Off the Mark

I have mentioned once or twice, here and there [FRL], that I got a $10 gift certificate to iTunes back in December that I just never seemed to get around to using.

This morning, I finally did. I had a couple artists recorded in my little personal, local wiki [VoodooPad by Flying Meat (for Macs). Hey, I'm glad I pointed this out as I just got a free upgrade since I registered my copy after 5 May. There is a free version called VoodooPad Lite which I started wth. Try it, you may find it useful. I certainly did.].

Then I remembered Kurt playing something for me when we were discussing my move to WordPress. I did a bit of browsing by genre but quickly got bored with the iTunes interface, so I called on my musical “buddies.”

First, I turned to Anna, eclectic librarian, because she often recommends things that sound intriguing that I probably wouldn’t stumble over on my own. When Kurt opportunely came online, I IMed him and asked for some more recommendations. Within no time I had my 10 songs picked out and had them downloaded.

I haven’t listened to them yet, other than the preview snippets (and a video or two that Kurt pointed me to), but here they are (song title, artist, album title [recommender]):

• Ai Du, Ali Farka Touré & Ry Cooder, Talking Timbuktu [me, see below]
• I Wan’na Be Like You (The Monkey Song), Los Lobos, Just Another Band from East L.A. [Kurt, from a previous discussion re Louis Prima and Disney's The Jungle Book]
• Country Mile, Camera Obscura, Let’s Get Out of This Country [me and WEFT 90.1]
• No Place Like Home, Jodi Jett, Revelations [Anna]
• Quick, Painless and Easy, Ivy, Apartment Life [Kurt]
• Conceived, Beth Orton, Comfort of Strangers [Kurt]
• Some Other Place, Whisperado, Some Other Place [Anna]
• Heart In Me, Cordero, En Este Momento [Anna]
• Way You Walk, Papas Fritas, Buildings and Grounds [Kurt]
• Cross Bones Style, Cat Power, Moon Pix [Kurt]

“Ai Du” is in the movie l’auberge espagnole (The Spanish Apartment). I have also definitely heard Beth Orton, Ali Farka Touré, Camera Obscura, and Cat Power on WEFT. Unfortunately, I am often using the radio as background music so I don’t really hear it. But, at least, I can file away an artist or song title in the back of my mind as something to check out someday.

I want to definitely say thanks to Anna and Kurt for helping pick out some stuff to get exposed to! And a definite thanks to Cheryl for the gift certificate in the first place!

I swear that taking 7 months to use it has absolutely no bearing on my appreciation of the gift! It just hasn’t been how I have operated musically. Yet. But thank you, thank you!

I am looking forward to checking all of these out and hopefully discovering new artists to love in the process.