It’s been a while since I’ve listened to real commercial music – well that’s a lie, I listened to The Blueprint 3 – and since have been listening to the weirdest underground hip hop.

Not that I’m trying to encourage music piracy here but I’m always on the look out for new music through blogs specifically Musical Schizophrenia. I’ve already discovered a few artists from it, some that I still haven’t made my mind up on but I’m enjoying the whole trying out new music thing anyway especially when a new album or two are delivered to my inbox every morning. If it’s good, I’ll buy it – if it’s bad then to trash it goes.

I’m starting to wonder how I used to discover bands before the internet. Now I use the similar artists function on Spotify or click obligatory YouTube link alongside a blog post. But I must have done something before; I guess I just listened to whatever was presented to me on the radio or TV.

Maybe a post about discovering bands or artists is in order.

Not in this post though… this isn’t a concise one.

Pardon my internet, but today was a bit of a fail. I didn’t get much work done at University, didn’t receive anything in the post and I didn’t – as of yet – post anything on Nidzumi today. So far, not so good. I did however, spend the last hour regaling the tale of The Wreckidz Podcast.

For those who didn’t follow that particular podcast, Sam Horne and me produced 20 minute Electro, Drum and Bass, Liquid Funk or Minimal mixes every week. We would alternate each week, he would do one, I’d do the next one. Not only did it turn my those genres into a hobby but I learnt a lot of producing a weekly show.

However, doing the same thing every week for 38 weeks is the best way to get burnt out on anything. That’s not to say the whole thing wasn’t enjoyable and worthwhile. When you mix two tracks together perfectly it’s more than enjoyable, the satisfaction is off the charts. And worthwhile? Well I learnt a lot about music, websites and radio – yup, we had a spot on local radio for a while. Actually it was probably that spot on The Source 96.1FM that made us realise.

With Horne being based in Basingstoke and me all the way down in Falmouth, communications were kept to a minimum. As soon I was aware of the local radio – and aware of the general subpar standard of programming on it – I decided to take the show to the next level. We had a spot every Friday at 9pm until 10. Essentially we just played the most recent podcast along with a ‘golden oldie’ and recorded some filler in-between. It was the recording of filler that probably signalled the beginning of the end. The more we had to arrange meet-ups, the more we had to talk; the more we talked, the more we decided that the only reason we still listened to this music regularly was because of the podcast.

We abruptly ended our weekly radio show after delivering just three hours of content and our podcast petered out after our 38th mix. At the end we had produced over 17 hours worth of electro, drum and bass, liquid funk, minimal and more, over the period of a year.

After this long conversation I’ve been debating whether I should dust off my Behringer BCD3000 and try my hand at DJing again. The only problem is that I’m already sounding like someone who has failed dreams of becoming a superstar DJ. The truth is I didn’t, I just enjoyed the inner workings of the music and the satisfaction of mixing to produce regular content. It was purely a hobby at the end of the day, I had no intention of becoming ‘massive’ or playing in clubs – in actuality I hate clubs, not that I’ve ever been, but the idea turns me off. The whole DJing thing sounds like a good hobby to do but to us, it was all geekery and nothing more.

I guess I’ve always got DJ Hero…

Another short one today. Decided I’ll compile some of my Last.FM Scrobbling stats into monthly charts. These are all charts from the last three months as Last.FM doesn’t let you do monthly charts. Also this way they’ll be more reflective of general listening rather than what album came out in what month.

Judging by the results, I think I might have a problem.

By Artist…

1. Ugly Duckling (920)
2. Madvillain (271)
3. Field Music (223)
4. Sufjan Stevens (163)
5. Jurassic 5 (159)
6. Gang Starr (144)
7. Phantogram (139)
8. Abdominal (124)
9. Module (101)
10. Ok Go (99)

By Album…

1. Ugly Duckling Bang For The Buck (498)
2. Ugly Duckling Taste The Secret (442)
3. Jurassic 5 Quality Control (281)
4. Ugly Duckling Audacity (278)
5. Cut Chemist The Audience’s Listening (243)
6. Phantogram – Eyelid Movies (205)
7. Jay-Z – Blueprint 3 (187)
8. Madvillain – Madvillain (168)
9. Field Music – Measure (167)
10. Module – Shatte (160)

Finally By Track…

1. Ugly Duckling – MeatShake (52)
2. Ugly Duckling – Energy Drink (41)
3. Ugly Duckling – Dumb It Down (37)
4. Ugly Duckling – Abigail Silk (34)
5. Madvillain – Accordion (33)
6. Ugly Duckling – I Won’t Let It Die (30)
7. Ugly Duckling – Audacity (Parts One And Two) (29)
8. Ugly Duckling – Turn It Up (26)
9. Ugly Duckling – The Breakdown (26)
10. Supergrass – Diamond Hoo Ha Man (24)

After yesterday’s post, I engaged in the hefty task of syncing my iPod because for some reason deleting tracks takes just as long as it does it upload new ones. I don’t have anything thought provoking on the matter, just a screenshot of iPod space. I’ve also purchased 3 more albums on CD.

Just about 197 left to go then…

I’d make a decent sized post about it but I’m really tired. Tired to the point of everything appearing really close up, like my eyes have suddenly activated a zoom function or something. Does anyone get that when they get tired or should I get them checked?

I recently posed the idea that I should own all my music. The older I’ve gotten – which isn’t that much by the way – the more I’ve lacked a legitimate reason for downloading music. Saying ‘everybody does it’ just doesn’t cut it anymore.

For those new to the blog or too lazy to read the old entry, I pondered whether I should just adopt CDs as my format of choice, over the expensively lush vinyl. Tonight, however, I compiled a list of over 200 albums that were in my library – many of which have since been deleted because I haven’t listened to them in over four years – and realised that owning everything on vinyl wasn’t a realistic option. Put it down to digital only releases and ridiculous over-inflation, but my dreams of wall to wall black plastic discs won’t be viable.

With that said a majority of these albums were available on vinyl for around a tenner so I’m hoping to get a bunch of them come 2011. Actually I’m going to set an goal of owning all my music by the end of the year. I’ll happily predict that either two of the following things will happen as a result of this…

1. I’ll be bankrupt and have no room to physically move
2. My iPod will be considerably emptier

I’m going to regret this personal challenge, aren’t I?