Some enjoyable reading regarding music

I enjoy reading other's people thoughts on the music they like, even if I'm not familiar with it, and even if I don't agree with them about how good it is. I'm always willing to admit that maybe I missed something and I'll always give it a second chance.

Except for Kenny G.

Albatross, who I've linked to several times at his blog called Strange in San Antonio, has another blog in which he writes on other general subjects called Painted Ocean. Lately at Painted Ocean he has been writing about the albums he's collected from one of his favorite bands: Iron Maiden. I don't have any of their albums, but his writing has made me think I need to correct that soon. You can click the link above and just start reading, or go to the beginning and work your way forward.

Heh. It reminds me of something back when I was in college, taking a Music Literature course at SWTSU (as it was called then). Our prof was a great guy who was wildly enthusiastic about his subject, and when our final exam came up, he had each of us submit three questions. He was going to read them all and consider including a few of them on the test. I submitted two serious questions, which I don't remember, but my third question was strictly for humorous effect, and went something like, "Discuss the historical ramifications of baroque and classical music being recorded by contemporary heavy metal bands." He laughed so hard that there were tears in his eyes. That was kind of a tough course. A big part of the final was the prof playing drop the needle. We had this big boxed set of records that covered music throughout history which we had to become very familiar with. During the last test, he would drop the needle on a record and play about 15 seconds or so of music. We had to correctly identify the piece and the composer (if known). I'll probably write more about that collection when I get a new turntable and start converting my records. I don't have any way to listen to it again right now.

Anyway, I'll take this opportunity to link to two other bloggers who I read regularly, and who also often share their enthusiasm for music: BobG at Near the Salty City and the Pistolero at Live from the (upper) Texas Gulf Coast.