Of all the changes technology has wrought to my listening habits and way of experiencing music, the biggest impact has come from the way my iPod destroys context.The most obvious benefit of the iPod revoution is the convenience of having thousands -- even tens of thousands -- songs in your pocket. The days of getting up to change a CD, much less flip a record -- are long over, except for the Luddites, traditionalists and retro fanatics among us. And plenty has been written about the death of th
So I just flipped on the inauguration, a few minutes before Obama took the oath, and who do I see playing to usher in the 44th President, our first African-American president, the first president who acknowledges having Jay-Z on his iPod? Let me give you a hint. It wasn't Jay-Z. It wasn't Kanye (although I doubt he will claim this president doesn't care about black people). Hell, it wasn't even MC Hammer. Nope, it was a cellist named Yo Yo Ma, if I am not mistaken, and while I can't hate on his
​The indie rock world has more than its share of rags-to-riches,
flannel-to-Fendi stories - glimmering groups who seem to go from the
basement to the buzz bin overnight. Bad Veins - the Cincinnati-based
duo of multi-instrumentalist/songwriter Benjamin Davis and drummer
Sebastien Schultz - fits the mold, rocketing from its first gig to
critical and commercial adulation in a year, and securing a deal with
much-admired Dangerbird Records before the pair could even begin
shopping around. The secre
If you're in need of some new music to freshen up the ol' iPod, yet find yourself as bereft of disposable income as ever, here's some good news: more than three dozen free albums from Rope Swing Cities, all in one place for easy perusal. The local IDM/ambient electronic netlabel is just about ready to restart releasing music again after a moderate hiatus, and to celebrate, they made one, easy to access location for their entire back catalog. The artists represented include nearly a dozen
