Author: Matthew Baya

Musicians I’d Buy Anything From

I’ve been working on this post for a while, in fact I started this post in early 2007 but never feel it’s complete. I have been hesitant to publish it since I’m bound to leave someone off. I also keep putting this off because I want to put a nice long description after each artist. So this post has been stalled by ‘Perfection is the enemy of good enough’. This post has probably been ‘good enough’ for over 5 years. I’m pressing publish now before it gets even more out of date. At the time it was originally written I was living in Maine, organized concerts and was volunteering at WERU. I sadly can no longer can claim any of those things but instead of re-editing the whole thing I’m just publishing it as a flashback to me at that time.

But for the record, if you’re a musician who knows me who isn’t on this list, odds are I just forgot. You know I buy your stuff. Send me a reminder and I’ll do a custom blog entry just on you 🙂

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Since I host a monthly show on the local exponentially cool community radio station, WERU 89.9 FM, and also organize concerts on occasion, I’m often asked what musicians I’d recommend. Well that’s a big list, but I figured start with a list of musicians that I’d buy a new CD from before hearing a single note, ones where they’ve repeatedly earned my trust, and I know their worth it.

  • Mike Agranoff – The “modern folk musician” with a witty sense of humor, great ear for good songs and general geekiness about him that reminds me of my nerdy friends. Great songs and stories, and a nice guy too.
Me next to Pat Humphries & Sandy Opatow aka emma's revolution.
Me next to Pat Humphries & Sandy Opotow aka emma’s revolution.
  • emma’s revolution – Pat Humphries and Sandy Opotow. Great harmonies, great lyrics, great people. Who else could make political and topical music so amazingly beautiful?
  • Gaelic Storm – in the movie ‘Titanic’, you remember the irish ‘steerage band’ that was playing down below? That was this group. High energy, High Speed, High proof performers. Great covers of traditional tunes as well as fun originals. A ‘must see them perform live’ group, worth whatever the ticket may cost.
  • Great Big Sea – Newfoundland shanties & pop music. I prefer their more folky stuff, but regardless of the genre it’s all done with traditional instruments and is high energy and fun. Another ‘must see them perform live’ group.
  • Billy Jonas – Industrial recycled Re-percussion. Great music for kids & adults. Amazing to see perform live.
  • Joel Mabus
  • David Mallet
  • Jay Mankita
  • Red Molly
  • Darryl Purpose

Stanley-Allison-Stan-Rogers-November-29-1949-June-2-1983-celebrities-who-died-young-31765264-320-571

  • Stan Rogers – Though he died in a plane fire many years before I first head of him, his music is still amazing and they release some unreleased gems of his live recordings every now and then. I’d love to attend one of the StanFest festivals someday.
  • Schooner Fare – I first saw them open for Tommy Makem in Boston back in 1990 and have been a big fan ever since. I only got to see them once more after that, and even though I’ve been in Maine for 11 years I haven’t had a chance to see them since moving up here. One of the founding members, Dave Rowe, died a few years agobut the other two members still perform on occasion.
  • Pete Seeger – Do I need to explain this one?
  • David Wilcox – I’ll admit some of David’s more recent stuff hasn’t resonated with me, but since I’m still in love with his first few CDs I always give him a listen. I’ve written about him before in my blog http://matt.baya.net/david-wilcox/
  • Dar Williams

Resolutions

More more moreI started this blog post in late December, and then just left it in draft form until now. Instead of tossing it now that it’s 2 months older, I figured I’d post it now and just take off the ‘New Years’ part of it.

By the way, I’m told my first word was ‘more’ and thus all my resolutions involve ‘More’, though they aren’t the ones you might expect (as in ‘Make more $’, ‘Get More Stuff’, etc)

So without further delay, here are my somewhat late resolutions;

  • Get More Organized
    • Inbox Zero – The idea here is basically, your e-mail inbox shouldn’t be your to do list, it should be (what a concept) your Inbox. You take things out of your inbox and you either archives them, respond & then archive them, throw them out or if you cant reply right away put them in ‘followup’ or ‘hold’. I’m doing really well on getting my inbox to zero, and I’ve been doing this for about 10 months now. The catch is, my followup folder overfloweth. So my goal here is to achive not only inbox zero, but also ‘Zero Followup’ and actually reading my ‘readme’ folder (or if I dont have time, then accepting that fact and tossing it)
    • Project Management / To Do List – Create this from incoming mail tasks and other needs I’m made aware of. I’ve been using Asana.com for this with some success.
    • Calendar – It’s great to have a to-do list but unless the tasks are scheduled, it’s just a wish list. This last part I’m realizing I need to do, but haven’t actually done yet. It’s a big switch to start scheduling my free time in evenings etc but I guess it’s necessary.
  • “Do More”
    • “It’s not the fights you’ve dreamed of, it’s those you’ve really fought” – Si Kahn. Time to start taking things off my ‘someday’ list and either do them, or drop them to make room for other things I want to / need to do. This also goes for organizations I volunteer for, is my time & effort really benefiting them enough that it’s worth it (for them & me)? If not, walk away. Part of this is I’m realizing in order to do more I need to be more organized and prioritize better (See Resolution #1)
  • Blog More –
    • Just write what comes up and not worry if it’s inane, incomplete or not for any particular audience. If I like it and I feel its worth sharing/archiving, that’s all that matters. No one is being forced to read my blog. I am not a professional blogger, I have no reputation to cultivate or ads to worry about. This is my personal blog, it doesn’t need to be perfect. “Perfection is enemy of good enough” is a quote I heard a while ago. My goal here on this blog is to be ‘Good Enough’
  • Sleep More –
    • Ever since my college died back in 2008 (See previous post) and I started volunteering to help with websites and IT efforts related to helping the alumni save it I started staying up WAY later than I should. It’s a bad habit, and I’m not terribly productive in that last hour or so anyways, so I know I should stop. A while ago I saw mention that Arianna Huffington had given some speeches about lack of sleep and everything she mentions in there makes sense. I’m hoping the more organized and prioritized me will mean I’m not feeling overwhelmed to just reply to one more e-mail before I go to bed.. and then another .. and another.

I have other ideas and plans but these are all the ones that are gelled enough to mention here. So.. 60 days later than planned, but still there.

I hereby resolve to (try) to do these things. So mote it be.