I am happy that I upgraded to Spotify premium. No ads, hey, how can you not like that? The fidelity quality IS noticeably better than the free version. Having trouble with the iPhone app crashing but it's not as if it screws up once every hour or anything. I have faith that their developers will make things right. After all, they're shooting for the stars with this facebook merger. They've got Mark Zuckerberg endorsing it in the App Store. You can't even use the app unless you are a paying customer so hopefully some of that $10 a month will go towards improving the product. It's really not all that big a deal to me at this point, though it is highly likely it will be at some time in the future. I've been using it practically non-stop on my laptop since first subsrcibing.
It's great to be able to hear stuff that I don't normally listen to. Not just a song or two but whole albums. I'm sure how I feel about where that's led me...for instance, right now I'm listening to the easy listening staple 101 Strings. That's right...not LISTENED to it...LISTENING TO IT, emphasis on the present tense. In a strange "anti-rock-and-roll" mood I find that I am actually enjoying it. I'm concerned that this "anti-rock-and-roll" mood basically translates into "too old to rock and roll". Which may well be the truth. Even so, I am currently cringing to hear their massacre of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" so there's still some rebellion left in me. I've never dropped acid...not for want of a propensity to drop it, but luckily a total lack of opportunity...but I don't doubt that this version would push you into a much weirder trip than the Beatles ever could, were you under it's influence.
Good God. 101 Strings. I still can't believe it. But I did find some very intriguing, if no less bizarre, artists while digging around yesterday.
Clicking through a RIYL Washington Philips I came across the enigma that is Abner Jay, the "One Man Band". He toured his minstrel-esque show from his own mobile home from the 40s until his passing not too long ago. He sang, played a bass drum and high hat and a 6 string banjo (of his own design) and blew a mean harmonica as well. I read that he had all this stuff set up in his RV so that he could just pull up in lots, open up the side doors, sit in his comfy chair and play to whoever might hang around to listen. He wouldn't play for tips. In fact, you had to put money in his tip jar before he would play at all. His songs, at least the ones on the single album on Spotify (called "One Man Band") are a strange combination of recited jokes..awful and of a crude, sexual nature... poor man's social commentary ("Terrible things are always makin' headlines...") and a running theme of self-abasement. Witness "Cocaine Blues", in which Abner whines about how all the hippies migrating to Atlanta have made it difficult for him to score his drug of choice. He sings the chorus, "Cocaine, cocaine, running 'round my heart", sounding like a small child barely old enough to read. "And it's running, lord it's running 'round my brain". He's got a voice that is not going to be immediately appreciated, if you catch my drift, but there's something about it that I like. You can hear the addict's desperation throughout. His styling reminds me of someone but I can't quite recall who. I don't have any idea what Abner Jay has in common with Washington Philips, but I'm glad I found him. I don't like everything he does (I could REALLY do without the jokes), but there's just enough of what I do like that I can see myself buying his CD. For that matter "Cocaine Blues" makes the whole affair worth the asking price.
Listen to "Cocaine Blues" by Abner Jay
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