The Music Appreciation Thread

[musicchica86]

Hey guys, as many of you know, I'm a music business major at Belmont University in Nashville, TN. As such, I get the opportunity to work many many many industry events (again, most of you know I got to go to LA to work the Grammy's and got a lesson with Alec Mazo while I was there!:D ), and I actually just got back from one of those events and had the idea for this thread. This week is Tin Pan South, a huge songwriter's festival put on by NSAI (Nashville Songwriter's Association International). I worked the shows tonight at one of the several venues around town and came back completely in love with one of the writers I saw perform.

So, to get to the point, I thought it would be cool if we had a thread where we could all share our current musical obsessions and maybe offer up suggestions to each other for new artists to try out! You can give their name, genre, maybe a bit of a description of what they're like/why you love them so much, and try to find a link to where we can sample the music.

I'll start: I met Sage Keffer tonight and was really, REALLY impressed with the guy. Obviously he's a country singer/songwriter, and he's absolutely incredible. For the ladies, he's really good looking :raisebro: and he's super super nice. I really can't say enough good things about this guy.

You can check him out at:
http://www.myspace.com/sagekeffer
or
http://www.sagekeffer.com

My favorite of his songs that he played tonight unfortunately isn't online or on his CD, but I guess that's one of the benefits of getting to see such great live music!

Okay everybody, start discussing your own favorite music!

[musicchica86]

Anybody?:(

[Zaratustra shaking it]

What about "Los Van Van"? they top my list in cuban music.

[cornutt]

One of the great things about being in D.C. last week was that the Tower Records in Tyson's Corner was right down the street from my hotel. I came home with a bunch of stuff! Back in the '70s, it was common to find well-stocked record stores in nearly every town in the U.S. I used to love to go into places like Turtles' Records in Atlanta or Paradise Records in Chattanooga and spend hours browsing, pulling out albums of bands I had never heard of and looking at the credits to see who was in the band, and at the cover art and titles to guess at what the music sounded like. I spent my teenage years listening to progressive rock on WSIM in Chattanooga ("the 5,000-watt matchstick"). It was a great background to have in music and it led me down lots of other musical paths like classical, jazz, and blues.

I have pretty wide-ranging musical tastes as a result. Here's what I came home with:
* Friends of Dean Martinez, "Lost Horizon". I have a hard time categorizing this. FoDM likes to combine Southwestern, '50s lounge, and ambient influences, and this has lots of pieces consisting of big washes of keyboards fronted by some very retro-sounding guitar and drums. It's all instrumental, and apparently there is some sort of concept judging by the song titles, although I haven't yet figured out what it is. Very different, but highly recommended.
* David Gilmour, "On an Island". I've only listened to a couple of tracks so far. It's surprisingly mellow.
* Modest Mouse, "Good News for People Who Love Bad News". Might be a little too college-alt-trendy for me. But I've only listened to it once so far.
* Gamma 4. This is heavy-metal guitarist Ronnie Montrose, reviving his '80s guitar+keyboards rock idea. Haven't made my mind up about it yet; I'm kind of thinking this keyboard player didn't have the chops to keep up.
* Donald Fagan, "Morph the Cat". An absolutely wonderful album. Like a lot of the Fagan/Steely Dan stuff, there's a lot of musical compexlity and some very witty lyrics hiding behind a veneer of light jazz-rock. Worth a good close listen.
* Autechre, "Untitled". Autechre is a very experimental electronic group. I think of it as how John Cage might have turned out if he'd been born 50 years later. Not for the faint of heart.

[SPratt74]

I actually went to college for two years at a private music school myself. Needless to say that I didn't graduate from there, because I could not see myself teaching music or anything like that. And the funny thing is that when I read your title, you reminded me of a class I took called Music Appreciation!

Anyhow, I pretty much like all types of music except some Rap and Heavy Metal. And I like a variety of artists. There are some that I like more either because I have met them, or because I have attended their concerts and was amazed by everything!

One artist I love, and that I have a cute story about is B.J. Thomas. He came into town with another artist, and I got to meet him after the concert. I was able to get my picture taken with him, and it was cool, because he hung onto my picture, and told me that I was pretty. He would not let go of my picture lol! My sister thought that he was going to ask me to go back stage with him. And I remember that her mouth was just dropped by his comments towards me. Anyhow, anytime that I am down by a break up or something like that, I think about how I at least impressed B.J. Thomas, and it makes me feel all pretty again lol!

I also have a great respect for 98 degrees, Chicago, and The Beach Boys. 98 degrees was so much fun! I remember that we were in the front row, and my friends and I would put up our arms, and the guys would do the same! I have a complete respect for them for even paying attention to us. I remember that I had Justin's attention, but he probably thought that I was crazy lol! My group is wild like that though. Although, it did help that we had a Britney Spears look a like in our group lol! She's since changed her look, but back then she looked just like her lol, and Britney was in at that time lol!

But other than that, I worked at a music store in town for two years. I loved it! I would have stayed, because I really like the manager, but it just didn't pay squat! But it wasn't really a job for an adult, because of the pay if that makes sense. It was more for like high school students that needed a part time job. ;)