Adam Has a Posse...

...well, OK, gathering a posse. *sigh* OK, to be more honest, a group.

As a megasuperhumongous music fan, I'm always looking for other people who are into music. One of the best places that I know of is last.fm. I have pimped it many a time, and will continue to do so. What last.fm does is keep track of the music you listen to on your iTunes through an app called AudioScrobbler. The device "scrobbles" the tracks you listen, whether on shuffle, playlists, albums, etc. and sends that info to last.fm which tallies the artists you're listening to. From that data, last.fm suggests other artists you may also like and also finds people that share your musical taste. (It also opens up a Pandora's Box of metadata stat geekery that you could break down like fantasy football addicts, but that's another post.) From last.fm I have met people literally around the world who also display their musical tastes for all to see, both as individual friends and as groups of various musical ideologies. One I happily discovered was called the Weekly Album Appreciation Club in which we dissect a new and different work each week or so. From this group, I've gotten into stuff by The Walkmen and The Wipers and other bands that don't begin with "W." At some point late this summer, I thought, this group is neat, but what if we did it face to face in person?

And so in late August/early September I sent a Craigslist post to the Janesville and Madison boards putting out feelers for a CD of the Month club. A few people responded, this led to that, and so tomorrow we're having our first meeting. We as yet do not have a name, but I have quiet confidence that will come in time. The debut meeting I'm planning as an informal meet and greet just to kind of see how people got to be into music, what they're into, etc. Our first CD of the month (which we will discuss at our second meeting proper) will be Creedence Clearwater Revival's Cosmo's Factory. I have no overriding reason for including it beyond it being very close to my person as I was thinking of candidates. (It's not even mine: I'm borrowing it from a friend.)

I'm kind of excited to see where the group goes from here. I've put off putting flyers in record stores/concert halls/coffeehouses because I want to more sure I have a good foundation to start from and I want people, at least in the start who are **honestly** into broadening their musical horizons and who aren't afraid to have a honest discussion about music. Obviously this idea is an offshoot of Books of the Month club or film discussion groups, but why isn't there a musical equivalent to this? Music is as important to the arts as books or film, so why should they not be as available as a subject? Maybe I'm the only one who gets that passionate about music and the meetings will turn into me lecturing the empty seats next to me. But I am hoping there are open-minded, music freaks like me who are excited and motivated to find new stuff for their ear-holes. If there is, then a posse I shall truly have. I'll keep you posted, maybe.

It's actually going to be a Sunday afternoon full of music for moi, as I have the meeting at 3pm and then at 8pm I'll be heading to the Majestic to watch Liam Finn + Eliza-Jane. Liam is the son of Crowded House figurehead Neil Finn (and by extension, the nephew of Tim Finn, who founded Split Enz and works with his brother here and there.) Eliza-Jane is a childhood friend of Liam's who's toured with him off and on for a few years. They have a joint EP called Champagne in Seashells and both are prominently featured in the recent 7 Worlds Collide project that also features all the Finns listed above, Radiohead, Johnny Marr, Wilco, KT Tunstall and many others. (Liam, in fact is playing this gig as a one-off, as he is actually opening up for Wilco in much larger venues throughout the Fall.) So it should be a fun gig, which would make it 2 great gigs in two weeks, as I saw Carbon Leaf, Toby Lightman and Stephen Kellogg & the Sixers two Sundays ago. And then Monday, some football game is on. Can't remember who's playing.