I've Taken a Break from My Blog

If you've noticed that I haven't posted to Economix for a few months, it's because I've started taking audio engineering classes at the SAE Institute. I'm learning some really interesting and valuable things about sound and music and how to make recordings that sounds really good. I'll try to post some updates about how all of this is going, but I'm trying to focus my energy on immersing myself in learning all of this, and I'm also trying to write and record music of my own. Once I get some of it recorded, I'll put it online. So, ciao for now!

The Grateful Dead Aren't That Scary

A lot of people are frightened by the Grateful Dead. Apparently their spooky name, coupled with the fact that most of the artwork associated with the band contains skeletons and/or colorful dancing bears (you decide which is more frightening), has caused many to associate the band with death and other discomforting concepts. Worse yet, the band has essentially become the figurehead of a movement/era that encouraged the rampant use of mind-altering drugs. If that's not scary, I don't know what is!

In fact, before I first heard the Grateful Dead, I too had concocted an image in my head of them as a group of evil, devil-worshiping, psychotic, violent criminals; I could only imagine what kinds of terrible music they'd have to their name.

The first time I heard a Grateful Dead song, however (it was "Friend of the Devil", still one of my favorite songs to this day), I immediately knew my preconceptions about the band were entirely wrong. The song was recorded with all acoustic instruments and it made me feel like I had gone back in time about a hundred and fifty years, not because it sounded old but because it sounded pure. I soon confirmed that in fact the Grateful Dead was not a death metal band, that they didn't (as far as I know) worship the devil, and that they didn't wear make-up or kill animals on stage. Quite the opposite, in fact -- the band seems to have been a strong proponent of love and peace and purity. And most importantly, they crafted what I consider to be great music that took elements of older music styles (particularly blues, bluegrass, and folk) and molded it into something unique and new. So, throw out any negative ideas you may have about what the band stands for, and give their music a chance. I think you'll find it's quite enjoyable.

The reason I've featured the Grateful Dead in this post is that I'm going to see the The Dead (which features the surviving members of the Grateful Dead plus Warren Haynes on guitar and Jeff Chimenti on keyboard) in concert tomorrow night. I've never had the chance to see them, so I'm excited. I've also created a lala playlist of some of their more user-friendly songs. If you like the playlist, check out the album American Beauty in its entirety.

Grateful Dead

Lala Just Keeps Getting Better

Lala announced this week that they've made a minor but important improvement to the functionality of their site by allowing users to rate songs. Lala has always been a great vehicle for discovering music, mostly because (a) you can see what your friends are listening to, and (b) you can listen for free to a full-length version of any of the 6 million+ songs in their catalog. Until now, however, Lala wasn't particularly attractive as a music player because it didn't allow you to easily separate good songs from bad ones. Whereas previously you had to manually create a playlist if you wished to continuously listen to only "good" songs from multiple artists/albums/genres, you can now simply exclude from your play queue songs that are below a certain rating. This feature allows for a more hands-off listening experience, and makes the site much more attractive as a music player.

The song ratings are also nice because they enable you to see not only what songs your friends are listening to, but which ones they like. If you trust your Lala friends' music tastes -- and the assumption is that you do, since you voluntarily subject yourself to a live feed of everything they listen to on the site -- you now have the option of avoiding songs that they don't give a favorable rating to.

In a recent conversation with Lala co-founder Billy Alvarado, I was told that the company will continue to add functionality to their site every few weeks. We also talked about the mobile application they're developing for the iPhone (and other devices, as well), which he says will be out "soon." They're still working out how to best make money from the app, and I imagine they're having to contend with other issues as well. It's hard to believe that Apple will simply approve an application that would take business away from the iTunes Store. And a mobile application that allows users to stream music from the cloud would fundamentally change the landscape of digital music distribution and consumption, so there are likely a lot of other people that will need to sign off on the idea, too. Regardless, Lala is doing great things, and look for them to continue to roll out new features every few weeks (check the company's blog for the latest changes they've made to the site). Below is a TechCruch video demo of the iPhone app.

Four Tet & Burial Collaborate on 12" Vinyl Release

Four Tet and Burial have teamed up to release a two-track LP on vinyl. It isn't clear at this point whether it'll be released officially online, but the tracks -- "Moth" and "Wolf Cub" -- are embedded below, and you shouldn't have too much trouble finding somewhere to download them if you're interested. It seems the hard copy is sold out in a lot of places, but I went ahead and ordered one from this site that's shipping it to me from England. I've listened to the tracks several times, and I enjoyed both of them.

Kieran Hebden (a.k.a. Four Tet) has previously worked with jazz drummer Steve Reid, and I find the duo to be a bit awkward, with the drums often seemingly overpowered by Hebden's glitchy electronic tinkerings. Though it's not clear what each artist contributed to the Burial/Four Tet tracks, I'd say they're strong both melodically and rhythmically. Hopefully we'll hear more from this duo (or at least from Four Tet) soon! I'll keep you posted if the tracks become officially available online.

Ooklah the Moc is Great in Concert

I had the pleasure of seeing Ooklah the Moc in concert twice last week, and I can safely say they're one of the most impressive live acts I've ever seen. Though they stick to a specific sound that isn't particularly popular outside of Hawaii (Rick Anderson from eMusic's All Music Guide describes their music as "'70s-style roots-and-culture reggae"), Ooklah has clearly mastered it. Each of the band's four vocalists was stellar, the rhythm section the drummer and bassist provided was impossibly sharp and intricate, and the band's other members (guitar, trumpeter, saxophonist, and keyboardist Brad Watanabe of BW) added depth and energy to each song. I'd highly recommend seeing them live if you ever get the chance. I just hope one day I get to see them in Hawaii. Check out the Ooklah the Moc (and BW) Playlist on lala if you haven't already.

New Dave Matthews Band Single Available for Free Download

Dave Matthews Band today offered up a single from their upcoming album Big Whiskey & the Groo Grux King (due out June 2nd) as a free digital download. The track is called "Funny The Way It Is," and you can get it here. The band hasn't released any studio material since 2005's Stand Up, so this is an anxiously-awaited album for a lot of fans, myself included. The single sounds good; hopefully the album will be too!

Ooklah the Moc Is Coming to California

Ooklah the Moc, my favorite reggae band, recently announced they'd play a few shows on the west coast, which means I'll get to see them in person for the first time. The band is based in Hawaii and seems to tour the islands extensively throughout the year, but they don't make it to the mainland all that often. Tickets to see them in San Clemente, CA are only $15, and a friend who saw them last year said he doesn't expect them to sell out even the small "grill and concert hall" they're booked at. I don't understand why they're not more popular than they are -- I'd literally rather see them live than any other active reggae band -- but I'm not complaining. Being able to see some of my favorite artists perform in small venues for less than $30 (you may recall I recently went to a Four Tet show, which was awesome) is quite a privelege. This week's Lala playlist features music by Ooklah the Moc and BW (the solo project of Ooklah member and friend-of-a-friend Brad Watanabe). If you enjoy the music, go check out one of their shows!

Ooklah the Moc (and BW)

Online Music Stores Change Pricing

Apple announced today that the iTunes Store would implement variable pricing of songs, which means that songs are now priced at either $.69, $.99, or $1.29. My initial reaction was to be further annoyed with iTunes (I've previously expressed my frustration with the iTunes Store -- see this post) for raising their prices, and I figured that this would be an opportunity for Amazon and Lala to gain some market share if they maintained their current pricing. Unfortunately, I discovered to my dismay that all three sites -- yes, Lala too -- had adopted similar pricing breakdowns for their mp3 stores. Upon further examination, however, I discovered that most of the music that I listen to is still priced at $.99. It seems, at least for now, that only mainstream new releases have been bumped up to $1.29. Apparently sometimes it pays to listen to more obscure music than the average human. Hopefully this isn't a sign that online music stores plan to collude and raise their prices, but I'm afraid that's exactly what it is. Oh well, there's always eMusic!

This Playlist is Eclectic and Bizarre, but Boy, It's Good

Lately I've been delving deeper and deeper into the worlds of eMusic and Lala searching for interesting music, and this week's playlist highlights some of the gems I've discovered. The selections come from a variety of genres and eras, but I think each track is interesting. I hope you enjoy!

All Over the Place, In a Good ...
When you're done listening, you may feel compelled to do something akin to what this dog is doing.

The Golden Age of Music

A recent New York Times article about the popularity of the South by Southwest Music Festival begins by proclaiming that "music still has fans," as if the author were surprised to find evidence that people still listen to music and show up to see their favorites bands perform in person.

The author clearly has missed the point, and it seems that a lot of people are making the wrong conclusions about what's currently taking place in the music industry. Yes, there has been -- and will continue to be -- a significant decline in the number of physical copies of albums sold; the sale of digital music, however, is increasing rapidly, and this bodes well for the future of music. Granted, it doesn't seem that digital sales have yet made up for the drop in CD sales, but I believe there's reason to be hopeful if you can look past a few common misconceptions about what's taking place.

Most people seem to view consumers' decreased willingness to pay more than $10 for an album (I can remember when I regularly paid $17 for CDs about ten years ago) as a drop in their demand for music. What this is, in fact, is an increase in the supply of music, which, as you should know from basic economic theory, causes its price to drop. Before digital music was available, consumers were forced to buy hard copies of albums from record stores. Consumers can still do this, of course, but they also have a multitude of other options to choose from when deciding where, and in what format, to buy music. This trend may be bad for big records labels, but it sure hasn't been bad for iTunes.

Smaller bands and labels also benefit significantly from the ability to distribute their music online. It used to be that the main concern of an up-and-coming band was to get noticed by a label because they needed help promoting and distributing their music. Now bands are much more able to focus on writing and recording music, and are able to reach out more directly to consumers online.

Most important to you and me, however, are the benefits to consumers. I recently met with the CEO of Lala (the music site you've likely heard me raving about), and he argued that right now is the "golden age of music." It's not hard to agree with him when considering how much better off the average music listener is as a result of the availability of digital music. It is significantly easier and cheaper today than ever before to discover, purchase, and listen to new music, and to take that music with you wherever you go.

Music, however, has not become free. Granted, you can sit online and download torrents all day, or you can mooch mp3's off your friends, but I say if you're a real fan of an artist or band, support them. Buy their music and merchandise, and see them live. Otherwise, they're going to quit making music, or they're going to sign to a major label and alter their sound to reach a larger audience, which is almost always bad. So get on Lala (or iTunes, eMusic, Amazon, or whatever) and download some music, and keep in mind that you're getting a lot more music for your money ($.10 for a web song?!) than was ever possible before.

Four Tet

One of my favorite "electronic" artists is Four Tet, and I'm going to his show on Saturday in San Francisco, so I figured he should be the feature of this week's playlist. Keep in mind when listening that the songs are composed of samples -- i.e., he's not playing live instruments. His extensive use of live/acoustic samples, however, creates an organic feel to (most of) his songs that I think is pretty unique in electronic music. It may take a few listens to really get into what he's created, but give him a chance. Also, some of my favorite songs of his are his remixes of Madvillain songs, which aren't available on Lala, so check those out if you like what you hear. Enjoy!

The Many Sides of Four Tet

Radiohead/Thom Yorke-related News

DOOM (formerly MF Doom, and also known by a variety of other names) is releasing a new album entitled Born Like This on March 24. Apparently Thom Yorke is remixing one of the tracks, though it looks like it may only be available as a bonus track if the album is purchased on iTunes. Damn...there goes my iTunes Boycott! You can hear a clip of the remixed track here (see the bottom of the article).

Also, this video of Radiohead and the USC Marching Band's Grammy rehearsal just showed up on YouTube. Check it out!

Neil Young: I Love Him

Neil Young is one of my favorite musicians and songwriters ever. He's been making music since the 1950s, and, over the course of his career, has crossed into many genres (some more successfully than others), but he's never failed to keep things interesting. His next album is supposedly going to be all about electric cars, and I'm sure it will be completely bizarre. Even on ridiculous albums such as this (and his last one, Living with War, all about the war in Iraq), he often manages to drop some worthwhile tracks, and these tracks, combined with those from his 31 other studio albums (that's not including the work he's done with other groups!), compose the unbelievably expansive and eclectic catalog that I'm so fond of. This week's Lala playlist features some of my favorite songs of his. I've included some quiet, somber love songs, and some thrashy rock songs (well, one, to be exact), and others that fall somewhere in between. I hope you enjoy it!

Neil Young

"Uhhhh" Podcast

I have a friend who has a bizarre habit of saying, "uhhhhhh" whenever he/she hears a song that has a certain sound (I've refrained from specifying their gender so as to protect the identity of the innocent). I'm not sure I can describe in words the type of songs that might evoke this response, so I've begun this week's podcast with "Spliff Mood" by Ooklah the Moc, which almost always brings out an "uhhhhh" from him/her. Listen to about 2 or 3 seconds of it and see if you don't feel the strange desire to make this grunt/groaning noise. The mix gets progressively more mellow and ends with a nice, relaxed reggae song. The playlist is eclectic -- it even includes a rap song (!) -- but hopefully not so much that it doesn't flow.

Also, I'm going to try using a Lala playlist as well as a podcast to provide more listening options, so let me know what you think. Enjoy!

Click here for the podcast.

Uhhhhhhh

New Ways to Find and Enjoy Music Online

Judging by the 6 billion songs that have been downloaded though Apple's iTunes Store and the more than 173 million iPods the company has sold, it is clear that many people embrace digital music. And it's a safe bet that digital music will continue to grow in popularity as the internet makes it progressively easier and cheaper to discover and listen to music.

In this post, I'd like to highlight and compare some of the online music services that I have used over the past several years: the iTunes Store, Amazon's MP3 store, eMusic, and Lala.



The iTunes Store: For a while, iTunes was my clear choice for purchasing digital music. Their selection is pretty comprehensive, their prices are cheaper than buying CDs, and it's easy to sync iTunes music with an iPod. The only drawback is that much of their catalog is DRM-protected, meaning there are restrictions to how many computers the music can play on and how many CDs it can be burned onto. Apple is fazing DRM-protection out of the iTunes Store, but I bought quite a few songs with DRM-protection that Apple is now asking me to pay for again in order to get DRM-free versions, which annoys me, so I've chosen to boycot the iTunes Store whenever possible.


Amazon MP3: Amazon's selling point is that (1) they offer their entire catalog of MP3s without DRM-protection, (2) the bit rate (i.e., sound quality) of the songs is higher than the average song in the iTunes store, and (3) their prices are slightly lower than in the iTunes Store. The experience on the Amazon website isn't quite as nice as that in the iTunes store, but that's not important to me.


eMusic: I recently joined eMusic, and I love it. The service is subscription-based, so you pay for a package that allows you a specific number of downloads each month. Depending on the package you choose, the average cost of a song ranges from $.25 to $.60, significantly less than songs from iTunes or Amazon. Glaringly absent, however, is music from the "Big Four" record labels, so a lot of mainstream music isn't available. This means it's probably not possible to rely completely on eMusic to get all the music you want, though it sure has a lot of good stuff. The site features interesting editorial content and a music recommendation service through which I've found a lot of good, eclectic music that I might never have discovered (or been able to afford) otherwise -- jazz from the early 1900s, old Hawaiian music, minimal electronic, and lots of "indie" music.


Lala: I only signed up for Lala yesterday, but so far I'm blown away. Lala's model is certainly going to cause a stir, and it wouldn't surprise me if they give the above-listed incumbents a run for their money. By far the coolest feature is the fact that Lala automatically syncs your current music library with their catalog of 6 million songs, allowing you to listen to any song in your library as many times as you want through their site. Even better, any song in your library that's not in the Lala catalog is uploaded and stored in "the cloud", meaning you can listen to any song in your library on any computer through the Lala site. They also allow you to hear any song in their catalog once -- all the way through -- while iTunes, Amazon, and eMusic only allow you a 30-second preview. Then, if you like what you heard, you can pay $.10 for a "web song", which you can listen to as many times as you want through the Lala site. If you decide you really like the song/album, you can download the MP3, and what you paid for the web song counts towards the purchase price, which is competitive with Amazon and iTunes. If this doesn't seem revolutionary to you, consider the fact that Lala makes it possible to listen to your music library on any computer anywhere there's internet. The day when the internet is everywhere and available on every device is probably not far off, which means that it won't be long before you can listen to any music you want, whenever and wherever. I expect Lala to have an iPhone app out at some point (that is, unless Apple decides to nix it in order to reduce the threat Lala poses), and then maybe I won't even have to put MP3s on my iPhone anymore.

Another cool thing about Lala is that you can embed songs in blogs! Check out this song, which I actually discovered thanks to eMusic, but it's now also available to me wherever I have a computer and internet (I think you can only listen to it once, but hey, if you like it you might be willing to pay $.10 to be able to hear it as many times as you want):

Tunnelvision - Here We Go Magi...

Yes, these online music stores sure do make it easy and cheap to find and obtain new music. Technology can be great! But sometimes I feel the urge to sit by the fire and listen to an album on a record player. Eh, nevermind -- I'm too lazy to get off the couch.

Bon Iver Video

If you like Bon Iver, you'll probably appreciate the video below. I'm not sure how impromptu this actually is, but it's a really good acappella version of the song "For Emma".

Hip-hop/Electronic Beats Podcast

This week's episode of the EconoMix podcast (available here) features hip-hop/electronic beats. In hip-hop, the "beat" is the non-vocal portion of the song (it would be would be less-than-accurate to say it's the instrumental portion of the song, since the beats are usually produced using samples and electronically-created sounds rather than conventional instruments), which is often interesting and complex enough to be consumed without a vocal track.

Rap beats, in contrast, are usually not intricate or dynamic enough to be appealing without vocals. The beats used in most mainstream rap songs rely on volume and intensity to get the listener's adrenaline pumping, which limits the range of emotions they can convey. Also, the level of musicianship that goes into the production of most rap beats may be limited, and rap often seems to be more about theatrics than music. (I'm On A Boat (Feat. T-Pain), a catchy mock rap song from a recent SNL skit, is a perfect example of this.)

Many people seem to categorize rap and hip-hop together, so hip-hop often isn't given a fair chance. In beats from both genres, each sound -- whether sampled, created electronically, or recorded -- has to be painstakingly manipulated and mixed together to create the final product. Hip-hop simply seems to take full advantage of this production process, and the result is beats that are often far more intelligent, layered, and dynamic than those in rap.

For the record, the intent of this post is not to malign rap music, but rather to simply distinguish it from hip-hop. When listening to the beats in the podcast, try to appreciate the various moods and influences you can hear. Enjoy!

Podcast available here (track information below)

Hip-hop/Electronic Beats

Radiohead Video Taken Down

If you've recently tried viewing the video of Radiohead from the Grammys, you've likely noticed that it has been removed from YouTube "due to a copyright claim by Grammys." The video's removal is emblematic of the struggle that content owners have been having for years in their efforts to figure out how to make money on the internet. Clearly, the internet provides both great opportunities and great challenges for owners of digital content, as the potential to reach a huge audience is counterbalanced by the ease with which such media can be copied and distributed online.

Owners of digital content typically make money either by charging users to buy/view/listen to videos or songs in their catalog, or by offering these items for free and exposing users to ads paid for by third parties. It's not surprising that CBS/The Grammy Foundation doesn't want footage that they "own"--such as that of Radiohead's performance at the Grammys--to show up on YouTube, because they don't benefit when people like you and me view the video there.

A lot of media companies, however, are getting smart about identifying when and where their content is being distributed without authorization, and in many cases the end result is that the content in question remains up on a site like YouTube, but with authorized versions, complete with ads, appearing instead. The good thing about all of this is that a video authorized by, say, CBS is likely to be of higher quality than one uploaded by an average YouTube user.

So, when I noticed that the Radiohead video had been removed, I figured at the very least I'd be able to find a high-quality version on CBS's website. Apparently not. A few Grammy performance recordings are being offered for purchase on iTunes, but not Radiohead.

Now this doesn't make sense to me. I understand content owners wanting to make money, and I'm more than willing to pay for content that I like. But nobody benefits when a video is completely removed from the internet. That's just a waste.

Singer-songwriter Podcast

This week's podcast features the music of various singer-songwriters, including relatively new material from Bon Iver and Andrew Bird. If a certain song jumps out at you, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email and I'd be happy to suggest other songs that might be of interest.

Also, I tried using a lower bit rate for this podcast, so let me know if you notice a big difference in terms of sound quality.

Podcast available here (track information below)

Sufjan Stevens - A Loverless Bed (without remission) (0:09-4:26)
Kaki King - Doing the Wrong Thing (4:27-9:25)
Andrew Bird - Souverian (9:26-16:24)
Hotel Lights - Let Me Be The One (16:25-20:49)
Bon Iver - Beach Baby (20:50-23:19)
Sun Kil Moon - Ocean Breathes Salty (23:20-27:53)
Fleet Foxes - Mykonos (27:53-32:21)
Neil Young - Philadelphia (32:22-36:29)

Radiohead at Grammys

If you didn't catch Radiohead at the Grammys last night, check out the performance:

The USC Marching Band added an element of intricacy and magnitude, and I actually thought it worked well. The only drawback was that it seemed to drown out the guitar work of Jonny Greenwood, and the other three band members were nowhere to be found. Oh well, it's always good to see a live performance from Radiohead.

Grammys Tonight

As a huge fan of Radiohead, I'm excited for the Grammys tonight (8:00pm ET/PT, CBS). Rumor has it that they'll be performing "15 Step" with the USC Marching Band. I'm not sure how excited I am about the marching band part--another interesting musical move by Radiohead--but it'll be great to see them perform.

TV On The Radio, another band I've been listening to a lot lately, was on SNL last night and will be on the Colbert Report tomorrow (11:30pm/10:30C, Comedy Central). Their most recent album, Dear Science, has gotten great reviews, and both Rolling Stone and Spin declared it the best album of 2008. I'd recommend checking it out. Unfortunately, the band continues to play "Golden Age" and/or "Dancing Choose" in seemingly every television performance, and I don't particularly like either of those songs.

Also, last night I went to a Bob Marley tribute concert put on by the reggae band Groundation. I'm not a big fan of Groundation, mostly because I don't like the voice of singer Harrison Stafford, but it was awesome to hear Bob Marley's music performed with a lot of energy by musicians who really know reggae. With that said, I was slightly annoyed by how Stafford used the stage as a platform to preach his political views. Sure, Bob Marley's music was hugely political, but perhaps Stafford should've kept his preachings for a concert where he performs his own music, if only out of respect for Marley, who may or may not have agreed with Stafford's opinions if he were present. If I'd agreed with Stafford's opinions I might have felt differently, but I'd rather a performer simply focus on putting on a great show and spreading "good vibes", especially at a reggae concert.

Reggae

This episode's podcast available here.
What are the first images that come to mind when you think of reggae music? For me, it’s always been tropical islands, jubilation, and marijuana. Sure, these things are all wonderful in manageable doses--well, I guess it depends on whom you ask--but until recently I’d thought of reggae music as being valuable pretty much exclusively as background music for a summer beach party. It seemed to me that the message of an average reggae song could be paraphrased as, “Look how blissful life is! Isn’t it great that we’re all so happy?!” Call me a negative person (you wouldn’t be the first), but I often couldn’t relate to music that I thought was so uncompromisingly joyful.

On a recent trip to Hawaii, however, my thoughts about reggae were entirely changed, and now it’s a genre that I've incorporate prominently into my music listening rotation. The fact that I’m not sure I heard any other type of music the entire time I was in Hawaii, as that’s pretty much all they play on the radio or in any public space, isn’t what did it for me. I was driving along the coast during a tropical rainstorm when the song “Idren” by BW, a local reggae artist, started playing on the car stereo. The dark, dismal mood the squall had provided allowed me to perceive the ‘vibe’ of the song in a wonderfully different way. Suddenly, it all made sense, and I was completely engrossed in the song in the best possible way, yet……I didn’t feel ecstatically happy! I always knew that reggae had evolved in a world of poverty and misery as a sort of cultural coping mechanism, but I now realized that it was not, as I’d thought, about ignoring life’s hardships. Rather, reggae is about accepting that life can be tough, and striving to mellow out and appreciate its simple pleasures–love, beauty, nature and community. And that I can relate to.

During my trip I discovered two active local Hawaiian bands that blew me away in particular: BW and Ooklah the Moc. Given their talent, it still baffles me to think that these bands are essentially unknown on the mainland.

Since I’ve returned, I’ve discovered a handful of other reggae artists from all over the world whose music I simply can’t believe I’d previously lived without. This episode’s podcast features songs from the above-mentioned Hawaiian groups, and a few other of my favorite reggae songs. Oh, and if you happen to be in Hawaii any time soon, do yourself a favor and check out these bands.

-Greg

Download the podcast here (track information below).

1. Marcia Griffiths - Don't Let me Down (0:06-3:13)
2. BW - Idren (3:14-7:21)
3. Ooklah the Moc - You Light (7:22-12:56)
4. Rebel Souljahz - Long Long Time (12:57-16:42)
5. The Jahlights - Right Road to Dubland (16:42-19:39)

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to EconoMix! My name is Greg Gausewitz and I’ll be providing you each week with a new dose of music and an explanation of why I think the music is exceptional. Who am I to tell you what to listen to? All I’ll claim is that I’ve listened to music almost non-stop for the majority of my life, and I love music. I try to listen to all music with enthusiasm and an open mind, so the fact that I’m particularly excited about the songs featured on EconoMix will hopefully convince you to have a listen. While the individual podcasts I provide may have an underlying theme, EconoMix as a whole does not--you may hear music of any genre from any era--and some of it you’re likely to have heard before, some probably not. With that said, I’ll stop blabbing. Now, sit back and enjoy the music. I hope you like it as much as I do.