Category: Music
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A Whale Of A Time
Last night I went to see The Decemberists in concert, again. They haven’t been to Houston for several years (usually choosing to confer their patronage on the more bohemian Austin) so I bought a ticket as soon as they were announced, and booked the day off work. The reason for the day off was because I splurged on the ‘VIP concert experience’ package. For about 4x the regular ticket price, this gives you some free merch, early entry to an ‘exclusive two-song set’ and a Q&A session with the band, all of which was set to kick off at 3pm,… Read more
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Connect The Dots
So the market for voice-controlled ‘smart speakers’ for your home has picked up in the past year or so, with Amazon’s Echo devices, Google Home, and no doubt some Siri-enabled thing from Apple in the near future. Although I’m usually quick to jump on any technological bandwagon, I’ve been keeping away from this one thus far. This is partly just to give the technology time to mature, but mainly because I already have a Sonos speaker set-up, and I really don’t see the point of playing music on a $99 multi-function speaker when I have a couple of grand’s worth… Read more
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52 Reasons 2016 wasn’t a COMPLETE Bust
So, 2016. A veritable political shitfest, which I would be glad to see the back of were it not for the knowledge that the next four years will likely be even worse. But on the plus side, I did add another 52 albums to my music library, most of which will continue to bring me joy long after Captain Asshat has exited the White House. 2016 was a middling year for music. It stated out well, with my first 7 weeks’ purchases all being brand new releases (and typically bought on the day of release – which the record companies… Read more
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Silversun Pickups & Foals, Revention Center, Houston
So I thought it was about time I got my ageing indie kid on again, and took myself out to a gig. I think the last band I went to see was The Jackfields in DC back in 2004, so I’ve been keeping my eye on the local gig listings to see if anyone interesting was coming to H-Town. When I saw that Silversun Pickups were passing through, I was a bit apprehensive. I loved their first album, Carnavas, but each successive album has been harder to love at first listen. What drew me to Silversun Pickups was the sense… Read more
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Regression Analysis
For the past few years I’ve been running my ‘One-CD-a-Week’ campaign. It started out as a way to limit my music purchases, which were threatening to get out of hand, thanks to all the great music that was being released. But then some weeks last year (2014) I found myself desperately trying to find something that I wanted to buy, when nothing really grabbed my fancy. So in 2015 I decided to just abandon that philosophy and go back to buying what I wanted when I wanted it. Now it’s the end of the year, I’m looking back on what… Read more