Aug 28, 2010
I spent Wednesday night at a local bar watching Five for Fighting. Well let me rephrase, I spent most of Wednesday night at a local bar for the purpose of watching Five for Fighting, but spent most of it people watching. We ended up waiting over two hours for him to take the stage, and he didn’t play very long, but it was worth it.
I got to spend two hours with good friends, and watching the wide variety of people who show up for events like that. Since I don’t get out much, and have never really done the bar thing here, it was a good time.
I’ve listened to Five for Fighting’s (aka John Ondrasik, yes one guy, you learn new things all the time) music for years. I have to say though, I appreciate it more now that I’ve watched him perform live. He gives background stories for the songs he sings live, which is amazing. He seems like a really cool guy. It was fun to watch him sing a couple songs he’s well known for (Superman and One Hundred Years), and a few others I’m not as familiar with.
Did I mention it was free? Overall a great way to spend an evening, especially when your weeks are as stressful as mine have been. And if you don’t know who I’m talking about you should definitely give him a listen.
Aug 15, 2010
I tend to get tired of listening to the radio, and eventually even listening to my own music collection. Radio stations tend to repeat songs more often than my iPod, and too often it’s hard to find a radio station that consistently plays music you want to hear. Living in Utah makes it that much harder.
When I’m at home I much prefer to listen to music online. Currently my two favorite sites are 8Tracks and Grooveshark.
8Tracks is a great way to listen to mixes created by other people. The assortment of musical genres encompass anything you might want to listen to. It’s a great way to discover new music. When one play list ends it randomly chooses another for you. Sometimes you get something good, sometimes you get something bad, but you can always skip mixes and let the randomness choose what you listen to. You can search by keyword to find mixes that might involve themes you like. I’ll admit I actually used this site to listen to potential songs for my wedding, and I found some too.
Grooveshark I actually use less, but I find it’s really great when I want to listen to a particular artist. You can create an account, build your own playlists and save them for the future. You can even have a friend list. The UI is actually a lot nicer than 8tracks, I just like the variety on 8tracks more.
Online radio and music sites are a lot more diverse and interesting than normal radio. It’s nice to not be required to listen to the same music over and over again, just waiting for the next big hit to come out.
