Music & New Year 2014

Thought I'd do a new blog as today is Jan. 1, 2014 and I've not blogged in well over a year, I figured it's time to crank this back up again.  So, I'll start some musical comments separately, as I hear something that I'm inspired to write about.  It may be a very short blog for some quick thoughts on how I feel about a certain song, album or artist. I listen to music primarily on streaming service Spotify so most of what I write about will be via their available music, which is pretty extensive and seems to growing.  2014 should be an even bigger year for them and their competitors.

I redesigned the page this morning, and posted a new profile pic of me and Angie on our 25th wedding anniversary back on June 27th.  For some reason, I think I resemble Cesar Milan (The Dog Whisperer) in that picture.  Well, I do like some of the Spanish/Flamenco music! 

I'm into the music apps Spotify & Soundrop (big-time) so thought I'd share some links to my streaming playlists stations....here's one great for a Sunday morning chillout, or late-night Saturday.  Check out "Space Journeys" at http://open.soundrop.fm/s/WDWUzXgfi7TrxH2S

And for those late-40/early-50-something folks, here's a flashback to 70's FM rock:  http://open.soundrop.fm/s/WFtj0tv6UiR3h5N6

Here's a streaming playlist station of some of my all-time favorite movie & TV soundtracks, including Dirty Harry, Bullitt, The Outer Limits, Body Heat:
http://open.soundrop.fm/s/WFeiJ8GKtTtzxXdd

And, here's a station of newer music & artists I'm into, you might like too: 
http://open.soundrop.fm/s/WGIubjwyToqtgKJM

Let me know if you like any music from the above stations :-)

Here it is Saturday,  August 11, 2012 and my first post since May - my how the time flies.  Not much going on, just chillin' at the moment listening to one of my Spotify/Soundrop playlists/streaming stations in the Sennheiser headphones.  Been wanting to do some original guitar recordings but haven't had a lot of extra time for that in the past couple of weeks or so - maybe I'll do some of that tomorrow.

New original music recording plans

Some of my friends/family know that I play guitar, played with a band many years ago.  In recent years I've basically dabbled in home recording, coming up with instrumental pieces built around a drum machine pattern but not really coming up with finished songs, more like fragments or pieces of music that might sound alright if fully developed.  I think a hang-up for me is that I've been worried too much about making a polished, produced "record" instead of having fun with the process.  Anyway, to cut to the chase, I've been thinking that if I can come up with several complete songs that are of short duration (2 minutes, 30 seconds, max) that should be fairly doable.  So, hopefully I can come up with at least one new tune over the upcoming long weekend (is it Friday yet?!) and post to Facebook for y'all to hear. 

Well, here it is already the month of May and what a year it's been so far - the months are really flyin' by.  What I'm into currently is creating Spotify playlists! (well, actually I've been into this since discovering Spotify back around November).   As I type these words, I've got my newest playlist cranked up:  "30 Cool 70's/80's Songs - Week of May 21-25", consisting of a short-list of 30 specially selected songs that'll rock your world. This playlist will be updated every week (or maybe a song or two will change every day :-)  Here's the link (if you have Spotify/Facebook, just click this and you can access it) 30 Cool 70's/80's Songs (Week of May 21-25)  Decided to do a short list like this to give a listening experience with a more "live dj" kind of feel (less random) even though there's no dj to be heard I'd like the songs to sound like they're being picked right before you hear them.  My enjoyment of this playlisting stuff is a direct result of being a lifelong listener of the radio coupled with a great dissatisfaction with what's on the radio these days (including XM/Sirius) - just call me a frustrated disc jockey!  Feel free to comment if you like this or have ideas for improvement, song ideas, etc.  Thanks for checking out the tunes!

New year - new post!

Haven't posted in quite a while so thought I'd post a short update.  Not much is new but I have discovered Spotify and have been building quite a few playlists so far this year, the major one being "That 70's & 80's Playlist - Classic Hits & 8-Track Flashbacks", not over 1,000 tracks, with 40 subscribers.  I also check out Facebook daily, and Steve Hoffman's music forum.  I bought a new guitar effects box a couple weeks back but have only played with it once - I really need to get back into some guitar recording.  Another musical thing I'm excited about & recently discovered: UJam!  You sing a song acapella or play a melody on an instrument and UJam provides a backing band when it's played back - pretty cool! 

Technology, 2011 - where are we headed?

So in 2011, we have cellphones & texting, apps, the internet, email, blogging, internet radio, music & video downloads & streaming, software programs, help menus, tutorials, online support, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Blu-Ray, Bluetooth,  CD's, DVD's, HDTV, GPS, Netflix, streaming, Wii, iPods/MP3 players, iPads...you get the picture - remember the days of having a plain ole television, a stereo console, and corded phones in your house and that was pretty much it, technology-wise? There's a good chance a lot of folks don't remember that, depending on your age, of course, but there's so much stuff available now, so many technological toys, it can really be mind-boggling what with so many learning curves to deal with. I'm 53 and do remember those earlier days I just spoke of (and sometimes fondly & nostalgically). It's just amazing how far we've come in the past 30, 20, even 10 years and with all the techno stuff we have these days, it makes you wonder how we got by entertainment-wise before all this stuff was around. But, even more than that, it makes one wonder what things will be like in 10-30 years from now. Your thoughts/comments about our technologically-enriched world, both now and where we're headed?

Hurricane Irene in NC today

Well, as of this writing, we've been very, very fortunate with Hurricane Irene.  It's now about 6pm and our lights went out for about 30 minutes then came back on, thank goodness. Many folks further downeast have not been as fortunate, and the Berkeley Mall in Goldsboro had a roof collapse today.  The winds are still blowing pretty good outside at the moment with a bit of rain falling.  Hopefully this storm will weaken substantially as it moves on up the coast.

New CD-R compilation

Been working this past week on a music compilation cd-r and I've finally come up with a tracklisting I'm pretty pleased with...

"CLASSIC ROCK PLUS, Vol. 2"

Side 1 (Track 1 - 23:39) Classic Rock

1. Breathe - Pink Floyd

2. Born On the Bayou - Creedence Clearwater Revival

3. Blue World - Moody Blues

4. Happiness Is a Warm Gun - The Beatles

5. Subdivisions - Rush

6. Any Major Dude Will Tell You - Steely Dan

Side 2 (track 2 - 22:26) Plus  (deep tracks)

1. Mr. Bellamy - Paul McCartney

2. Can't Feel The Earth III - IZZ

3. Say You Will - Fleetwood Mac

4. Miracle - Oceanlab

5. Say It With Love - Moody Blues

Programming note:  Each Track on this cd

represents an album "side" with multiple

songs contained in each track

"Side 1" is a group of songs considered classic rock while "Side 2" is mostly newer tracks/album cuts not generally heard on any radio station.   It's all smoothly-sequed, slightly cross-faded for that radio effect.  A couple of cool things about this comp is that "Breathe" by Pink Floyd morphs into "Born On the Bayou" by CCR - a pretty neat effect.  "Side 2" starts out with the sound of a phonograph needle dropping onto a record.

Original guitar music

Here's a song I put together using some cool software called Mixcraft.  It needs more work but this is the basic demo. 

http://www.box.net/shared/44u3nf5tfjq5y6rleru6

Sunday 8/7 Plans for Blog

Thought I'd start a blog page to have an outlet for posting mostly music talk, whether it be about my CD collection,  the latest exciting musical discoveries, my MP3 player playlists, and home recording - my original guitar multitrack recordings (I'll provide audio links from time to time).  I'll also keep you up-to-date on the latest DVD's I've seen, which will almost always be mostly of the suspense/thriller/horror genre!  And, I plan to change my profile picture soon since I'm already using this one on Facebook. 

Original "first post"

So, the first post I made that didn't actually get posted was about my spending most of  the morning farting around with trying to find a program to convert WAV files on my computer to FLAC files for transferring to my Sansa Fuze and found out that Winamp does that absolutely free.  Anyway, I'm happy now because I can listen to FLAC files on my Sansa without the loss of audio quality inherent to MP3 files.  So. I'm closing out now since I have to go to Smithfield and eat with my family at the Cracker Barrel, (yum!). 

RickH

Let's try it again

New Post #2.  Trying out blogsspot for the first time and thought I had posted the "preview post" but evidently did not.  Why does all things computer-related have to be so damn complicated?