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At last night's They Might Be Giants concert, Carina observed that we've been introduced to a lot of great music through the various acts that have opened for TMBG over the years: Mucky Ferguson, OK Go, and last night Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer is a duo out of Belfast, Ireland, with a terrific sound and great attitude. I chatted with the fellows briefly after the show, and they were extremely engaging and down-to-earth. Carina bought their CD, and I'm looking forward to listening to it.

And speaking of listening to music, I heartily recommend last.fm. I've been using it to listen to Pat Radio, a Columbus internet radio station that plays an amazing assortment of great music. It's extremely rewarding to be able to send an email to Pat, the operator, to request a song only to hear it played within moments!

I haven't tried out the social aspects of last.fm yet (remember: I'm a late adopter of internet services, and not particularly keen on social network services), but I've been contemplating using it to discover other music I might enjoy, as well as to influence the music other folks discover.

  • Anne
    November 8th, 2007 at 2:56pm
    Have you tried Pandora? www.pandora.com
  • Giga
    November 8th, 2007 at 3:25pm
    You guys are making me jealous again. I've loved TMBG since I first heard my roommate's copy of Flood in the dorms.
  • skippy
    November 8th, 2007 at 3:26pm
    No, I haven't tried Pandora, but I know some folks who use it. It looks to me that Pandora is strictly web-based, whereas last.fm provides a number of platform-specific stand-alone clients which provide all of the same functionality that is available through the website.
  • Owen
    November 8th, 2007 at 3:43pm
    I find last.fm to be useful, as you've said, for the desktop client it provides. On the other hand, Pandora's use of the music genome project makes its recommendation system superior. Last.fm is only as good as its listener base, so if few people listen to the type of music you like, then you only get a few tunes in your station before it dies. It's not so bad if you can find a well-supplied genre, but my music tastes are eclectic. My only other gripe about last.fm is that it doesn't have a way to mitigate extenuating circumstances when your playback list goes awry. I apparently love a certain artist because I put the album on at work, then forgot that I left the player muted during a phone call. When I left it running over a weekend on repeat, I must have really liked the music. I do, but now my recommendations are all skewed with no easy way to correct it. I like listening to other people's stations, which is helpful to discover new music, especially if I already know I like their tastes.
  • Anne
    November 8th, 2007 at 9:28pm
    I love the music genome stuff -- put in some songs or artists you like, and it finds other artists and songs that have similar keys in the genome, and plays them too. I've found it to have a fairly broad selection, even in something as eclectic as celtic rock, which I seeded with Old Blind Dogs and Seven Nations. It's fun to experiment with mood stations on Pandora too.

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