Friday, January 31, 2014

Under The Ivy: The Life And Music Of Kate Bush



http://librarycatalog.pima.gov/search/X?t:(under%20the%20ivy%20the%20life%20and%20music%20of%20kate%20bush)+and+a:(thomson)

I have posted about Kate Bush before, but she is so awesome that she requires more than just one post. During one of my catalog searches looking for good blogging material, I was overjoyed to discover that the library owns the biography of Kate Bush: Under The Ivy. Continue reading to learn more....


Sunday, January 19, 2014

How This Freegal Flew, or, Three Immigrants' EDM

I've discovered that Freegal is a good source of dance music singles.

This is an important discovery for me as I really like dance music, and I've always loved the single. I used to spend many hours (and dollars) in record stores digging through bins of vinyl singles, checking the little 45 RPM 7" singles for rare b-side tracks, and the big 12" singles for otherwise unavailable extended and/or remixed versions. Then record companies decided that singles "cannibalized" sales of full LPs (making me the oddball in the crowd who'd take great pride in placing every single associated with a given album next to the LP on my shelf). After 2000 the singles bins began to disappear from record stores. By 2010 record stores had disappeared as well (for the most part), so I've been lost at sea here in the desert, unable to find or buy the music that once kept my feet dancing. However, there's some hope for the dance single in the digital age, with online retailers both big and small beginning to sell .mp3 and higher quality .wav tracks, but the collections and browsing functions always seem haphazard, making any new vendor of dance singles welcome just because each one broadens the palate of options just a little.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

HAIM - Days Are Gone

2013 was a big year for the HAIM sisters (Alana, Este, and Danielle Haim...you might guess how they named the group). They released a critically acclaimed debut album, Days Are Gone, performed on Saturday Night Live and Austin City Limits, played some of the world's biggest festivals (Glastonbury, Treasure Island), and performed with huge names like Phoenix and Mumford and Sons. So why the sudden rush of popularity? In my opinion, HAIM produces stellar pop rock in the vein of Fleetwood Mac and Genesis, but with the smiling, no-drama persona of the Von Trapp family. Another critic wrote how refreshing it was to review a mainstream band so "uncool." The girls seem to just love playing music and asking you to sing along. I would agree: the music video for lead single, "The Wire" has the girls leaving groups of heartbroken men in their wake, consoling each other with manly three-way calls and scattered bottles of wine! Silly, toe-tapping fun for everyone.