It's the morning of October 29th as I write this, so Nanowrimo 2011 is hours away from beginning. I've been playing with different ideas over the past several weeks, looking for ways to build concrete ideas around collections of notes and random thoughts. And I seriously feel more prepared to begin than I have been for any of the three previous years I've taken this on. But right now that planning doesn't feel like it adds up to much, because the only thing I'm thinking as I get closer to the starting date is "Holy crap, is this going to be a lot of work." All that work I've done to try and wean myself off caffeine? Gone. Worthwhile sleep? Not so much. Too early mornings and too late nights? Here for the foreseeable future. It really makes me question why I'm bothering, and I don't mean participating in this particular marathon so much, but to question why I even bother investing the time it takes to try and write at all. The odds are overwhelming that anything I ever write, including any given post here, might read by maybe twenty people, tops, if I'm lucky. But I guess in the end it comes down to that in the life I've built for myself I simply can't see myself NOT writing. So forward I will go. Even if it means that 'Summer Vacation' will likely be taking a vacation of its own for the next month or so. I'll probably do a series of short posts to just clear my head from time to time and remind myself that the word count is actually moving forward, but seriously, knowing what I've got ahead of me this year, I fully know I'll be lucky to even get that much done here.
So today I'm doing another version of Take Out The Trash Day, or Big Block of Cheese Day. And even if the latter reference doesn't quite apply as much as the former, I like it better. And if you don't understand the references behind either of them, sit down and watch "The West Wing" already....
*I still can't wrap my head completely around this new level of social interaction called the Facebook friendship. I have several Facebook friends I see frequently, and yet we never mention anything to each other about anything that's come up on Facebook. Has commenting on a post, or even just reading one, or even clicking the Like button, taken the place of actual discourse? And how is it there are people you can have several common friends with but neither person pulls trigger to "friend" each other? For my part, I really hate the idea of trying to wedge myself into someone else's life in any capacity at all, even just being on a Facebook list, unless I'm positive I'd be welcomed, so I don't send out a lot of friend requests. And yes, I'll fully admit the collection of defense mechanisms that passes for my personality doesn't make it easy for even people I LIKE to reach my inner circle. But who are these people that have 900 or 1,000 Facebook friends? How do you even KNOW 1,000 people? Do you friend everyone you share a bus ride or a grocery store express line with? My point here is: Out of all these Facebook changes, I actually kind of like the group update thing. Even with the small number of friends I have, I can click those and see what's going on just with my family, or one particular group of friends, or whatever. It feeds my compulsive organization.
*Monday will be the Halloween party at school, which means the bunny suit will again be making an appearance. Based on the popular t-shirts at school this year, I'm curious to find out exactly how many people will be dressed up as Angry Birds or Wimpy Kids. I'm not sure how someone would pull off a Wimpy Kid costume, but something tells me the good people of the costume industry have already figured this one out.
*All week I've been listening to Coldplay's newest album, "Mylo Xyloto," which, even though it has a tragically awful title, is a pretty good album. Now, do I consider myself a Coldplay fan? Not really. If I'm a fan of someone, I really have to think they can do no wrong, or at least have a remarkably high average of doing things right. And Coldplay? Eh... not so much. I hate the song "Yellow" so much that if it comes on the radio it makes me want to scrape all of the skin from my face just so I will feel such an overwhelming pain I won't notice the song anymore. I bought their second album when I kept reading and hearing about how great it was, but when I listened myself I felt it was the musical equivalent of an empty notebook.
Being ever the optimist (?!) though, I still bought their third album "XY" when some of the radio songs were interesting. I hoped this indicated a new direction and they really were becoming a band close to as great as everyone kept saying they were, but it wound up having just a couple of interesting radio songs and more of the same dull. But then "Viva La Vida" came along, and yeah, even if that title song became ubiquitous in the summer of 2008, I liked the album so much it made me glad I gave them one more chance. It had a very strong progressive streak for a pop album and really broke around what was considered the template for popular music at the time. When they released the companion EP "Prospekt's March" soon after, I took the best songs from the two and made up my own playlist album that I think is better than either of them. So I was kind of psyched for this new one, since I expected they'd continue the more progressive trend and not fall back to the empty melancholy pop that defined them early on. And after a week, I'm very happy with this new one. Still prog-pop, but with a much stronger electronic sound to it. And I don't mind saying -- partly because I know it would offend the Coldplay antifans/musical hipsters of the world -- "Mylo Xyloto" has a musical sensibility to it that would easily let it pass as a lost album by Cloud Cult. And if you have issues with this? Shut up. My music can mean something to me without me caring if it means anything to you.
*I am completely addicted to the "Stuff You Should Know" podcast. I have few moments of zen more satisfying than lying down in my offce and playing Bejeweled Blitz or Words with Friends on the iPhone while listening to Josh and Chuck have their researched conversations about things like asteroids, the Nile River, Quantum Suicide, Scooby Doo, hiccups, samurai, breathalyzers, alien hand syndrome, how dogs perceive time, lobotomies, James Bond, innovation, mountaintop removal mining, igloos, venomous animals, Legos, Spam, Twinkies, anti-matter spacecraft, or any other number of seemingly random but surprisingly fascinating topics. It's almost enough to make me wish I lived in Atlanta so I could hang out with these guys, if I was smart enough to keep up with the conversation. If you listen to Podcasts at all or are even just curious, I highly recommend going on iTunes and finding one of these to try out. Most of them are only about half an hour long. Pick a topic that sounds interesting and you'll be hooked.
*And now to close, a special dedication to Mr. And Mrs. Bomani, in light of the rather significant week they've had. Perhaps you won't entirely agree with the philosophy of these lyrics, but I'm confident you'll appreciate the poetry and sentiment behind them:
Taken from "Living Proof," by Bruce Springsteen from the 1991 album "Lucky Town."
Well now on a summer night
In a dusky room
Come a little piece of the Lord's undying light
Crying like he swallowed the fiery moon
In his mother's arms
It was all the beauty I could take
Like the missing words to some prayer that I could never make
In a world so hard and dirty
So fouled and confused
Searching for a little bit of God's mercy
I found living proof
And thank you for not naming him Brock.
Okay folks. Talk to you in a month. Wish me luck, and if you do see me in the real world, stay on my back. It takes a lot of pushing to come up with 50,000 words.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
Return to the Lake
Nanowrimo 2011 is less than two weeks away. In case you don’t know what that is or have forgotten since the last time I got all self-indulgent about it, you can find out more here and here.
This will be my fourth time, and I’m proud to say I’ve come out on top each year I’ve taken it on. The dynamic will be different this year though: The friend who originally convinced me to try it is taking what may or may not be a temporary respite from the endeavor. This was a little concerning at first since taking on such a monumental project is easier when you have someone working in parallel to motivate you. But she’s out of the picture, and instead my writer cousin is going to be joining me on the Nano road. No, not that writer cousin -- I’ve leaned on him to try it before and he always finds some greased-pig way out of daring to take it on. I didn’t even bother asking for this November since I’m sure the little pansy would play the “Yeah, but my son was just born LITERALLY DAYS AGO so I’ve got other things to do with my time” card. And considering that, well, I guess he’s off the hook for at least one more year. So instead I’m going with my other writer cousin, my young protegé, the little Texas dude with a mind twisted enough to try reimagining the classics of children’s literature as ultra-violent revenge quest adventures. But since he has a few middle school commitments to attend to he’ll be taking part in the Youth program, for which he only has to produce 30,000 words or so over the month. Yeah, only. Ask yourself the last time you wrote something 30,000 words long. In a month. No small feat, especially when you aren’t even old enough to get a learner’s permit. But he sounds pretty keyed up to get started, which gets him over the biggest hurdle.
I remember my initial year of Nanowrimo as being a serious a battle. I focused on word count first and story second, and put together a manuscript that now sits in a folder somewhere, a cool idea with flashes of potential that was paired with an awkward execution. My second year went much better; I had a concept with a lot of emotion attached to it. And even though I had little idea about where the story was going, the whole thing just bled out of me once I started. That one turned out well enough to attract the attention of at least one agent, and now sits in a folder with scads of revision notes waiting for its turn to come back to life. Then last year, Year 3, I took on something far more abstract and experimental than I’d ever tried before, which stands as easily the most polarizing project I’ve ever finished. Some people loved it. Some hated it. Few were neutral.
The thing that each of these projects had in common was that I started working on them early in the morning of November first with no preparation other than a few vague ideas of what I wanted to try. This year is going to be different. In fact this year I’ve done such extensive prep that I’m planning on blowing past that built-in goal of 50,000 words and shooting for something just a bit beyond 60K. And I have no doubt I’ll be able to do it, mostly because, in a manner of speaking, I’m already more than halfway there.
Now, before anyone accuses me of cheating, let me explain... This year instead of starting over with a brand new idea and beginning a manuscript from scratch, I’m taking an existing one, arguably my strongest one, and rewriting it. Almost completely. Just over a year ago I thought I had it to a point where it was ready to go on submission, but twenty or so form rejections later I began to have second thoughts. As I ran it past a few people for second looks and took a hard look at it myself, I started to see it as more of a concept in a later draft form than a finished work. Comments people had made, both positive and critical, took on new life. Random ideas I’d gotten from different beta readers began inspiring new directions. Time spent reading different articles gave me ideas about how I could approach this, and before long it started to grow into something deeper, more fully developed, and... seriously? More frightening than it was before. (And if you’ve ever been one of my beta readers in the past, you’ve likely figured out which manuscript I’m referring to by now, and you probably get the title of this post.) Ironically, since I’m knee deep in revision planning, the same version of the manuscript that was dismissed so many times over has a little piece of life to it right now since it’s being read to a class of kids who are right in the target demographic, and from the updates I get about progress it sounds like it’s going over like gangbusters. A few kids have been creeped out by it during read aloud. One student came back to school telling of nightmares she’d had related to the story, and another hijacked a couple of characters to use as examples in a piece of his own writing work. Cool things for sure, but it all makes me think, “What until you see what’s still coming.”
The puzzle pieces came together to show me what I could do to make it into the epic I’ve always wanted it to be but knew in my heart it hadn’t quite become. But now? Not only do I see how to beef up everything I want to keep and revise everything I don’t, but I’ve found a third act that wasn’t there before, something that sprouted from an itch of an idea that remained after the last time I thought I was finished. Just a thin loophole of possibility that spiraled everything into bigger and darker levels.
So now I have goals. I really would like to see this project someday make a serious run at publication, and I believe it can. But to achieve that I have to methodically work my way through creating a story and a world so undeniable and powerful that it will be impossible for agents to categorically overlook and publishers to ignore. I want it to become the kind of story that people remember from their childhood, partly because of the impact it had on them and partly because of the nightmares it caused. I want it to be a story that I’m proud of, something uncompromisingly engaging that will pull its readers in so deeply they’ll feel disoriented by their surroundings when they pull back from their reading.
Lofty goals for certain, but that’s the vision I have right now, eleven days before I begin working in earnest. I know it can get there. I know it can achieve what I want it to be. The trick will just be making it happen.
This will be my fourth time, and I’m proud to say I’ve come out on top each year I’ve taken it on. The dynamic will be different this year though: The friend who originally convinced me to try it is taking what may or may not be a temporary respite from the endeavor. This was a little concerning at first since taking on such a monumental project is easier when you have someone working in parallel to motivate you. But she’s out of the picture, and instead my writer cousin is going to be joining me on the Nano road. No, not that writer cousin -- I’ve leaned on him to try it before and he always finds some greased-pig way out of daring to take it on. I didn’t even bother asking for this November since I’m sure the little pansy would play the “Yeah, but my son was just born LITERALLY DAYS AGO so I’ve got other things to do with my time” card. And considering that, well, I guess he’s off the hook for at least one more year. So instead I’m going with my other writer cousin, my young protegé, the little Texas dude with a mind twisted enough to try reimagining the classics of children’s literature as ultra-violent revenge quest adventures. But since he has a few middle school commitments to attend to he’ll be taking part in the Youth program, for which he only has to produce 30,000 words or so over the month. Yeah, only. Ask yourself the last time you wrote something 30,000 words long. In a month. No small feat, especially when you aren’t even old enough to get a learner’s permit. But he sounds pretty keyed up to get started, which gets him over the biggest hurdle.
I remember my initial year of Nanowrimo as being a serious a battle. I focused on word count first and story second, and put together a manuscript that now sits in a folder somewhere, a cool idea with flashes of potential that was paired with an awkward execution. My second year went much better; I had a concept with a lot of emotion attached to it. And even though I had little idea about where the story was going, the whole thing just bled out of me once I started. That one turned out well enough to attract the attention of at least one agent, and now sits in a folder with scads of revision notes waiting for its turn to come back to life. Then last year, Year 3, I took on something far more abstract and experimental than I’d ever tried before, which stands as easily the most polarizing project I’ve ever finished. Some people loved it. Some hated it. Few were neutral.
The thing that each of these projects had in common was that I started working on them early in the morning of November first with no preparation other than a few vague ideas of what I wanted to try. This year is going to be different. In fact this year I’ve done such extensive prep that I’m planning on blowing past that built-in goal of 50,000 words and shooting for something just a bit beyond 60K. And I have no doubt I’ll be able to do it, mostly because, in a manner of speaking, I’m already more than halfway there.
Now, before anyone accuses me of cheating, let me explain... This year instead of starting over with a brand new idea and beginning a manuscript from scratch, I’m taking an existing one, arguably my strongest one, and rewriting it. Almost completely. Just over a year ago I thought I had it to a point where it was ready to go on submission, but twenty or so form rejections later I began to have second thoughts. As I ran it past a few people for second looks and took a hard look at it myself, I started to see it as more of a concept in a later draft form than a finished work. Comments people had made, both positive and critical, took on new life. Random ideas I’d gotten from different beta readers began inspiring new directions. Time spent reading different articles gave me ideas about how I could approach this, and before long it started to grow into something deeper, more fully developed, and... seriously? More frightening than it was before. (And if you’ve ever been one of my beta readers in the past, you’ve likely figured out which manuscript I’m referring to by now, and you probably get the title of this post.) Ironically, since I’m knee deep in revision planning, the same version of the manuscript that was dismissed so many times over has a little piece of life to it right now since it’s being read to a class of kids who are right in the target demographic, and from the updates I get about progress it sounds like it’s going over like gangbusters. A few kids have been creeped out by it during read aloud. One student came back to school telling of nightmares she’d had related to the story, and another hijacked a couple of characters to use as examples in a piece of his own writing work. Cool things for sure, but it all makes me think, “What until you see what’s still coming.”
The puzzle pieces came together to show me what I could do to make it into the epic I’ve always wanted it to be but knew in my heart it hadn’t quite become. But now? Not only do I see how to beef up everything I want to keep and revise everything I don’t, but I’ve found a third act that wasn’t there before, something that sprouted from an itch of an idea that remained after the last time I thought I was finished. Just a thin loophole of possibility that spiraled everything into bigger and darker levels.
So now I have goals. I really would like to see this project someday make a serious run at publication, and I believe it can. But to achieve that I have to methodically work my way through creating a story and a world so undeniable and powerful that it will be impossible for agents to categorically overlook and publishers to ignore. I want it to become the kind of story that people remember from their childhood, partly because of the impact it had on them and partly because of the nightmares it caused. I want it to be a story that I’m proud of, something uncompromisingly engaging that will pull its readers in so deeply they’ll feel disoriented by their surroundings when they pull back from their reading.
Lofty goals for certain, but that’s the vision I have right now, eleven days before I begin working in earnest. I know it can get there. I know it can achieve what I want it to be. The trick will just be making it happen.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Wasted (?) Rewards
I really kind of like my credit card this year. Not because my interest rate is super exceptional or anything, but because of my rewards program. As I accumulate points, or whatever virtual currency has been assigned to me in this system, I'm able to trade them in for so, so many different rewards, and they really do have a little shopping mall worth of options for me. But predictably enough I always fall back to a standard choice: the iTunes gift card.
What could make more sense for me? Music is awesome. Free is awesome. Free music? Super awesome. I get free music and suddenly I turn into Andy from "Parks and Recreation" with my excitement. My latest iTunes card showed up in the mail today. I scratched away the little silver bar on the back to reveal my code and put that baby to use right away, downloading the new album from Evanescence, which was just released earlier this week.
You remember Evanescence, don't you? Sure you do. A band led by a female singer with a very strong, melodic voice singing over some depressingly goth/vaguely self-pitying songs built around some minor-key piano lines and crunchy guitar chords. They had a monster album with a couple of big radio hits back around the turn of the century, give or take a couple of years. "Bring Me to Life?" "My Immortal?" Yeah, well, you'd know them if you heard them. The second album came out a couple of years later, well after typical narcissistic infighting decimated the band, leaving only the singer to rebuild it all by pretty much replacing all of the other musicians. Unfortunately, from my perspective at least, one of the best things about the band was the musical composition that went into the songs, and after the big ugly break-up scene sent some of the more pivotal songwriters packing, that was more or less lost. That second album was an okay rock album; it stayed in my rotation for awhile but didn't prove all that memorable in the end. And after that, the band fell off the map for several years.
Until recently, like in earlier this week recently when this new self-titled album came out. I'm listening to it as I write this. And you know what? A lot like that second album. It's a serviceable rock album with some decent little hooks to it, but overall its showing itself to be just as forgettably generic as I expected it to be. Which begs the obvious question -- why did I even buy it if I had such low expectations?
Because there was a chance it would be good.
I've learned over the years that I'm something of an explorer when it comes to music. I read a lot about it, I follow the careers of different musicians, and this way I find myself led into discovering albums I don't or artists I'm not familiar with that could have some kind of connection, however tenuous, to an artist I already know and like. iTunes is really good at exploiting this weakness, so it turns out I will download a lot of music purely on spec -- maybe because of the user reviews, or the editorial write up, or some professional reviews, or the listing of similar artists, or maybe even just the name of the band is kind of cool and I'll decide they must have something going on if they were bold enough to name themselves something like Spock's Beard or The Airborne Toxic Event or Fair to Midland or even The Poodles. (The Poodles are a pretty awesome band playing an updated European knockoff version of 80s metal, by the way. Try and imagine the convoluted thread that led me to that discovery.)
So, to reflect upon this odd proclivity of mine, I'm going to give you a list of artists I've discovered simply because I took a chance, even if I knew next to nothing about them before I gave their music a first try, and I wound up with at least one more album that I really enjoyed. I'm deciding to limit myself to 20, just as a nice round arbitrary number. Here they are, kind of alphabetically I guess:
*The Airborne Toxic Event: Found from an iTunes link. Saw them described as "literate." I was hooked. Three great albums later they are one of my big discoveries of 2011.
*The Answer: A British hard rock band, very old-school and bluesy. iTunes. I can't imagine why they were never played in the U.S.
*Black Country Communion: Heard of on VH1 Classic's, "That Metal Show." A hard rock supergroup from just a couple of years ago, including one ex-member of Dream Theater playing rock so deeply intrenched in the 70s you can almost smell the incense. Two great albums released in about 14 months.
*The Dead Weather: I saw them perform on Letterman or Conan a month before their first album came out. The performance was electric. I didn't realize until it came out that Jack White was in the band.
*Glen Burtnik: Heard a single on the radio back in the 80s. Bought the 45 (I KNOW!) and put it on many of my 80s mix tapes. Found a good back catalog years later.
*Grace Potter and the Nocturnals: Just learned about them this summer when Todd Park Mohr of Big Head Todd and the Monsters mentioned on Facebook his band was about to play a show with them. I figured, if they can keep up with BHTM, they must have something. They do.
*Hum: I heard one song on a radio show and found the album. You know the song -- you'd recognize the hook from countless television commercials. Not a great album overall, but the songs that got to me really, really got to me.
*Kamelot: Found them on Pandora on my Dream Theater station. A little too theatrical, but not necessarily in a bad way.
*Marah: I heard a song on the radio and picked up that Bruce Springsteen was doing a backing vocal. That made it worth checking out.
*Matthew Good: iTunes reviews said he was HUGE in Canada. Some sort of ambient but very good songs.
*Nine Days: A one hit wonder for most people; "Story of a Girl" from the 90s. But I have five or six albums, and they have two or three of my favorite songs.
*The Poodles: Already covered. Awesome and ridiculous at the same time.
*Porcupine Tree: A band that was traveling in the same circles as some of my other favorite bands, so it was inevitable that I checked them out. They are now one of my favorites on their own.
*Ryan Bingham: Heard him on Letterman. Got out of bed and downloaded the album.
*Savatage: When I was wondering where the hell the Trans-Siberian Orchestra had come from, I learned that whole project stemmed from this band. If you think you would like that bombastic, operatic hard rock outside of Christmas songs or forced theme albums, here you go.
*Spock's Beard: I heard they were touring with Dream Theater. A large percentage of all of my favorite music can be traced back here.
*Taking Back Sunday: I liked the band name and saw they'd been around awhile. I figured if they had staying power there must be a reason. Gave it a shot. Good summer driving album.
*The Twilight Singers: Letterman. Immediate download. No regrets.
*30 Seconds to Mars: I was too curious about a Hollywood prettyboy like Jared Leto posing in a ridiculous pink mohawk and trying to say he was a serious musician to not see what it was like. And I'll give the dude his credit -- Fight Club is not the only cool thing he's ever been involved with.
So sometimes it can really pay off to step outside of the comfort zone and see what else is out there, music wise. However, I have to say with full disclosure that my music library has at least twice as many of these exploration artists or albums that turned out to be mostly awful. But I try not to think about those so much....
What could make more sense for me? Music is awesome. Free is awesome. Free music? Super awesome. I get free music and suddenly I turn into Andy from "Parks and Recreation" with my excitement. My latest iTunes card showed up in the mail today. I scratched away the little silver bar on the back to reveal my code and put that baby to use right away, downloading the new album from Evanescence, which was just released earlier this week.
You remember Evanescence, don't you? Sure you do. A band led by a female singer with a very strong, melodic voice singing over some depressingly goth/vaguely self-pitying songs built around some minor-key piano lines and crunchy guitar chords. They had a monster album with a couple of big radio hits back around the turn of the century, give or take a couple of years. "Bring Me to Life?" "My Immortal?" Yeah, well, you'd know them if you heard them. The second album came out a couple of years later, well after typical narcissistic infighting decimated the band, leaving only the singer to rebuild it all by pretty much replacing all of the other musicians. Unfortunately, from my perspective at least, one of the best things about the band was the musical composition that went into the songs, and after the big ugly break-up scene sent some of the more pivotal songwriters packing, that was more or less lost. That second album was an okay rock album; it stayed in my rotation for awhile but didn't prove all that memorable in the end. And after that, the band fell off the map for several years.
Until recently, like in earlier this week recently when this new self-titled album came out. I'm listening to it as I write this. And you know what? A lot like that second album. It's a serviceable rock album with some decent little hooks to it, but overall its showing itself to be just as forgettably generic as I expected it to be. Which begs the obvious question -- why did I even buy it if I had such low expectations?
Because there was a chance it would be good.
I've learned over the years that I'm something of an explorer when it comes to music. I read a lot about it, I follow the careers of different musicians, and this way I find myself led into discovering albums I don't or artists I'm not familiar with that could have some kind of connection, however tenuous, to an artist I already know and like. iTunes is really good at exploiting this weakness, so it turns out I will download a lot of music purely on spec -- maybe because of the user reviews, or the editorial write up, or some professional reviews, or the listing of similar artists, or maybe even just the name of the band is kind of cool and I'll decide they must have something going on if they were bold enough to name themselves something like Spock's Beard or The Airborne Toxic Event or Fair to Midland or even The Poodles. (The Poodles are a pretty awesome band playing an updated European knockoff version of 80s metal, by the way. Try and imagine the convoluted thread that led me to that discovery.)
So, to reflect upon this odd proclivity of mine, I'm going to give you a list of artists I've discovered simply because I took a chance, even if I knew next to nothing about them before I gave their music a first try, and I wound up with at least one more album that I really enjoyed. I'm deciding to limit myself to 20, just as a nice round arbitrary number. Here they are, kind of alphabetically I guess:
*The Airborne Toxic Event: Found from an iTunes link. Saw them described as "literate." I was hooked. Three great albums later they are one of my big discoveries of 2011.
*The Answer: A British hard rock band, very old-school and bluesy. iTunes. I can't imagine why they were never played in the U.S.
*Black Country Communion: Heard of on VH1 Classic's, "That Metal Show." A hard rock supergroup from just a couple of years ago, including one ex-member of Dream Theater playing rock so deeply intrenched in the 70s you can almost smell the incense. Two great albums released in about 14 months.
*The Dead Weather: I saw them perform on Letterman or Conan a month before their first album came out. The performance was electric. I didn't realize until it came out that Jack White was in the band.
*Glen Burtnik: Heard a single on the radio back in the 80s. Bought the 45 (I KNOW!) and put it on many of my 80s mix tapes. Found a good back catalog years later.
*Grace Potter and the Nocturnals: Just learned about them this summer when Todd Park Mohr of Big Head Todd and the Monsters mentioned on Facebook his band was about to play a show with them. I figured, if they can keep up with BHTM, they must have something. They do.
*Hum: I heard one song on a radio show and found the album. You know the song -- you'd recognize the hook from countless television commercials. Not a great album overall, but the songs that got to me really, really got to me.
*Kamelot: Found them on Pandora on my Dream Theater station. A little too theatrical, but not necessarily in a bad way.
*Marah: I heard a song on the radio and picked up that Bruce Springsteen was doing a backing vocal. That made it worth checking out.
*Matthew Good: iTunes reviews said he was HUGE in Canada. Some sort of ambient but very good songs.
*Nine Days: A one hit wonder for most people; "Story of a Girl" from the 90s. But I have five or six albums, and they have two or three of my favorite songs.
*The Poodles: Already covered. Awesome and ridiculous at the same time.
*Porcupine Tree: A band that was traveling in the same circles as some of my other favorite bands, so it was inevitable that I checked them out. They are now one of my favorites on their own.
*Ryan Bingham: Heard him on Letterman. Got out of bed and downloaded the album.
*Savatage: When I was wondering where the hell the Trans-Siberian Orchestra had come from, I learned that whole project stemmed from this band. If you think you would like that bombastic, operatic hard rock outside of Christmas songs or forced theme albums, here you go.
*Spock's Beard: I heard they were touring with Dream Theater. A large percentage of all of my favorite music can be traced back here.
*Taking Back Sunday: I liked the band name and saw they'd been around awhile. I figured if they had staying power there must be a reason. Gave it a shot. Good summer driving album.
*The Twilight Singers: Letterman. Immediate download. No regrets.
*30 Seconds to Mars: I was too curious about a Hollywood prettyboy like Jared Leto posing in a ridiculous pink mohawk and trying to say he was a serious musician to not see what it was like. And I'll give the dude his credit -- Fight Club is not the only cool thing he's ever been involved with.
So sometimes it can really pay off to step outside of the comfort zone and see what else is out there, music wise. However, I have to say with full disclosure that my music library has at least twice as many of these exploration artists or albums that turned out to be mostly awful. But I try not to think about those so much....
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