Rock And Roll

So the guy that normally leads worship for my middle school time on sunday morning is gone for the next two weeks. That means that I get to do it, which I love doing. The problem is picking out a few songs that will be good for me to do. If I could sing a little bit higher, I'd do this one. (Sorry, it won't let me embed it) JM

I'm A Rich Girl

This site is so interesting to me. It lists the #1 song on a given day for the last 110+ years along with links to song samples on iTunes. While the song from my actual birthdate is lame (Rich Girl), most of the songs are awesome. Also cool to see and hear the songs from way back when. (ht:Marko) JM

Radiohead's New Album

I was curious as to how well Radiohead's album would do since it had no promotion and was only available for download from their website for however much you wanted to pay. Glad to see they did well. They had 1.2 million downloads and people paid an average of $8 for the album. Read the full article here. JM

Hillsong Conference

I wish Hillsong was in the U.S. Check out the opening of their conference from this year. Awesome. Maybe Eryn and I can go to their conference next year, just to get a free trip to Australia. Although I would have trouble listening to Joyce Meyer without throwing up. JM

Radiohead's New Album

Radiohead have a new album out called In Rainbows. It's available on their website and will come out on October 10th. You can download it on that date at least and they plan to ship a discbox that has a CD and two 12 inch vinyl albums. If you buy the discbox, then you get the download for free on 10.10.07.
They are trying to prevent their CD from getting leaked like it has the past few times. What's cool about the download is that you pay whatever you want for it. It just has a blank where you can tell them how many pounds and pence you want to pay. It says "it's up to you" and "no really, it's up to you". Awesome idea. I mean, they don't need the money, and they are going to sell crazy amounts. It's just awesome to see independent musicians fighting the system.
I'm going to get the download, I just don't know how much to pay for it. JM

Tom Wehrle

My friend Tom Wehrle has a new CD coming out in a couple of weeks. What's cool is you can listen to the whole thing right now on his website for free (I'm listening right now). What's even better than that is he included some backstory on each of the tracks telling how they were recorded and why he wrote them. It's pretty cool to listen to. JM

Polyphonic Spree

Polyphonic Spree may be the most aptly titled band in the history of music. I saw them on the MTV music awards several years ago but never gave them a chance because it just seemed like kitsch because there were so many of them.
A couple of days ago, though, I watched one of them free concerts on DIRECTV and they really aren't that bad. I might even call myself a fan. JM

Music Links

Not sure if you've heard about Pandora. I've seen a lot of people talking about it, but for good reason. Basically you go in and type in the name of a band that you like. Then they play songs by that artist as well as artists similar to it. It's pretty accurate and you can discover a lot of new music.
This is the 10th anniversary of Radiohead's OK Computer, which some consider to be the greatest album ever released. It's definitely one of my favorites. Stereogum had some bands do covers of all of the songs, and they've posted them for free on their site. Some of the covers are very good. I especially like David Bazan's cover of Let Down. It's great because he already writes depressing music and he's covering a depressing song, so it becomes this great depressing song. Check it out. JM

Nevermind Baby

The baby (Spencer Elden) who was on the cover of Nevermind by Nirvana turned 16 today. Makes me feel old. Amazing how old that album is now. I still remember the first time I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit. I can't say that for many songs. JM

Music

I know I'm way behind the times on music, but I really think I might like Amy Winehouse and Mat Kearney. They both seem to write really catchy stuff. I don't buy a lot of cd's, but I have like $45 on a gift card to best buy so I may go get both of their cd's along with the Wicked sountrack.
I also just pre-ordered my friend's new CD. You should check him out. JM

New Music

Man, I've been looking for a way to check out new music and really discover if it's worth the time or not. It's not too hard to find mainstream stuff, but finding Christian stuff has proven exceptionally difficult. I recently started subscribing to Relevant magazine and noticed a blurg about their site www.relevant.tv. It's loaded with music videos from tons of different artists. Check it out. JM

Sweet Child O' Mine

So during mission trip, one of the students showed me how to play the lead intro to Guns N' Roses Sweet Child O' Mine. Obviously this is one of the greatest songs ever written. I'm really bad at playing lead stuff, but I was messing around with it some today, and was actually getting it to kind of sound like the song. I'm still a long way off, but I'll be so pumped when I can actually play it.
Also during mission trip I learned how to play Helena by My Chemical Romance. It's the kind of song that when you play it you want to be in a rock band. Loads of fun. JM