Music - Invaluable.

Words cannot begin to describe how much music has influenced me over the years and how it helps me get my head together and puts me in a special place. A place where I'll happily stay if it wasn't for the interaction with other human being-type creatures. When there's stuff going off around me in work, I slap on the oversized headphones and raid my bulging iTunes collection for some musical treat. It's great that a lot of the office have iTunes too, so there's a massive network of streamable music right there for me. A lot of my musical taste is varied and I've gotten used to using the amazingness which is Pandora and last.fm to locate new music for me I would never have found while dumbfounded in a store.

The Digital Revolution

I bought into the iPod revolution quite late - I dodgedly stuck to my guns with MiniDisc in the same way I stuck to my guns with cassettes when CDs made their appearance. Christ, I sound old. Maybe because I am. Anyhoo, I've not bought CDs in an age - I always check out iTunes and the invaluable "Just For You" section which will nicely guess what music I might like and then I can preview the album in the same way I'd squeeze fruit in a supermarket before I purchase it. When technology works, it's great. Sadly sometimes the iTunes Store doesn't want to appear. Imagine that at a shop till with the check-out attendant pulling out a huge cardboard error dialog box and holding it in front of you for a few minutes. Also iTunes does the irritating thing of sometimes not having albums on there - or worse - partial albums. What the hell is all that about? They could only clear half an album for iTunes? I blame the lawyers.

Steve Recommends #1 - Paperface/Chris Merritt

I first heard Paperface on the mighty Pandora and I think the Weezer/Ben Folds similarity sold it to me, though the first tune I heard was a beautiful ballad called Lullaby taken from The Legend Of Harry Knowles. It's achingly heartfelt and that stuck a chord with me. There were other tunes on Pandora too including the epic Three Times A Week - so I was happy to discover the album as well as Rock, Scissors are both available on iTunes now. If you like your music to be melodically-fuelled piano rock, then step this way! There was a stack of Paperface demo mp3s which I downloaded from the old site before it got took off - remind me to throw the mp3s on my sadly unused server space so I can share the love - there's some cracking tunes there.

Still Kicking!

One half of Paperface - Chris Merritt - is still making music and his new album Hello, Little Captain is also available via the magick of iTunes! You can also visit his official site here and listen to the tunage with the handy Flash player. Rather brilliantly, he managed to track me down on my MySpace and got an invite to join his site, and lo! Facebook too! I would seriously love to create a retro-styled animated pixel video to one of his tunes. One day it'll happen - stay tuned.

Steve Recommends #2 - Sondre Lerche

Pandora is to thank for this once more - Sondre was part of a particularly brilliant jazz collaboration album called The Duper Sessions which features an incredible cover version of the great Elvis Costello's Human Hands. iTunes disappointed with the lack of this (only one single), though there is a load of his other albums and I grabbed Two Way Monologue recently and really, really like it. He's got an astounding voice, though he definitely needs more exposure... or maybe he doesn't. I kind of like listening to music which isn't mainstream. Sondre has an official site complete with a handy Flash player for you to check out some of his wares. I managed to find a YouTube video of the single from The Duper Sessions -

I absolutely love this tune!

Steve Recommends #3 - The Dears

My God. These guys know how to kick booty. Check out their myspace for a new tune, and here's the obligatory YouTube video just outlining how awesome they are... this video is brilliant.

Spot The Connection?

Pianos! I had a thing for pianos when I was a teenager, and often enjoyed spending time hammering out random chords which sometimes made musical sense during the darker days of my time at school. I really need to get back into playing a musical instrument for my own amusement and contemplation when the videogames don't cut it any more. I'm glad I've got tomorrow off work, even though I'll probably do some work "on the side" in an attempt to play catch-up. Work is pretty hectic at the moment, and it could be less hectic. It isn't though and this is a worry. I mean, if you could make something less hectic - you would, right? It's not happening though. That's probably why I'm annoyed and I use music to take me away from it all.

Lastly...

I hope this guy isn't real...

His profile on YouTube is full of this kind of strangeness. Enjoy?