Sitting here listening to music on Pandora.com. Created a new “station” (all Pandora stations are personalized) — Frank Zappa, Meat Beat Manifesto, Skinny Puppy, Cabaret Voltaire — and Pandora serves up wonderful tracks by Front 242, Wumpscut, and OMD.
This is the real deal. Earlier I was listening to a station defined by Snoop Dogg. Pure hip-hop. Mainly for the production values — the lyrics, when you can understand them at all, are obnoxious and brainless. Nice production, in some cases. But the productions don’t quite compare with this stuff.
Thinking earlier tonight about putting together a live set so I can play some gigs. Put my Yamaha Motif XS on a stand, a laptop by my elbow — what else do I need? (Answer: youth. I’m fresh out of that, though.) Thinking, should I do some arrangements of tunes folks will recognize?
Listening to these tracks, though … there is just no reason to be anything other than completely original. Every moment, something new. Why serve up bowls of oatmeal when you could put your finger in the socket?
Jim Aikin's Oblong Blob 