Music Discovery

I miss having a proven source for discovering new music. It used to be radio and MTV (urgh), then in the mid-90’s (for me at least) it was late nights in bars in Boston. That was the heyday for me as far as finding music that was in a separate world from the charts and the land of commercial music. It was glorious.

Eventually it ran out of gas though. Well, truth be told I was the one who ran out of gas. The idea of driving home from T.T. the Bear’s place in Cambridge at 2am started to lose it’s appeal, and musical trips into town became something saved for special occasions (ie: Mission of Burma).

In 2008 I was looking for a site to use to host my attempt at the RPM Challenge and I ended up on both Virb and Alonetone. Both sites lead me to a slew of bands and artist that I otherwise never would have found. Many of those acts still have me waiting with baited breath for the next release even though most of them were very far removed from my usual musical comfort zone. Folk rock became a thing for me, as well as lots of acoustic singer/songwriters (usually women), and dare I say it… some electronic music (for shame, Robert!).

Since then? Eh… not much. I did what I did back in high school when hair metal made me want to claw my eyes out in disgust. I went back in time and found things that have been overlooked. That has resulted in a recent obsession with Richard Thompson, and to a slightly lesser extent Sandy Denny.

But new music? Again, not so much.

This year I am resolved to change that. I don’t know how, but it’s a New Year and resolutions are all the rage. I am going to search the interwebs for music made by people I have never heard of before in the hopes of finding a new musical obsession or two. Or three. Or 100. I might start with the mountain of best music of 2014 blog posts that have been popping up world wide over the last few weeks. After that? I don’t know. Not spotify, or beats, or any of that. I don’t want to be spoon fed the way we were back in the radio and MTV days (urgh). I want to discover, not be marketed to.

I’ll let you know how it goes.