Recently…

Tomorrow night, my wife and I are going to our first show at the HopMonk Tavern in Novato. The day before the show we received the following email from the talent buyer:

A forthcoming feature will allow Spotify users to block certain artists from playing in their libraries. This is a great solution for empowering subscribers to limit who monitizes from the music they stream, but what are the broader implications to others who benifit from the royalties of abusive artists?

I received this email at work via our company contact form. It made it through the Google ReCaptcha. It reads sort of like an SCP, and I found it pretty entertaining, so I thought I would post it here.

I know I’m a little late to the game with my album picks this year, but 2018 was just so rich with amazing new music that I couldn’t just poop this out all willy nilly. Unlike other folks with their best album lists, I believe in waiting a few weeks after the new year to let all the late releases settle in with me. And it’s a good thing I did, as a few late December releases made my list!

As with last year, this largely reflects my music listening at work. These lists tend to be more metal-heavy as this is where I do most of my headphone listening.

I’m a segmented sleeper, and am usually up between 2 and 5 a.m. on any given morning. I sometimes pass the time by giving sympathy and advice to sufferers on the /r/misophonia subreddit. Recently, I’ve noticed a trend of teenagers complaining about their parents hassling them about wearing headphones at the dinner table. As a father of teenagers, a headphone enthusiast, a music lover, and a Misophonia sufferer, I feel I am uniquely qualified to advise in these situations when asked.

I was an early adopter of Instagram—well before the Facebook acquisition. For some unknown reason, I have never seen an ad or sponsored post in my feed. Until recently.

The trend in new releases is to trickle out a song each week or so leading up to the release date of your new album. As an artist, I understand this. As a music fan, it can be mildly annoying. As a heavy Apple Music user, it’s usually a pain in the ass. Not all pre-releases are created equal, or so it seems.

I don’t know if there is anyone Robbie Fulks doesn’t sound amazing with, but Linda Gail Lewis isn’t it either.