Get Out Of My Stations, Guided By Voices. This is not their best work, but it is the first one I bought by GBV. I remember being 16 driving in the car listening to WNUR and they played a GBV track and I pulled over at the first payphone, called WNUR to find out what that was. From the payphone I went out and bought the first GBV thing I could find, which was Get Out Of My Stations. I was amazed. The lofi mixed with the hooks mixed with the lyrics that made no sense what so ever on some tracks but seemed to speak directly to me on others. I now know that, especially at the time, that Robert Pollard drank alot of beer, and there is a really good chance that those lyrics really don't make any sense, but I still am of the believe that I just don't understand the meaning, but it certainly has one. For every major relationship, heartache, or drama in my life, I have a GBV song that I have matched up to it. I have written multipage letters to accompany mix tapes where I explain why this particular song matches that particular person's situation so perfectly. There is also a good chance that given the sheer size of Robert's catalog, he has no clue what half of the songs mean himself, but some are so amazing to me. So combine that exploration aspect with the hooks that I can't seem to get out of my head ever, I have a band that I still listen to on a daily basis. My last.fm shows that they are my favorite artist, with 3 times the plays of the number 2 artist. And they were so awesome live. Amazing. And drunk. In the heyday there was a giant cooler of bud light or some such crap beer on stage and he would just drink and drink and drink and somehow the shows were still good.

30 Something, Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. Remember when mtv played music videos? Remember 120 minutes? I used to look forward to that show everyweek, and sure I was really tired in 7th grade monday mornings as it was a midnight to 2am sunday night time slot, I loved that show. So when they played the video to Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere I had to have it. I used to tape the show so I could rewatch it, and I remember that VHS tape was all warped at that part. So then I started buying everything of theirs I could. The lyrics all tell some story, often pretty down like alcoholism, child abuse, death, depression, etc. I loved it all. It was all so political and amazing to a 13 year old. And it seemed so much more arranged and british than The Dead Kennedys (whom I never loved as much). I even convinced had the DJ at my 8th grade catholic school dance play Prince in a Pauper's Grave as the last slow dance. Of course I carried the CD with me. When I was in college and heard they had broken up I was surprised that I was actually depressed about it. I must have played only Carter for 2 weeks straight. My roommate thankfully spent a lot of time in lab. It is one of the bands where I own every single they have released on mutlitple formats. I have test pressings to certain records. I have an autographed copy of jim bob's book. I have emailed with them. I never saw them live, as the first time they toured the US I was underage and the 2nd time I was actually in the UK. I know, a band that is, at its core, 2 dudes and a drum machine seems kinda lame, but seriously, Amazing, but when they announced they were getting back together, 10 years from their breakup, to play one show, I looked at airfare to london.

De La Soul - De La Soul is Dead. This is the first album that I really GOT as an entire album, it is like a journey, and I find that even though mp3s has destroyed the concept of a linear path through a recording, I still listen to this album straight through and enjoy it that way. I don't listen to it as much now, but man, my seiko portable CD player played this CD straight for so long and used so many AA batteries (that joker used 6 AA's for about 4 hours of continuous play. Life was tough for CD players in 1991). I have nearly everything De La put out as well.

I'll stop, but other highlights are Sugar's Copper Blue, The Vindicitives - The Many Moods Of The Vindicitives, Minor Threat - Discography (and any Fugazi, Fugazi at the aragon in ~1993 is on the top of my most memorable shows), The Dead Milkmen - any, Guns N Roses - Appetite for Destruction and to a lesser degree use your illusions (I convinced my dad to take me to the midnight release of those albums when I was in 8th grade. It was me, my dad, and a bunch of crusty dudes standing in front of a record town or some shit in the dark. It was awesome. I didn't sleep that night although they can't carry like Appetite did for me at the age it did), The Best of Rotterdam Records Volume 1 (German hardcore techno FTW), The Pixies - Trompe Le Monde, Naked Raygun - Throb Throb and Jettison, New Order - Brotherhood, Primus - Seas of Cheese (Saw them at aragon a few years ago where the 2nd set was that entire album, such a good disc)....

It was easy enough for rebecca's dad to use right away, included audio software (both simple and advanced), both mac and PC, and USB and line level outputs. It isn't amazing or anything, but it works. I am going to borrow it and rip a bunch of my vinyl that I have been missing. Should be fun to have all that old chicago punk from my high school years readily available.

The problem is of course caused by the very thing that makes me love digital music as I do-instant gratification. To sit here at my laptop and think, DAMN, I want to listen to that one Guided By Voices song, it will be playing within 15 seconds. Combine that with the fact that I don't spend NEARLY the amount of time in my car I that I used to, and I don't listen to music in the same way anymore.

Back in the pre-MP3 days, I would load the car up with CDs. In high school, I used to drive around with a minimum of 100 cds in the car, in wooden crates in the back seat, in the door pockets, center console, glove box. CDs were everywhere. It was a major auto theft waiting to happen. Not that the average thief would have much to do with local chicago punk CDs and random imported ska CDs, but nonetheless, it would have sucked for me.

But once I moved everything to MP3s and got the ubiquitous iPod (first on the block, waiting in line at the Apple Store that saturday morning for my (now) huge 5GB iPod. Still works quite well thank you.) everything changed. I hardwired a firewire plug behind the dash board, I wired the iPod into the CD Changer inputs of the Audi headunit. and built a fancy little holder for it.

And thus the instant gratification began. And the death of the album per se. I like the concept of an album, I think the order of tracks is important. But I don't care anymore. I don't listen to anything in order anymore. I usually have whatever I am listening to on shuffle. I am not ready to bring the album back, but I am working on listening to music as I get it, giving things a fair few times before it falls into the vast library. There have been a number of songs that I REALLY like now, but would have never found on the first pass.

So my current plan is to get everything to a play count of at the least 1. And I am seriously listening to them. I am filling the iPods off those playlists and syncing them back. I am down to ~1400 songs left. I am also trying to not add as much music at the rate I usually do. I am deleting things I don't care about in an attempt to both clear up space and also get rid of the crap. I don't know why I had so much Jennifer Lopez, but that is all gone now, needless to say. I am have an 'on deck' folder with MP3s that I will add once I listen to the album I last added.

I am getting lazy with music due to the potential floodgate that I could open at any time. I need to give more attention to what I have and digest it all versus slamming it all down. I need to rediscover my music.

Mashups... I have been listing to a bunch of this stuff, which has been fun... Dylan just brought a CD back from cali that has bunch of good stuff. Girl Talk's 3 albums have been getting some play too

I am robot and proud.... kind of like if the postal service had done a chill out album... super nice. no vocals, so it is great in the background music. I am happy with it.

How Much Does iTunes Like My Five-Star Songs?

Extended iTunes Rating

I will admit these came a from a /. story.

and the new death cab for cutie disk is good too.... (As now playing:)
Start Again (iTunes Version) [Bonus Track] from the album "Plans (Bonus Video Version)" by Death Cab For Cutie

Fast forward to this week... Since I am feeling overwhelmed and behind on the floor install at the new house, I decided to take off wednesday off to work on the floor. We need to move in. So I get up, take a shower, and right when I get out, the phone is ringing. Email problems. I remote in, restart the services, it appears to solve the problem. I walk to the house. I am at the house, I install maybe 5 planks of wood, and the phone rings. Office, they haven't got any outside mail all morning. OK. So I walk catherine through rebooting the machine. On shut down, it blue screens. Great. Lets hope it isn't the sign of things to come... (but you know it is). Won't come all the way up after log in. Fine, I am on my way in...

So I worked on the house for about 15 min. I was in the office around 10am wed. It is now little before 4am thursday. I am waiting for the last exchange service pack to download. I have backups of everything. I have multiple backup spoolers. All the email is right here. Nothing is really lost.

I spend most of the day attempting to recover the server. It wasn't happening. Rebecca came over after work and we went to portillos/barnelli's for dinner. I dropped her off at home and came back here. I rebuild the server from scratch. Once this service pack is down, I will install that and HOPEFULLY email will work. Magically.

So I have come to the conclusion that the servers just like me so much that they can't stand to have me leave them. Oh well. I could have been worse. I was having some backup issues last month, but we are running 100% now. So I have successfully covered my ass.

Things of note from this marathon:
1) they turn the AC off in the evening, or at least down. It is 83 in here. Awesome
2) the oblivion CD I bought the other day (Sweatpants U.S.A.) is good. It is on it's 10th rotation.
3) I still can stay up late as I did in college. I am sure that I am no where near as trained as I was then, but I am feeling fine as I approach 24 hours.
4) backups rule. It is so easy, but so nice. I would be WAY more stressed if I didn't have them. Knowing that they are here and I haven't lost anything is a very comforting feeling. Backup email spoolers as well.

Ok, back to work....

G.V. from the album "Sweatpants U.S.A." by Oblivion