Thought I’d update everyone on my iPod progress. Because I know that it is just SO FASCINATING and you all are WAITING WITH BREATH A-BAIT to hear about my upload process.
Listening to the shuffle feature is now a distinctly humorous experience – because I have uploaded my entire CD collection (which, actually, is not that extensive – I still listen to cassette tapes as I have said a gazillion times) – so now I’m walking along the street, listening to the Shuffle – and Led Zeppelin comes on. Whoo-hoo. Let’s rock out. Next song. Some random Clancy Brothers song. hahahahaha I LOVE THAT. I have 15 Clancy Brothers albums … so you can imagine how often they come up now. It’s hilarious. But I love it!! I’m rarely in the mood to listen to a Clancy Brothers album all the way through – although I have gone through phases where they are all I can listen to. But to hear them sprinkled in among Nirvana and the Eagles and Fiona Apple … is just delicious.
I have written before about my strange and deep response to the Everly Brothers. Or perhaps not so strange – they’re classic! But it’s strange to me in that – it’s a response that seems to come from outside of me. Like: I NEED to hear them on an almost daily basis. I don’t know why this is. There’s something very very familiar to me about them – and I didn’t grow up when the Everly Brothers were in their heyday – this is not a personal memory being brought up … And yet they make me feel nostalgic. They also make me feel CREATIVE and ready to get to WORK. I do not know why. More than any other music. You know how some music just makes you feel positive? Like: Wait a minute, I can get myself OUT of this bad situation if I put my mind to it … Or it makes you suddenly feel like: wow. Everything is going to be okay. Everything already IS okay. I don’t know – maybe that’s just me. I have a hard time just feeling like everything is going to be okay. The Everly Brothers – especially “Bye Bye Love” (even though it’s such a damn sad song!!! hahaha) make me feel okay. In a real UBER way. I hear them, their harmonies, their lyrics, their melodies … and suddenly, I am not only FEELING okay, but I am ready to get down to whatever work needs to get done.
I am so not explaining this well.
All I can say is – I have The Everly Brothers Greatest Hits on, of course, a cassette tape. And since I have discovered what they give to me, emotionally, not a day goes by when I don’t listen to at least one of their songs. Mainly Bye Bye Love. I listen to it as I get ready to face my day.
So I’ve been so busy with the iPod upload – that I have turned a blind eye to all my damn CASSETTES – which I cannot upload. Argh – gonna have to get to work on that.
But a couple days ago, I was walking down the street – listening to my iPod shuffle (Madonna – Huey Lewis – Clancy Brothers – Elvis Costello – Johnny Cash) and out of nowhere, I thought of the Everly Brothers and realized I needed to buy a Greatest Hits of theirs ASAP. A Barnes & Noble was a block away so I went into their music section, bought their Greatest Hits, uploaded it that night … and now, on occasion, they show up in the Shuffle.
And EVERY TIME I hear the opening chords of one of their songs … it’s this strange uplifted feeling. I rise up out of myself.
What is that?? I have no idea. Just know that it is so.
Oh, and I took a 4 mile run the other night – and at one point during the run, the song “Sit Down, John” came on – from one of my favorite musicals (Duh) 1776. I haven’t heard that song in years. And as I ran, I just started LAUGHING out loud listening to it – it’s so MARVELOUS. The loud male chorus – of all the delegates at the Convention – singing out: “SIT DOWN, JOHN … SIT DOWN, JOHN … FOR GOD’S SAKE – JOHN – SIT DOWN!!!” I just looooooooove it. Marvelous.
Oh, and I’m really into Franz Ferdinand. Weirdly: I wasn’t as much into their stuff on the CDs I had – maybe because I just didn’t like listening to them all the way through, not in the mood for them for 8 songs at a time. I don’t know. But every time one of their songs pops up on Shuffle, I feel this thrill. Their songs work well as stand-alone songs.
I watched an Everly Brothers special on The Biography Channel the other day. Did you know that there was a time they didn’t speak to each other. . . for TEN years? They had a falling-out about the way their music was going, the way their LIVES were going, and all the resentment and anger just boiled over. Things were said that couldn’t be taken back, and that was it.
It was very sad. Even now, they’re performing, but still distant emotionally. It breaks my heart, because like you, I love their stuff. There’s a certain level of harmony among siblings that seems to be on the molecular level. They have that.
lisa – no, I did not know that! What a shame!
You’re so right about that whole sibling-harmony thing. It’s just effortless.
speaking of sibling harmony..i cant take Siobhan’s cd out of my shuffle..i love it more and more everyday! When are the O’Malley girls gonna sing together?
You have the 1776 soundtrack?! The movie or the play?
I’ve got to get that DVD! If I remember correctly, Blythe Danner has got a pretty good voice… and IMHO better looking than her daughter at that similar age. (Strangely enough, I bought the DVD for Michele C. when it was on her wish list but neglected to get a copy for myself)
Speaking of Siobhan, when’s her new CD comig out? DAMMIT!
JFH – I have the original broadway recording!! It’s the one I grew up with, so I just HAD to have it!!
Looooooove it.
“Here a Lee, there a Lee, everywhere a Lee Lee lee … ”
So many good songs. And the drumroll at the end, when each delegate stands up and adds his name and his state to the list – just gives me goosebumps every time.
Siobhan Update: although she can show up and give more details if she feels like it:
She is still busy recording and is having a blast!!
JFH – oh, and I just love Blythe Danner. Wonderful actress!
The Broadway version has a very young Betty Buckley in it – and man. The chick has got some major PIPES!! “He plays the vio-liiiiiiiiiiin”
Sheila, you’ll have to tune in to Idol tonight – rumor has it that it’s supposed to be 50’s songs. You may get an Everly cover. Hopefully it won’t be Kevin singing Kathy’s Clown.
Nightfly – I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit, imagining that.
When you add podcasts to your iPod, it gets REALLY interesting, because if you don’t clean the old ones out, the shuffle sees them as fair game.
The other day, I went straight from the D.O.C. (the West-coast rapper, circa ’89) to…
…drumroll…
A one-week-old State Department daily press briefing.
Man, that so kills the flow of the shuffle.
That’s odd. I’ve never had a podcast come up in a shuffle. I guess I don’t leave them on long enough.
However, I have had random chapters of audiobooks come up. That’s just annoying.
Betty Buckley? Like, Abby on Eight is Enough and in Carrie, Betty Buckley? Learn something new every day on your blog!
(BTW, always bothered me that she, as the gym teacher, had to die with the “bad” people, even though she was one of the few nice to Carrie)
Um, just did some quick research to find out I don’t know JACK about Broadway (especially compared to TV). I didn’t know that Betty Buckley was also THE orginal voice of “Memories” from Cats
what, red, no Kellie Pickler?
JFH – hahahaha, it’s okay!! Yeah, she kind of hit a mass-culture popularity with Eight is Enough which is how most people know about her – but yeah, she’s a big ol’ Broadway DIVA!! hahahaha Amazing voice!!!
I saw Betty Buckley do Cats!
sarahk –
hahahahahaha
the D.O.C. (the West-coast rapper, circa ’89)
I thought I was the only person outside LA who remembered him. He was #3 on my list back then…
Sheila,
I have the same problem – a TON of cassettes, many of which have a song or two that I just love.
Depending on how much of an audiophile you are, you can:
a) Get a good sound card and plug your stereo into it, and start recording stuff to digital, or
b) Use the sound card you have and plug the headphone outlet on your Walkman into your computer and record the stuff to digital.
I realize that may require a level of completist monomania that might even challenge you, but I’m just saying. I’m going to be going through the process shortly, one way or the other (I’m not a completist monomaniac, as a look at my kitchen will show you – but I NEED my old Replacements bootlegs and Single Love demos and my old band’s stuff, dagnabbit…)
mitch – yeah, the bootlegs are definitely problematic – I am gonna have to figure something out.
However – I do have a cassette tape of the greatest hits of Three Dog Night MERELY because once upon a time I decided that “Mama Told Me Not to Come” was literally the best song ever written. (Shut up.) Now the rest of the “greatest hits” BLOW – but I still feel that I need to have that one song. My passion for it has faded, but I still like to listen to it on occasion. This is when iTunes Store will come in to play, I believe. I haven’t “gone there” yet but I have a feeling i will go nuts when I see all the random songs that I not only WANT, but NEEEEEED.
“WAITING WITH BREATH A-BAIT”?
Sounds fishy to me.
I think “momma told me not to come” is a great song too. One of the best of their later work. However you should dig up a copy of “It’s for you” from their “Captured Live at the Forum”. If I ever get my LP’s digitized I’ll send it to you. Some of the best acapella harmonizing I’ve heard.
David N – wow! It’s not on the crappy cassette I have which is pretty uninspired except for that one song – I will keep my eye open for it in iTunes – thanks!
I always liked the song “Out in the Country,” the moreso because it isn’t played into the ground by classic rock and oldies outfits who think “Easy to Be Hard” and “Black and White” are the only two songs they ever recorded.
Mitch – can you get decent results with the headphone-to-mic rig-up? I’ve been dying to get a few of my cassettes onto a digital medium, especially since some of the stuff is out of print. That would rule my world.
If you had a desktop computer, you could get this nifty PC Cassette Deck. I almost bought this once, but then moved on to an even more stupidly expensive solution.
PC Cassette Deck…. aaarrgghghlllglllll [/homerdrool]
I will not spend the tax refund on the PC Cassette Deck
I will not spend the tax refund on the PC Cassette Deck
I will not spend the tax refund on the PC Cassette Deck
I will not spend the tax refund on the PC Cassette Deck
I will not…
Red,
yeah, the bootlegs are definitely problematic – I am gonna have to figure something out.
Well, I have my eye on this for my 2004 tax refund (yep – got my ’05, but not my ’04 yet. Don’t ask)
Fly,
Mitch – can you get decent results with the headphone-to-mic rig-up? I’ve been dying to get a few of my cassettes onto a digital medium, especially since some of the stuff is out of print. That would rule my world.
The answer, as with so many questions; it depends on how good the headphone circuit (or any other audio output) is on your cassette player, and how good your sound card is (the sampling rate, among other things).
The quality is “good enough”, depending on what “good enough” means to you. If I just want to slap something into digital in a hurry without needing audiophile-quality sound, it’s all right. Otherwise, not so much.
Thanks, Mitch. Basically that’s the answer I hoped for – “decent” meaning “I don’t have to shell out $25 bucks for an out-of-print CD for three songs.” I’m just looking to enjoy the thing.