is some culture in my collection)