Recently in Music Category

iTunes tells me there's a new Rush album to be released on April 15: Snakes & Arrows (Live). Normally a new album from Rush would be good news, but not this time.

Rush used to have a pretty reliable schedule: four studio albums, then a live album. They stuck to it for almost twenty-five years, from their self-titled debut album in 1974 all the way to Different Stages in 1998. After that, the schedule changed:

2002 - Vapor Trails (studio)
2003 - Rush in Rio (live)
2004 - Feedback (studio)
2005 - R30 (live)
2007 - Snakes & Arrows (studio)
2008 - Snakes & Arrows (Live)

It may be just an irrational prejudice on my part, but when a band releases so many live albums in so little time, I begin to wonder whether it's ceased to be an ongoing creative effort, and become instead a mere money-machine: a brand to be exploited.

That's what happened to Pink Floyd in the 1980s. Gilmour & Co. even went so far as to go on tour to support the live album from the previous tour, which is just ridiculous.

If Rush goes on tour to support Snakes & Arrows (Live), we'll know it's all over.

Long ago on the Dr. Demento radio show, I heard Fish Heads and Three Drunk Newts by Barnes & Barnes. Ever since, they've been effective tools for irritating people:

Fish heads, fish heads
roly-poly fish heads
fish heads, fish heads
eat 'em up, yum!

It turns out that Barnes & Barnes have an entire album of songs - inexplicably titled Voobaha - and it's available on iTunes, only $9.99.

Oh, the temptation....

The never-played list on the iPod is now empty. The last song: Life is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back by Meat Loaf.

I suppose now I can listen to anything I want to....

Tiny Tim, singing a duet of I Got You Babe...with himself.

The never-played playlist on the iPod is down to a mere nine tracks - less than an hour of music.

For three days, I managed to resist buying God Bless Tiny Tim, by Tiny Tim (who else?), from iTunes. Then I caved.

Poor Jennifer will now be subject to Tip Toe Thru' the Tulips With Me whenever she least expects it....

When I moved my music collection from nessus to the iMac - in March of last year, that was - the play counts were all reset to zero; so I recreated the Never Played playlist, and set about slogging through all 8,155 songs (videos, podcasts, etc.) a second time.

(I hear the loyal readership asking themselves, Why? Why not? It's my project.)

For a long time, it seemed that I was making no progress at all, but lately the end of the tunnel is showing a glimmer of light: the Never Played playlist is down to a mere 882 items, approximately 75 hours of music. I might finish by year's end, if I work at it.

In other news: I signed up last week for an account on last.fm, mainly so I could have one of those now-playing lists over on the sidebar. (Everybody else has one. I don't want to be left behind.) Alas, I can't get it to work: it says I've played 9,000 tracks (more or less), but also says I haven't played any of them recently. The sidebar thingy keeps coming up empty.

Just this evening the last.fm application noticed I have an iPod, so maybe my iPod listening will start showing up now. If not, there won't be much point in keeping my last.fm account....

Sometime when I wasn't paying attention, the Macc Lads back catalog became available on iTunes.

For years, the only Macc Lads album available (in the U.S., at least) was the Twenty Golden Crates collection. It would be great fun to have the Lads' entire beer-soaked oeuvre.

During the sad part of the movie Shrek, when all the characters are isolated & miserable, there's a background song playing:

They say there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do ya?

I was rather surprised when Neil Peart mentioned this song in his book. It's by Jeff Buckley, a gifted musician who - alas - died ten years ago. (The same year as Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. Coincidence? I think not!)

iTunes has Mr. Buckley's one & only album, Grace. Might be worth buying, one of these days.

(It's too bad iTunes doesn't have wishlists. Mine would be enormous.)

Useless factoids about Julian Lennon:

1. He has a web site, http://www.julianlennon.com/, that's "Under Construction". No word on when/whether the new site will go live.
2. He was born on April 8, 1963, which means he's less than four months older than me.