I have always prided myself in being in front of the latest musical releases from bands and artists that I follow. Whether it is by word of mouth, blogs, band websites, friends, a little bird, the Goodyear blimp, or periodical, I felt like I have my ear to the street. I eagerly anticipated new releases like a giddy little school girl waiting to get her newest ‘Dress me like a Tramp – Barbie.’ Let me cut to the chase here. Green Day and Eminem released new albums that I didn’t know about. I must be losing my touch and I am humbled.

This leads me into the third stanza of my musical blog entries. Over the years, we have accumulated mass amounts of entertaining and not-so-entertaining music in different ways. In this entry, I hope to give you direction to where to go next if you have an insatiate need for new music.

(3) Where to go to find more
Today, I find myself searching for more new and interesting music. Therefore, I have some experience in summarizing techniques that can be employed to enhance your listening repertoire. There are many great sources out there that can expose you to new, not-so-new, and interesting music. But there some hurdles to continual refreshment of one's music catalog. Life events like marriages, births and new jobs sometimes get in the way. But as I said in the past entry, these are great ways to find inspiration and continue your search. I am not an expert in life’s catastrophe or how the search should be executed. But, because of the times I've had and, more importantly, because of my music addiction, I can speak to the growth rate of one's musical catalog. Moreover, I am pretty happy with my findings.

1. People (Carbon-based Lifeforms)
Sometimes it’s necessary to put down the iPod, back away from the computer, call in sick to work, and actually talk to people around you. To be honest, it really doesn’t matter who you talk to. Most people have opinions on everything. They should be able to give you something. And if they do, most of the time, we’re smart enough to realize what’s value added from the conversation and take that little dollop away and use it.

For me, I have friends for just about every genre. You just need to be open to seeing a new perspective. On one of many occasions, a close friend handed me a burned CD of music. There was and indie hip-hop artist on it called the Grouch. It was so good that I used it in our Wedding CD we gave as a gift at our ceremony. I am honest about my distaste for some forms of music. But the important message here is that alternate perspectives and differences are the threads of a great fabric of existence. All you have to do is open up to other influences. Most music dorks would love to burn for you an extensive CD of their greatest hits. Take advantage of people with more time than you.

2. Live Shows
I know that most of you might be thinking, ‘You have two sons and a wife. How do you have time to go to live shows?’ With life’s obligations, it’s an epic task to organize a trip to a concert or a show. The great thing I have is a supporting spouse who is not afraid to go to a Classic Crime show and listen to a bunch of screaming emo kids just so I can stumble on to a band like Quietdrive.

There's a reason people have been listening to live music for thousands of years. The reason is the unquantifiable volume of fun you can have. Give in to it and enjoy, the results are definitely worth it. And for the most part, seeing bands like Staind and Pennywise are known commodities. But discovering new stuff requires going to the show early enough to watch the opening act. There's usually a reason why bands are paired together. Take advantage of that pairing. I remember stumbling on to a Canadian hip-hop duo called Swollen Members who opened for De La Soul at the House of Blues in LA. These guys had more energy than Son #1 geeked out on a man-size bowl of chocolate ice cream topped with jelly beans.

3. Media Outlets (Radio, TV, Film)
So the radio sucks. But sometimes it pays to listen and see what is spewed from your speakers. It’s still music. I mentioned in the last entry about trying to determine what you are hearing. Before you needed a DJ to tell you and now, just get on the radio station’s website and see what they just played. Slam dunk.

Television has come a long way in the past few years. In the past, music used in shows was lame. Usually it reminded me of a really bad advertising jingle. I am not just talking about the theme song, but the music used during the show. Example: The Brady Bunch when they go to Hawaii. Every time you see that damn Tiki doll that stupid music would play. But things are different now, popular culture demands to be entertained and networks know it. To gain market share they pump shows full of gratuitous sexual innuendos, popular culture references, and interesting music. A few years back, my wife and I were watching some ubiquitous cop show. Wasn’t a fan of the show, but at the end of the episode, I was captivated by a catchy punk tune. Subsequently, I got on the internet, searched out forums for the show, and found that it was Authority Zero. To date, this is one of my favorite bands.

My wife and kids couldn’t survive without the TV in our house. Don’t get me wrong, I love the boob tube but can live without The Man telling me what to watch. We have new fangled digital cable and that gives us 1 billion different channels. About 100 of them are digital music channels. I’ve found that these channels work great for background noise. But more importantly, they’ve been the source of much new music. Just pick a channel and sit and listen. This is how I discovered The Duke Spirit and LeRoy Bell. These channels make it easy too. They display the artist, song, and album on the screen (along with useless facts about when the second lead singer of the band last had an enema or was convicted of possession of child porn).

4. Brick and Mortar Retail (Amoeba Music, Easy Street Records, Sonic Boom)
As I mentioned in the last entry, I love wondering aimlessly through record stores. This experience will open you up to so much more than just ‘listening’ to music. To that end, record stores can help you uncover a gem that just might change your life. This leads me to one of my most important lessons. It’s not the album that you uncover at a record store. It’s that this album could be responsible for another 100 other bands you might like. Not because any of them sound like the first, but because one led to the next, which led to the next, and so on.

Much of my inspiration comes from this quote from a fellow blog author:

“As I wandered the aisles at Amoeba Music, I remembered why I like to do my music shopping like a bipedal organism. It's fun to be at record stores. I like the posters. I like the clacking sound the CDs make as people bang them together. I like watching the nerdy girl's eyes light up when she finds an old PJ Harvey album. It's all tangible; it's real reality, as opposed to the virtual kind offered up by a computer, a mouse and a credit card.”

This is why I recommend record stores. Music takes us places, not only because of the sounds we hear but because of the circumstances surrounding our experience with them. That includes the purchase. We might remember the store, the setbacks in life, the girl standing next to us when we unwrapped the CD, or the sex we had when we listened to it for the first time. Or, more likely with the music in my collection, the sex we didn't have when we listened to it. It doesn't matter if the music is awful. That's not the point. The point is that a voyage around a record store will lead you to something unexpected. That unexpected thing might lead to something great or to something terrible, or it might lead nowhere. A download doesn't have the same potential for sensory overload. There is no shared experience and life is about shared experiences.

5. The Internet (Amazon, iTunes, CDBaby)
We are now in an instant gratification era where everything you want can be obtained at your finger tips. Music. Check. Pizza. Check. Beer. Damn…we need an iPhone app for this. Anyway, the internet is a great source for music. No matter when or where I hear a new band, I end up on the web googling them or checking them out on Wikipedia. Then, there is a decision to be made; procurement. Legal or illegal, you make the call. For people who don’t like to pay for music to support struggling artists, there are tools like Limewire and BitTorrent where each month brings new, faster ways to download music and viruses for free.

More ethically permissible options of musical procurement include Amazon which is a great place to buy music in an MP3 format. I love the artificial intelligence deployed by Amazon.com. It’s one of the smartest search algorithms on the planet. Type in a band's name on Amazon.com and the site will recommend similar artists. The process is remarkably accurate and can lead you to your next big find. Sure, there are other options out there for your downloading needs. iTunes, Rhapsody, and Napster are examples. But when it comes to linking me to my next big find, Amazon.com has me hooked.

Another great tool is CDBaby.com. I went through a phase a few years back where I swore off listening to major label releases. It didn’t make sense that some jack ass in a suit was telling me who the next big thing in punk was. I found CDBaby.com out of this exercise in defiance. Back in the day, its search algorithm wasn’t as cool as it is now. There was less to search for on the system. Now, the system is bigger and the searches are deeper and more relevant. Your visit CDBaby.com is pretty intuitive. The search line on the top of the page says, ‘Let’s find you some music…’ Come on, it doesn’t get any more leading that this. But the greatness of this site is in its artist search association. Follow the ‘Discover Music’ link to get to the real deal. I recommend using the ‘Sounds like’ search field. Throw your favorite band’s name in this and CDBaby.com will scratch its electronic cranium and list back indie artists which can be compared to your favorites. Literally dozens of albums in our catalog came from CDBaby.com

Like I said, you can tell a lot about a person by examining their music collection. My wife and I pride ourselves on our diversity in music and our backgrounds. People have often asked me what type of music I listen to. A lot of times I respond with punk or some sort of specific interest stuck in my head that day. But really, there’s only one type of music I listen to and that is good music. Anything that inspires you, connects with you, pushes you, entertains you, and makes you a better human, or at least helps you make better decisions in your life, is what art is all about.

And now back to your regularly scheduled program...

A few weeks ago, I was reading a blog post by one of my favorite authors which led to the inspiration of this three-part post. He isn’t critically renowned or even nationally credited. He is an ex-pro athlete who dabbled in the NBA for years before heading overseas to play. And while he isn’t Ernest Hemmingway, his writing style is entertaining due to his dry wit and I always enjoy immersing myself in his ramblings. Generally, his topics range from women, to jobs, to traveling, to self-worth, and to music.

The latest post was in regard to music. Something near and dear to my heart, this is a topic that I enjoy reading about; especially from a dude who has an ‘alternate’ take on life much like myself. The article was about feeding your hunger for music and there was one point that really resonated with me. Here it is: Most people believe that we decide what music we will like early in their lives. We pick a genre of music and refuse to ‘hear’ anything else. It's like a busy highway full of gridlocked traffic. There is no way in hell that you are going to let that driver in the ‘Country’ genre merge into your lane.

(2) How we amassed our interests:
Both the author of that blog and I do not agree with this generalization. In fact, both of us would say that your spectrum of music appreciation grows exponentially as your years increase. With time, we should all be listening to more good music. There are many reasons for this, several I plan on addressing here. This is not an all-inclusive story of how we amassed our library or the end-all-be-all for feeding your hunger for new music. But it is a starting point for a thread of consciousness.

1. Life events (birth, death, marriage, relocation)
In my most ‘humble’ opinion (it’s my blog); I would estimate that life changing events are the largest influence on amassing music and broadening your listening repertoire. The first life event, birth. Yours. You were dropped into this sometimes hapless existence to parents who most likely had some sort musical interest, maybe even slightly demented. This was my first exposure to anything other than my mother’s heart beat and father’s rambling through a layer of tummy. My earliest memories as wee little one were listening to Eddie Rabbitt and John Denver. This is ground zero. Next, the birth of your kids, or maybe even someone else’s kids. I have found that on two particular occasions in my life, my musical exploration grew at a larger than normal step. Having two little boys had me clamoring for new music that captured how I felt at those life waypoints. I felt older after Son #2 and immediately reconnected with my inner punk demons and the Dead Kennedys again.

Getting married is another opportunity for your musical catalog to grow. Marriage to my wife afforded me the opportunity for two particular exercises. First, we scored our entire ceremony and produced a musical CD gift for all of our guests. The activity opens you up to new emotions and ways to communicate your message. This was a ‘softer’ period in my life with a little Edwin McCain. Keep in mind this was balanced with a Staind and Frank Sinatra. So I mentioned there were two exercises from the marriage that grew our musical interests and our library. The second is that after marriage, things become ‘community.’ This includes music. My wife and I inherited each other’s music into one consolidated library. However, I strongly disclaim that the Waiting to Exhale Soundtrack is not mine. The wack music is hers.

It’s funny how moving from place to place will grow your interests and expand your library. When I moved to Los Angeles, I was in this urban, hip-hop, soul kind of vibe. But being removed from my comfortable shell in Northwest, I found myself looking to connect with something that echoed how I was feeling. Alone. The move to LA circled me back to a little of my roots. The darker, brooding, anti-establishment, introspective music I grew up on in my adolescent years. Enter Pennywise. Now I am not proud of my Creed albums but hearing them unlocked more doors to find deeper interests like Face to Face, Linkin Park, and Peepshow. Sometimes it’s not the initial find; it’s the subsequent find many links later. I call it the network effect.

2. Media outlets (internet, retail, digital music channels, napster, radio, television, film)
Traditional and non-traditional media outlets are the most common way we grew our music interest and our collection of recorded music. Who hasn’t watched MTV at some point in their life and eventually ran to Tower Records (where?) and bought the cassette or CD? I say cassette because no one watches MTV now. It is a timeline reference. I discovered Remy Shand this way. It’s the same with the radio. Back in the day, you had to call the radio station or hope the DJ said what he or she recently played so that you could some how rob your piggy bank and hit the shopping mall for that single. Now, just get on the radio station’s website and see what they just played. Films have been a source of musical discovery too. I remember watching the Collective for the first time and hearing Slackstring play Sunday Jen. I had to get that album.

Speaking of the internet, what a great way to grow your interests and music collection. Now there are legal ways of procuring music and there are those gray areas that some people, including the RIAA, have issues with. I usually end up here after I have discovered a new artist or band on some other media format like film or TV. I heard The Gaslight Anthem in a movie and booted up the old laptop and bought the ‘59 Sounds album. As far as gray area procurement goes; who hasn’t used Napster (the old one, not the new pay version), Limewire, or BitTorrent to grow your music catalog. I literally have tons of hard drive space full of music downloads. For the most part, it was one-offs I just couldn’t justify buying. I would never buy a Third Eye Blind or a Train album, but I will download their songs for free. Are the police at my door?

Whether you are talking about my great taste in music or my wife’s wack albums, the vast majority of our music has come from retail outlets. The first outlet, mail order catalog sales; Remember BMG and Columbia House? I used to setup fake aliases with my mailing address just to sign up to get 15 free CD’s with a new membership. Sign up a friend and get 6 more! I kept adding ‘friends’ and the funny thing was all of my ‘friends’ lived at the same address. Unfortunately, you were at the mercy of the selections they carried. Usually it the popular radio friendly stuff. I used the service to pick up CD’s like Mariah Carey. The ones I would NEVER buy.

Then there are the albums I would buy. The one thing I have always loved was going to the record store. So the digital revolution in music I welcomed, but I knew it wouldn’t give me that same feeling or sensory overload as wondering aimlessly through Amoeba Music or Tower Records. Sometimes it was a targeted mission like when I went to find that new 2Pac CD. Other times, I just wanted to walk around, hear the clacking sound the CD’s make as people bang them together, and discover something new. To that end, there were times a friend and I would stumble down to the Tower Records in Santa Monica. I went in just browsing through genres and admiring the cover art. I felt that good inspiring cover art would lead to good music. One of those many nights, I strolled through the blues section only to find a CD with cover art of an illustration of an overweight black dude in a wife beater. The character was spanking two females with junk in their trunk. The CD was An Ass Pocket of Whiskey by RL Burnside. The art may be a turn off to some but his version of the blues was truly innovative.

3. Network connections (friends, family, and artist similarities)
In regard to exposure to music, I think a great opportunity comes from those around you. Friends, family, enemies, they all have musical interests. On literally thousands of occasions, I have been somewhere, with somebody, and heard something that really connected with me. When I lived in Long Beach, my room mate listened to some great stuff. He had a race car, and on a long early morning drive to the race track, he threw in a CD which was so different that anything I had ever heard. He was into Metallica but this CD was not even close. It was Lifehouse. I was blown away. Another example of the network effect is the opportunity to share with others. I stumbled on to a local band, The Classic Crime, once by listening to our digital music channels. I was an instant fan. My wife and I went to one of their concerts in Seattle. At the show, we invited a young couple to come sit with us at our booth at the bar. Turns out, the guy was an A&R rep at Tooth and Nail Records. We all hit it off and chatted about music. He sent me a dozen new albums of bands he felt I would like based on our conversation at the bar. This network connection opened my eyes to Anberlin, Fair, and Jonezetta. I passed this music on to my friends and continued the network effect. I love enjoying it and dissecting it with them and hope that they, as I have, diverge in their musical interests.

I have found that this entry on our blog was pretty difficult to curtail and keep to my 1000 word maximum. There was just too much to share here on how we expanded our music catalog and or interests. Each one of the items above could be an entry. So just like how our musical interests have expanded exponentially over the years, this entry grew at an alarming rate. But it to me it was important to convey the grow theorem behind our library. Once again, you can tell a lot about people by taking a peak through the window at their musical catalog. It is truly in snap shot of their souls.

Next up: (3) Where to go to find more