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The year-end issue of Out magazine includes a short feature on queer musicians in metal and hardcore bands. The article has a sidebar focusing on specific albums from bands mentioned in the feature.

I’ve always had better luck finding interesting music by gay artists from Out than from its hard news cousin, the Advocate. In fact, I’ve written about the Advocate’s music coverage before, but now that the Advocate is little more than a supplement, it’s up to Out to pick up the slack.

Unlike the Advocate, Out is willing to feature music with the most tangential relationship to gay audiences. If one member of a 10-piece band is an out musician, they have a shot at being covered. Just so long as the music is decent.

And the music featured in this metal/hardcore feature is actually pretty decent. Unlike four years ago, I skipped Myspace and went straight to Spotify.

I’ll admit God Seed and Nü Sensae weren’t my cup of tea, but Torche and Gaytheist were. It also helped that Out compared the former to Hüsker Dü and the latter to Fugazi. I’m not sure if the comparisons are totally on target, but of the four bands, Torche and Gaytheist struck that right balance of aggression and melody.

These albums join a really good line-up of 2012 releases by gay artists.

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When I created a Twitter account for this site, I thought it would do away with this regular column of one-sentence reviews. Then I ended up not really talking about everything that went on the playlist. With Holidailies starting, I figure it’s a good time to summarize the last six months of listening.

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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 …

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I’ve always been a fan of conciseness.

Where other writers love to pack their prose with florid language, I go for economy. Less is more.

I signed up for Twitter back in Nov. 2006, and I knew right away I would love the challenge of summarizing moments of time within the strict limit of 140 characters. Twitter turns five years old soon, which means I’ve been expressing myself 140 characters (or fewer) at a time for half a decade.

Note that the previous entry in this blog is dated May 1, 2011. I haven’t posted anything here in a month and a half, and I think that Twitter ceiling has affected how I perceiving the medium of blogging. This here entry? Too many words.

It feels too expansive. It takes too much energy. In short, I’ve gotten out of the habit of writing in longer forms. It was that or blame the job for the lack of entries here.

You would think all that time away would allow me to dig up some awesome listening. I think maybe the quality releases were mostly stacked in Q1. Q2 seems a bit more elusive in finding the gems.

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Now this is surprising — I can, with confidence, fill most of the slots on the Favorite Edition 2011 list in the first quarter. Usually I’ll find at most five albums that may become year-end favorites, and of course, no rank is guaranteed this early in the year. But after SXSW, I had what felt like an abundance of good listening, and in compiling this list, that sense became more concrete.

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As much I like my new-ish job — I’ve been there for nine months now — it doesn’t have any down time. There’s maybe enough time to check news feeds and a smattering of social media but nothing beyond that.

When I get home, I’ve got other things brewing — mixing and remixing Eponymous 4 tracks, learning HTML5, Flex and Ruby on Rails, reducing my body fat — and they eat whatever time and energy I could have spent writing an entry.

And writing takes quite a bit of energy.

So once again I make a half-assed list of all the music about which I should be writing more in-depth.

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I spent most of December listening to the titles on the last On the playlist round-up because I was summoned to Honolulu for a family emergency. In short, my dad passed away.

It’s a saga I detail over at VexVox, but I pretty much flew out to Hawaiʻi at a moment’s notice, bringing only my most recent purchases. I wasn’t really in the frame of mind to shop for music — not that it stopped me from heading to Book-Off at Shirokiya in Ala Moana — so growth of the backlog was somewhat mitigated.

In fact, only two of these titles are actual physical purchases.

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New job + workout inertia = 10-lb. gain.

August is no month to be working up a sweat in Austin, because thirty seconds outside will do that for you. So I opted to skip the gym for that entire month. But a slight change in my workout schedule managed to throw off my eating habits, and in due time, I packed on 10 pounds in the span of a summer.

So I’ve been hitting the elliptical machine mighty hard since September, which has staved off the gain but has not promoted any weight loss.

This past month has been following something of a new music theme, which is not conducive for thirty minutes at 160 strides per minute. So I need some new workout music because I need something other than Tokyo Jihen’s Sports to mark my pace.

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It’s been three months since I started my new job, and I think the upheaval of such a change is just starting to settle down. (Evident in the fact I’ve made a virtual avalanche of posts.)

The job is busy enough to keep me off of social media for most of the day, and I actually like the fact I’m writing on my own time. Of course, it’s usually at 3 a.m. on those nights when I conk out on the futon too early.

The backlog, however, has gotten bigger these past months. I was proud when I managed to get it under 60 hours a few months ago. It’s sky-rocketed back up to 80.

So it’s time to clear out the slush pile.

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For the first time in its 20+ year existence, Waterloo Records laid off eight of its employees. When I worked there, the Internet was just starting to ravage the recorded music industry, but Waterloo managed to stem the tide by offering remarkable customer service.

Well, it’s hard to provide that service when your customers are dwindling. I number myself among the dwindling.

Digital downloads have made it easier for me to be a choosier CD buyer. My modus operandi now is to download albums from eMusic for a fraction of the full CD price. If I feel passionately enough about an album to want it in a physical format, I’ll buy it.

As I get older, the bar gets set higher. In the past, I would gamble on those purchases I could imagine selling back to the store after a year. (I still have to do that with EMI and Universal titles, since they’re not carried on eMusic.) I’m not a betting man these days. It’s also harder finding albums that really grab me.

In essence, I’m following the consumer pattern of an older listener — someone not as willing to gamble on new artists. (But are you really new if I heard you the first time under the name Duran Duran?) And yet I think my consumption has Increased.

I’ve also migrated mostly to listening on my computer, where I am most during the day. My car is the last outpost where the CD reigns, and my commute is a lot shorter with the new job.

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