I listen to a lot of music (there are a few genres I can't stand and won't touch, but not many,) but I'm particularly big into '60s-'70s classic rock (and '60s pop-rock, before "pop" split off to become its own boring, written-by-committee thing.) Everything from the Monkees to Chicago (the
good
, '60s-'70s Chicago, that is) to Deep Purple is pretty much my cup of tea. I'm also a fan of golden-age video game music (everything from the
Ms. Pac-Man
interstitials through the Super Nintendo and Yamaha FM synthesis on the Genesis and PC.) Modern J-pop/rock also gets something of a thumbs-up; I only really
like
a certain percentage of it, but I admire the
rabidity
and enthusiasm with which Japanese songwriters cannibalize and syncretize such a massive variety of source material. Lately I've even been getting into some late-'80s/early-'90s New Age stuff (found a stash of Narada Records tapes at the thrift store for dirt-cheap and needed something to listen to when driving,) though I find it to be more background music than
listening
music.
My truest love, however, is classic progressive rock of the '60s and '70s. Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis (again, the good , early-to-mid-'70s Genesis,) King Crimson, ELP, and so many other lesser-known groups (Starcastle - the best Yes cover band that never actually covered Yes!) Part of it's that, as with J-pop, I greatly admire people with a broad musical palate who freely incorporate any influence they want into their own unique watchagot stew of sounds, and prog is that in spades, with the added bonus that nobody feels that it's some sort of mortal sin to have any song that's longer than seven minutes and it's better to stay closer to four, so they get plenty of room to play with longer, more complex ideas and instrumental virtuosity. (Granted, some of them can take it too far the other way, but still.) There's also the fact that I just love the sounds of the Mellotron, Hammond B-3, and Minimoog, and they're genre standards in prog. This is the genre that my own efforts most often fall into, up to and including the 17-minute space-rock epic I finished last spring. (Currently working on the last piece of an album built around that...)
Mmm. Good stuff, that prog-rock.
My truest love, however, is classic progressive rock of the '60s and '70s. Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis (again, the good , early-to-mid-'70s Genesis,) King Crimson, ELP, and so many other lesser-known groups (Starcastle - the best Yes cover band that never actually covered Yes!) Part of it's that, as with J-pop, I greatly admire people with a broad musical palate who freely incorporate any influence they want into their own unique watchagot stew of sounds, and prog is that in spades, with the added bonus that nobody feels that it's some sort of mortal sin to have any song that's longer than seven minutes and it's better to stay closer to four, so they get plenty of room to play with longer, more complex ideas and instrumental virtuosity. (Granted, some of them can take it too far the other way, but still.) There's also the fact that I just love the sounds of the Mellotron, Hammond B-3, and Minimoog, and they're genre standards in prog. This is the genre that my own efforts most often fall into, up to and including the 17-minute space-rock epic I finished last spring. (Currently working on the last piece of an album built around that...)
Mmm. Good stuff, that prog-rock.
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Computers: Amiga 1200, DEC VAXStation 4000/60, DEC MicroPDP-11/73
Synthesizers: Roland JX-10, Oberheim Matrix-6, E-mu Proteus/1, Roland MT-32, Yamaha DX7, Yamaha V50, Casio CZ-1000, Casio HT-6000, Hohner String Performer
"'Legacy code' often differs from its suggested alternative by actually working and scaling." - Bjarne Stroustrup
(Maradona)
(DavidVilla) A1186 (Xavi) d800 (Pique) d820 (Neymar)
