Two Days with The Echo Nest

Last week I had the extreme pleasure of heading over to The Echo Nest for a couple of days to help out with a tiny project. It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my professional life. I feel like I have a new crush.

The Best of Everything

→ An audio version of this article is available.

Rearrange Me by Criminal Hygiene
Kibitzer by Tall for Jockeys
Puke by Mumblr
Mayonnaise by Woolen Men
Derek’s Song by The Coathangers
Wind Up by Pity Sex
The World Fell by Vår
Crush Em by Serengeti
Sister by Kate Nash
Shuggie by Foxygen

Tagged with music

The Long Goodbye

→ An audio version of this article is available.

Wicked Game by Chris Isaak
Cattle and Cane by The Go-Betweens
Alex Chilton by The Replacements
Thirteen by Big Star
Love Vigilantes by New Order
Pineapple Face (Big Day Out mix) by Revenge
Getting Away with It by Electronic
Rearrange Me by Criminal Hygiene
Sea of Love by The National
The Mercy Seat by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Never Again by Slumber Party

Four Songs by The Go-Betweens

Let me tell you about The Go-Betweens. They’ve been one of my favorite bands for the past ten years, though I stopped listening to them for a while after Grant McLennan died. If you know me you know I organize my music by season, and because I run on nostalgia, I like to add the season I was…
Tagged with music

Science Hack Day

Didn’t know what time it was and the lights were low I leaned back on my radio Some cat was layin’ down some rock ’n’ roll ’lotta soul, he said Then the loud sound did seem to fade Came back like a slow voice on a wave of phase That weren’t no D.J. that was hazy cosmic jive David Bowie,…

Here Comes Another Summer

Let me preface this as usual by reminding everyone that I am really not comfortable writing or talking about the web. Last year I shared a side project I had been working on, Sound of Summer, which I built on top of some metadata I’d been storing for songs in iTunes. It was very fulfilling! I…

101 Words: Criminal Hygiene’s “Rearrange Me”

It’s still early and I’m woefully uncool, but “Rearrange Me” by Criminal Hygiene (released 2012) is my favorite song of 2013. Criminal Hygiene sounds like everything I like about The Replacements. Their lead singer is a modern version of a kind of sprezzatura I perceive in young Bruce…
Tagged with music

Introducing Ovrture

See what I did there? I’d like to announce Ovrture, a music utility I built with Andy McMillan. Ovrture aims to introduce you to music you might like by taking recommendations from your Last.fm profile and playing one popular song per artist. If you are an Rdio subscriber of any level, you…

Rock Me Joe

Today is the ten year anniversary of the death of Joe Strummer who, only in the months after his death became such a hero to me, so it goes. I still living in New York on the first anniversary of his death and attended a tribute show at Irving Plaza with my best friend Jamie, one of the biggest…
Tagged with music

Sound of Summer: Technical Review

Recently I announced Sound of Summer, a catalog of past summers with respect to music. This was my first Rails app and takes advantage of both the Rdio and Echo Nest APIs. I got more comfortable with git, AJAX, and JSON but I still feel like a fraud around the words array, object, and constructor.…

Sound of Summer

Today is June 20th, the summer solstice, the first day of summer here in the northern hemisphere. The first day of summer is typically significant for me, so I’d like to introduce Sound of Summer, a personal project I’ve been working on since Memorial Day Weekend, the unofficial first…

I can tell you how I got from Deep Purple to Howling Wolf in just 25 moves.

Some people find an artist’s catalog to be the way they like to carve up the domain of music; most people find albums to be discrete enough. For me that unit is seasons. Seasons are inexorably tied to mood and can also be associated with life changes, especially when you’re young and all you do…
Tagged with music

Harpsichord Time.

I’ve had three encounters with the song “Golden Brown” by The Stranglers, and each one has endeared me to it more than the one before it. I’ve only had a passing interest in The Stranglers. I started listening to them in my junior year of high school, but was not…
Tagged with music

Heart of Glass

Seemed like the real thing.

101 Words: Sad Playlist

Fade into You by Mazzy Star
Love Song by The Cure
The Damned Don’t Cry by Visage
Enjoy the Silence by Depeche Mode
Come Live With Me by Heaven 17
Compulsion by Martin Gore
Hysteric by Frowny Face Empire
I Want The One I Cannot Have by The Smiths
Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division
Surprise Ending by Supermodel Stalker

Tagged with music