I am journaling my additions to my ripped-to-computer library partly to keep track for myself of the music I have lately added and also to put these artists and titles in wider circulation. These artists have less than mainstream play on last.fm, but in my opinion are all eminently listenable–as distinct from music that is less approachable.

I say this because there are many artists that I listen to tha I frankly think are an acquired taste. I also think that listeners would be rewarded for the experience, but understand that Mats Gustaffson (the jazz artist, not whomever last.fm has…

I dunno how DontLetsStart's request for vocal jazz got me down this trail, but I guess it might have been bigsexyshaq's warning that bebop+vocals/=pleasing results. I had to agree mostly (that's why I thought Manhattan Transfer would not be a good starting point for DLS).

But I also thought that a lot of the jive vocals of Slim & Slam and the like are dangerously close to bebop, seeing as bop came out of the same idiom and many of the vocal scatting repertoire of bebop-jazz vocals share the same birth-momma as jive and swing.

So I started…

Susie Ibarra plays Friday at the Detroit Institute of Arts. I will be in Chicago. I will not be having fun. Drag.

In making this list, I am trying for the less obvious eMusic downloads that have brought me hour of enjoyment. I won't insult your intelligence by noting that the Ayler disks available through eMusic are worthy. This is assumed. With that, I humbly submit 10 of my favorite wastes of time, to borrow from Marshall Crenshaw.

By the way, do not download the Marshall Crenshaw What's in the Bag. It is a waste of time.

Susie Ibarra TrioRadianceAs might be obvious from my last.fm playlist, Susie Ibarra brings me joy, and no more so than with Radiance. Ibarra…

My top artist this week is apprently the Minutemen. Don't get me wrong, I like the Minutemen and am not ashamed of my love for the Meat Puppetsor Camper Van Beethoven/Cracker either.

I just don't remember listening to the Minutemen fifty-seven songs worth. Then it struck me–my son and nearby neighbor honestenginewas downloading music on my computer (thus also the entries from Twink, Osibisa, Smiths, and Jay-Z. And then the offal hit the rotating air circultion device. He downloaded the update for iTunes and sent over half of my iTunes library…

Vladimir Cole wrote this on Joystiq, a game-system fansite:

A Something Awful forum user (kalocin) has put together a package of 16 remakes of popular songs synthesized using an NES's audio system. We're currently wirelessly streaming all of these MP3s from the laptop being used to write this post to the Xbox 360 that we're using to play Kameo. Good, sacriligious fun.

Losing My Religion
Final Countdown
Karma Police
Bohemian Rhapsody
Eye of the Tiger
Stairway to Heaven
Sweet Home Alabama
Kashmir
Angel of Death
Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now
Yellow
Superfreak
Closing Time
(Silence)
Plus!!!!
Hidden NESmix Intro
Zero…

I just took a look at the last.fm charts for the last available time period. I think it was week ending 30 April. I scanned in vain to find anything but pop and rock on the top 100 artists.

Ideally, I was looking for someone iconic, such as Miles Davis, John Coltrane or, since it was his birthday last week, Duke Ellington. I'm not an idiot–I didn't expect to find Archie Sheppor the Art Ensemble of Chicago(though for the life of me, I can't understand why not one of these five is not more popular than…

Sitting here listening to "Satellites Are Spinning" by Sun Ra and the Intergalactic Arkestra, reminiscing about a time that a group of friends and I went to see Sun Ra play at the Quiet Knight on Belmont in Chicago. This would have to be about 1974 or 1975, thirty years ago.

The Quiet Knight was emphatically NOT big enough for the entire Arkestra, but there they were: Akh Tal Ebah, Eloe Omoe, Gilmore, Pat Patrick, Marshall Allen, and of course, June Tyson and her dancers. The dancers and the front row patrons battled for space and the leotard-and-shimmer clad dancers…

Yesterday, my profile information said "52 years old." Through the magic of databases and java applets, today it says 53 years old.

A little older, a little more confused.