Soaking up Spotify

I have always been a music junkie. Those of you old TCR friends probably remember when I used to write my ever engaging column in the entertainment section for newly released music. What? You don't remember my scintillating review of the Squirrel Nut Zippers?  Moving on. I went to visit my brother in Charleston for Spring Break in 1994 (maybe 95) and all Beau listened to was the Wave..... I immediately fell in love with every band on there. That was my first taste of Phish, Widespread, Drivin N Cryin, Dave Matthews..etc. My Dad gave me Dave tickets that Christmas and I remember none of my friends knew who he was yet so I took my Dad! This is also the same awesome Dad that dropped my friend Meg and I at a Phish Concert in Winston Salem in 1995. He and his buddy George couldn't stop laughing at their own joke of calling us Groupers. Get it? We were by far the best smelling ladies in there.

Show at Be Here Now (via Flickr)

Asheville had a great music scene when I was in High School, and it doesn't even compare to what they have going on now. There was a place called Be Here Now and I saw Luscious Jackson, Drivin N Cryin, Uncle Mingo, Jump Little Children, Vertical Horizon, Blue Rags, Jupiter Coyote,  the Radiators.....the list goes on and on. My friends and I would drive up there and dance our hearts out and then trek back to South Asheville (Arden) high only off the endorphins from dancing. It was the best.

In College I begged my parents to buy me the Iomega external CD burner so I could make mixes...and burn I did. We had dial up so I had to beg my roomie Elie to not use the phone at night so I could select 3 or 4 songs from Napster to download overnight. But alas, someone would drunk dial our apartment and knock me off. (You guys know who you are) We also got to see lots of great music at school, I swear the Blue Dogs or Jupiter Coyote were playing every other cocktail.

Remember these CD's? These were the absolute best! My friend Taylor and I would make our own compilations of the best from each version.

These days I don't make it to many concerts...the last two I went to were Jimmy Buffett and James Taylor (makes me sound old right?) but they were both great shows. To cure my music love these days I have turned to Spotify.

I saw people's status updates showing what they are listening to on facebook so I finally checked it out..(you can turn that feature off especially if you don't want people to know you are listening to slow jamz from the 90's). I work from home a lot so I love to have music running in the background. The best part is you can subscribe to someone else's mixes or you can create your own and stream it all you want! I did upgrade to the Premium version (a whopping $10/month) so I can stream all the mixes at the gym and not have commercials.

So, are you on Spotify? What are your favorite bands right now? I have a ton listed, you can check out either "Kat Favorites" (still adding to this daily) or if it is Monday or Wednesday you can bet $$ I'm listening to "Monday Morning Reports" Mix. As far as new-to-me discoveries I'm totally digging Lord Huron. Maybe M will decide his company needs to sponsor a trip for us to go to SXSW.

xoxo