My Little Music Trees

Remember the Zune that Microsoft put out some years ago?

I loved my Gretchen II. I took her everywhere. She could hold like 750 albums in a package that was just over the size of a deck of cards. I fully embraced the MP3 player revolution. I LOVED being able to take that many albums with me just about anywhere. And with the Zune music subscription, I could sample anything for like fifteen bucks a month without the risks of plunking down ten dollars on each CD to find that it’s total crap. The subscription was more reward with no risk. I LOVED it!

Then there was the switch to Groove and the ditching of Zune. It totally made my Gretchen II useless. It sent me into a deep dark depression for a few days. I cancelled my subscription to Zune, ah, Groove. I started looking for alternatives.

There was one alternative right before my eyes. It was part of the DirecTV package that we had. So, I tried Pandora. I hated it within the first 30 minutes. It was playing what it wanted to play even though I gave certain songs the “thumbs down”. And it KEPT PLAYING songs by those bands. It was maddening so I ditched it.

Our friend Melissa gave me her daughter’s iPod. I have had my issues with Apple products. Every time that I deal with Apple stuff, I end up with jacked up blood pressure and Yahoo Serious hair. But I NEEDED to hear what I wanted in a random play format without some computer or programmer telling me what I didn’t want to hear.

But the iPod was just a Band-Aid on my problem that brought me more problems like jacked up blood pressure and Serious hair… again.

When the Chigs and I moved to Davidson County, I checked out Spotify. I started with the free version with commercials about every 30 minutes. Even with the commercials, I loved it. I made a couple of playlists right off the bat. I even made one for our wedding that was a month away from the day we moved into our new digs. I saved the free trial week of the non-commercial premium version of Spotify for the week with our wedding day right in the middle. We even used Queen’s version of the wedding march from the ‘Flash Gordon’ soundtrack. But being excited about our big day and the party afterwards, we totally forgot about playing the wedding mix. We just went with the “Big House Mix” where there’s a little something for everyone.

And let me say this about one thing that bugs me… I absolutely HATE when someone gives me the side eye when they hear things on the “Big House Mix” that they don’t like. The MIL is the biggest culprit… “Why doesn’t it play anything that I like?”

Well, ya know… The “Big House Mix” isn’t about just you. Sure, I put most of the music on it. I try to cater to anyone that may come over to our house. My friend Hinzy was totally digging it when he came over with his soon to be wife Karla and her cousin Todd. And it seems that the MIL only wants to listen to old country or Chris “THAT’S MY MAN” Stapleton. The funny thing is when Stapleton or an old country tune plays randomly, she has usually just gone inside for a beverage with A-Rita in its name. It has become a running joke around our house with our usual cast of drinking buddies.

If you don’t dig the current tune, just suck it up because in about 3 to 4 minutes a different song will play. Grrrrrrr

Anyone that follows the “Big House Mix” playlist and comes to our home is welcome to put their favorite songs on that playlist. There are ONLY two rules. No songs with explicit lyrics (songs that aren’t FCC acceptable because some people have children or they just don’t want to hear “the filth”) and no songs over 7 minutes. Bait added one that runs almost 12 minutes, but we left it on there because it’s a jam that’s mostly instrumental that you don’t really notice.

My Spotify playlists have become my own little bonsai tree forest. I cultivate and trim my little trees every day. It’s an obsession. And lately my obsession has been the “Yes Virginia, it WAS a Top 40 Hit” playlist. That little tree of mine is growing and growing. I add to it every day. And when I pull my random CDs for the coming week of listening pleasure in the truck, I add songs to that playlist from the year the albums were released. It gives it a certain randomness. I started adding songs to it from when the charts were first being kept with the best sellers in 1955 and I’m currently deep into 1957. And every week when the new chart comes out from Billboard, I add the new songs. Not all of them get on because I used the clean edits. That’s because I enjoy blasting that playlist around the pool and some guests don’t care for “filth”.

I make it available to anyone that wants to listen to it and I’ve found quite a few people that really enjoy it.

And my other little tree is my “Random Play Exploration” playlist. I add 3 catalog titles and 4 new releases to it every Friday. I keep a notebook that the playlist feeds off. And I use the playlist to add 6 titles from my random CDs for the week and one of those artists gets a bonus album added. Ya know, just in case they have an album on Spotify that I’ve never heard or own. And when I listen to the “Random Play Exploration” playlist, I will delete the songs that I hate and add songs to other playlists. The playlist is capped at 4,000 songs (the others will go on to infinity) so it's totally being refreshed with new stock while the old goes away.

I’ve also gotten into the practice of adding the Top 10 songs and Top 10 albums every Wednesday to the “Random Play Exploration” playlist. I do it to try to stay current. I even add things that I don’t like or know that I won’t like. I don’t want to embrace the old mandom habit of being stuck at a certain place in time and declaring that there’s no good music being made today. I find LOTS of new music being made today that’s excellent. And with the monthly subscription, what’s to lose if I don’t like it?

I just delete and move onto the next song. It’s a win-win situation for me. Spotify allows me to basically use them on my Amazon Fire tablet as my personal MP3 player.

The thing that I don’t like about the streaming… A lot of musicians don’t make the money they should off the streaming of their music not just on Spotify, but everywhere. I get why they’re upset. It takes a lot of money to craft their songs for listeners. I just don’t buy CDs anymore unless I really want a hard copy of my favorite artists. Again, I hate it for the local musicians around me. And even with my hatred for them not being fairly compensated, I’m going with the convenience of what works for me. I can play any of the millions of songs just about anywhere that I am either with my phone, laptop, or Amazon Fire tablet. Sorry ladies and gents…

I love Spotify and I shameless suggest using the service to just about everyone that I know.

Stratocruiser 'Revolutions'

I got some bad news the other day… The lovely days that I have been sharing with Gretchen II are over.

I’m not mourning, but I am a little angry.

Gretchen II has been my constant musical companion for the last 10 years. She has lived beyond her life expectancy. She has soldiered along side me to NASCAR races, an NFL football game, and countless activities where she provided background music. She was my portable compact disc collection. She was my rock.

Gretchen II was an MP3 player.

She came into my possession when a contest winner didn’t pick up the original Gretchen after 3 notifications and 6 months of waiting. Gretchen, like most new tech for me, didn’t work for me properly. I contacted the Microsoft folks, who said “Hmmm… That’s unusual… We haven’t seen that before” and they sent me a replacement. And that replacement became Gretchen II.

Yes, my Zune had a name. Microsoft encouraged naming them.

I resisted the MP3 player. But once I discovered the joy of having 450 albums out of my massive collection in the palm of my hand, I was hooked.

Then I discovered the joy of having a Zune Pass music subscription. For a monthly price of a brand new compact disc, I could download anything from the Zune Marketplace to borrow and enjoy. I could discover new music again. I could revisit old favorites that I have on vinyl. I could explore old titles that I’ve never listened to before. I felt that it was the bestest bang that I was getting for 10 bucks a month. I felt alive again checking out the latest and greatest releases from all kinds of genres!

I didn’t give things much thought when Zune was dropped and rebranded under the Xbox Music moniker. They just sort of rebranded on the fly with very little fanfare. Gretchen II was still doing her thing and nothing could stop us.

But a couple of months ago I got a strange and yet distressing email from Microsoft.

Unlike the previous rebranding, I was being informed about a change. Xbox Music is now Groove Music. The distressing part involved them giving me three months of my subscription for free.

Now that wouldn’t cause too much concern in most people, but I knew there was a catch. Getting three months of something you love free doesn’t happen often… And I’m always suspicious of free.

The catch was discovered over this past weekend.

I had a long round-trip drive to West Virginia on Sunday for my Grandfather’s funeral. Since I’d have six hours in my truck I packed Gretchen II with me.

I asked Jamie to “center punch” the dial to kick off the random play jukebox. But when a tune from Kasey Musgrave came up, Gretchen II had a message that the player didn’t have the song even though the album cover came up.

I knew something was wonky when I couldn’t even get my player to synch with the software on my laptop.

On Monday I did some digging around and found that Microsoft has completely ditched the Zune players. My beloved Gretchen II is now nothing more than a paperweight. I was hurt even though I knew that it was just a matter of time when she would be forced out into the pasture.

(Here's Gretchen II pictured with Jamie's old school mixer that she still uses. For some reason I thought it was cute.)

So since I had my 3 months of Groove Music, I did some digging on them. And it turns out that it no longer serves my needs. I don’t want to use an app. I want a player to download tunes onto. I don’t care for streaming and letting algorithms dictate what’s next. I want to know what’s on the player and set that joker on random. That’s what I want.

I don’t use my phone for music. I find it impractical and annoying. I don’t want to fill storage up with tunes to have my random play jukebox. There is simply not enough room for what I want on there and it changes every week. And besides, if I Bluetooth it with a device, notifications from all the apps and text messages will constantly ruin the flow.

I cancelled Groove Music right there on the spot even with a month to go on the subscription.

I had some more research to do for music sites and Rhapsody kept coming up as something that met my needs. But upon further inspection, their list of compatible players kept leading me to messages of “Discontinued by manufacturer”. There was a dead end at every turn with Rhapsody.

My only hope was to ask questions of my iHole friends about iTunes and their subscriptions. I got the answers that I truly wanted, but I am going to have to embrace the dark side. I will have to become an iHole because I’m on the lookout for a 16GB Nano.

iTunes will get me back on the player/subscription/download path again. I don’t care for it, but it is a necessary evil. It will keep me discovering new tunes. And I’ll still be able to rip my compact discs.

Sure it’s an operating system that has had me whipping my hands through my hair like a detoxing junkie sweating things out, but damn. It must be done. I must become an iHole.

U2 'Achtung Baby'

Do you like music?

Just about everyone will answer “yes” to that question, but they’re lying through their teeth.

The truth is this… People say they like music, but that doesn’t mean that they like to discover new or different music. Some folks have blinders over their ears and they’re fine moving through life that way.

I prefer to be adventurous. I love music. I love just about every genre with the only exceptions being reggae (and the related ilk), most of what passes for “country” music these days, hardcore rap, and screamo metal.

I purchased an Ion Tailgater late last year. The maiden voyage for my new toy was the trip Tim Beeman and I made to visit Brian Attridge in Richmond. We took it to the last Redskins game of the season where they were WHOOPED by the Cowboys.

The Ion Tailgater worked beautifully. The Redskins… Well, that’s a different story.

Chigs and I like to sit out by The Cabin in the backyard, drink some alcohol, and enjoy some tunes with it. It doesn’t come with a remote control and that’s my only complaint. But it sure makes for good background tunes while we have some verbal intercourse by the fire pit.

We’ve been experimenting with using it for radio remotes for 600 WSJS. And with the built in radio, it works again, beautifully. It’s lightweight and it can get LOUD.

If you’re thinking about such a piece of equipment, I highly recommend the Ion Tailgater.

So with all that out of way, lets get back to the subject that I opened with…

Chigs took it with her on a bluegrass trip to Galax, Virginia. They were staying in a cabin complex near Cana and I thought it would be cool for them to take it with them.

You can Bluetooth connect with the Tailgater or plug a tablet or MP3 player into it. I knew they would enjoy a piece of equipment to play some music on. It’s versatile and I sent all the necessary wires they would need with it.

When I arrived for my part of the weekend, everyone was enjoying tunes from their phones. I was totally cool with it. Everyone was having a good time and I didn’t mind someone else choosing the tunes. I was good with the conversation and drinking aspect of the evening. I was able to kick back and leave everything back in North Carolina. Someone else was handling the playlist and I was totally cool with it even though they were using my toy.

Why?

Because I know that my tastes are very eclectic and I also know that people that claim to love music have no patience or tolerance to hear something they don’t know. They only love music that they know.

So I steered clear of even attempting a playlist takeover. Three minutes of something foreign to these self-proclaimed “music lovers” only gets you an earful of What the hell is this?? Why don’t you play something we know??

Instead of dealing with the “music lovers”, I just don’t bother. But someone insisted that I play something from my MP3 player through my Tailgater that they’ve been enjoying all weekend.

I didn’t have a playlist ready to go on my MP3 player, so I thought I’d wing it.

I was put on the spot and my mind was blank concerning the 4,800 songs in my hand. So I scrambled through the artists and found Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers ‘Southern Accents’ album.

I thought I’d be safe with just about anything with ol’ TP and the H breakers.

I wanted something more upbeat than the played out “Don’t Come Around Here No More” and I went with one that I thought everyone would be familiar with… “It Ain’t Nothin’ To Me”.

I was more wrong than a left turn on a red light.

Before the five minute song was halfway over, the self-proclaimed “music lovers” were complaining. So before the second song, I unplugged my Gretchen II (my Zune) and handed the reigns back over to my friend with the current, hip playlist on his phone.

I wasn’t even given time to establish a decent mix for my self-proclaimed “music loving” friends. They turned on me like Warner Brothers television turned on The General Lee.

The bottom line is this… People generally don’t want to hear something new no matter what they say.

And you should never ask a TRUE music lover to handle a playlist with friends and family. They will disappoint you with something that you may like, but don’t want to take the time to listen.

For me, it’s crazy. How do these “music lovers” find new music to enjoy if they don’t listen to anything new?

I just don’t know.

Sammy Hagar 'VOA'

I must remind readers old and new that the title of my blog represents my listening pleasure of the day. If you have any questions about my odd procedures, please leave them in the comments so that I may address them and clear up any concerns about my mental health. Thank you.

-I got myself a laptop computer near the end of June. It’s my first one and I’m totally digging it. I don’t know why I didn’t get one sooner. The only problem I had was transferring all of my Zune MP3 krunk to the new laptop. I guess having over 7,200 songs on that joker just created some kind overload during the transfer. So I purged my Zune of all content and I have started over.

I was getting close to rotating the stock on it by taking off the oldest titles when I load it up with new ones. Sure, I can leave the titles on the on the computer and just swap stuff around on the handheld device… But I just didn’t want to eat up too much virtual memory on the computer by saving everything I rip.

That’s reducing a bit of my carbon footprint, right?

Plus, I’m a little too OCD when it comes to having my music in order. So at this very moment, I only have 270 songs on my Zune that I’ve named Gretchen II. I rip my next week’s listening habits into the system on Thursday or Friday which adds about 70 songs per week on average. I’m hearing the same stuff over and over. I thought I’d hate it, but I’m learning about stuff that I have overlooked before. It’s a good thing!

The biggest reason for me to get a laptop, believe it or not, was because of my Ion USB turntable that my parents gave me for Christmas over a year ago. You hook the turntable up to your computer and you can transfer your LP’s into MP3 files.

If I used a desktop computer, I’d have to break out the turntable and hook it all up. Then when I’d be done, I’d have to break it all down and put it up. That process just didn’t appeal to me since I can be lazier than a stoner on Judgment Day.

A laptop computer would work beautifully!

The turntable stays put where it’s all hooked up and when I want to turn grooved vinyl into bits an bites to play through my Zune, I just stick that USB cable right into my laptop. It’s much simpler that way.

I recently spent a recent Saturday afternoon tinkering around with my Ion USB turntable. Since I’m apparently over the border and into OCD territory, I started with my usual alphabetical order tactic and used the last two digits of the catalog number to move onto the next LP. So if an album ends with “37”, I count off that number to get to my next selection. For some reason, I like the randomness of doing that because there’s no telling what will be chosen. And if my personal feelings get in the way, there’s a good chance that I’ll never get to be more acquainted with something that seemingly just sits there slowly decomposing. In a sense, it helps me realize why things are taking up space in my vast collection. I can be a little forgetful.

An album by The Accelerators (late 80’s/early 90’s band from Raleigh, NC that was truly awesome) started it all followed by the B-52’s (“Love Shack” 12-inch), Beat Farmer’s (‘Powderfinger’ 12-inch), Chicago XI, and another 12-inch from Dogs D’Amour.

I wasn’t impressed with the sound quality, but I figured the tinny sound (even with my headphones on) quality was a result of sound reproduction through my laptop.

I was right. When I heard those tunes on my Zune, it was a different story. They were shiny and bright with very little surface noise other than the usual pops and crackles that vinyl provides.

Man, how I’ve missed those sounds! Other than the usual sound imperfections associated with vinyl wear, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

I highly recommend the Ion USB turntable if you have rare vinyl or if you’re too cheap to replace them with compact discs. Personally, I reside in both camps.