Musicwhore.org

Austin may bill itself as the Live Music Capital of the World, but it seems Seattle is more aligned with my particular tastes. Since arriving here in January, I’ve gone to more concerts than I did in my final year in Austin.

Classical music certainly has more of a presence here. Austin’s live music scene dwarfed the local arts scene, and I never once felt compelled to go to an Austin Symphony concert. By comparison, I’ve subscribed to the Seattle Symphony.

New music also seems to have an audience in Seattle. Kronos Quartet recorded its Neptune Theatre performance for a live album, and Alarm Will Sound stopped by Town Hall. Seattle Symphony also schedules a number of premieres, such as a new work by Nico Muhly back in February.

I haven’t delved into the local scene that much, which is where Austin trumps Seattle. Austinites really get behind their local talent, whereas I don’t get that same sense in Seattle.

But there are touring shows a-plenty here. Most of the ones I’ve seen were held at the big theatres — Paramount, Moore and Neptune.

I’ve scaled back the number of shows I’m attending now that I have a better handle on how broke I am from paycheck to paycheck. But as the following list shows, I think Seattle’s music scene and I will get along.

More »

Mark Ronson got it.

Duran Duran’s producers on its last four albums didn’t, none more spectacularly than Justin Timberlake. But Mark Ronson, being an avid fan of the band, did. What did he get? The understanding of what constitutes a Duran Duran album.

Many articles and reviews have already paid lip service to Ronson’s goal of making All You Need Is Now, Duran Duran’s 13th studio album, the never-recorded sequel to Rio. So too does this Johnny-come-lately review.

More »

I made a comment on the Musicwhore.org Facebook page that maybe I should move my one-liner reviews to Twitter. Then it made me realize the number times I would post something to my personal Twitter feed and think, “I really ought to be putting this on a Musicwhore.org Twitter feed.”

My hesitation about creating a separate Musicwhore.org Twitter account is pretty much rooted in laziness. I like using Twitter’s web interface, but it’s lousy when you have multiple accounts. It’s the same situation I faced with my Eponymous 4 account — I would post updates to the personal account, even though they should be coming from Eponymous 4.

TweetDeck has always been a solution to this multiple account conundrum, but I disliked having to launch an Adobe AIR application to do something I feel more comfortable doing through the web. So I would barely use it.

Twitter acquired TweetDeck a long time back and launched a web version of it. A Chrome app is also available.

Problem solved! So now Musicwhore.org can be found on Twitter: @MusicwhoreOrg.

I usually try to track my year-end favorites throughout the year, but of course, this year has been different. And because of all that upheaval, I can’t say I’ve been paying much attention to newer releases. I’m surprised I managed to rank as many items as I did, although two of them are live albums.

The rise of digital downloads and streaming services put new releases in competition with catalog. I still listen to a lot of music, just not much music released in the current year.

More »

It’s two months shy of a year since I last posted an “On the playlist” column. A year!

I’m thinking back to what was happening in my life these past 10 months that would prevent me from posting, and the only thing that comes to mind — aside from moving from one part of the country to another — is work. Did my last job suck so much time and energy that I couldn’t bring myself to write? The answer would have to be yes. The scant entries written after I started that job sure seem to mention as much.

My posting record since moving to Seattle hasn’t improved greatly, although in my defense I did move blogging platforms and redesign the site. The current job is also keeping me busy, but it’s not the firehose of the last one.

So for this first “On the playlist” column in 10 months, I’m listing it all — everything that’s cycled on and off the Winamp playlist since the last column. At least, everything I can remember. And we’ll split it between pre- and post-move, starting with the latter …

More »