Music, cool music

A few months ago, I started listening to a program called CBC Radio 3. It's a podcast. For those of you who don't know, A Podcast is a pre-recorded radio program that you download and play when ever you want, on your computer, or MP3 player or whatever. "Radio on demand" as it's billed. And the best part, since it's CBC, it's free. (I'm not going to get into the bit about taxes, and CBC being a crown-Corp, and so on. If it makes you feel better, you can say you've already paid for it, so it's yours to enjoy.)

But back to the point. The program comes out once a week, and is about an hour long. It's filled up with small label Canadian bands of all types. A couple of these bands I though were worth buying their disks, so I took up the mission to find them while I was in Calgary over the holidays. One was a Ska band from Winnipeg called Los furious, and the other a rock group out of Vancouver called Immaculate Machine.

These are not the type of bands that one will find in HMV or Music World. You've got to go to the cool shops like Mega tunes. You know the type of shop. The ones where you don't hear Britney Spears playing when you walk in, and the glassy eyed white Raster behind the counter actually gives a shit about the music. Not able to find what I wanted, I decided to venture to the counter and ask Bob if he had them. Well, once he finished chewing on his last cheeze, he said he knew of the bands, but didn't have any in stock. He was more than willing to order them. Sorry dude, I'm just passing through town.

So it's off to the internet.

Never having ordered music right from the label, I didn't know what to expect. First I had to find them. Not too hard. $8 for a CD. Nice. Then it was nothing but click, and enter my credit card. Well the first one has arrived. And I was impressed. Not only did I get the music I ordered, but a sampler disk with 20 songs on it, a couple of buttons and some stickers. I'm not the type to wear the buttons, or do anything with the stickers, but it was good for a laugh.

Not familiar with Ska? You should be. It's a bastard child of Punk, Reggae, Polka, and sometimes a touch of Latino for spice. And they use alot of Brass instruments. You don't hear that too much anymore. Often it's very topical, Politics and social issues being common themes.

So what's the moral of my story? There is alot of good music out in the world. And very little of it makes it to the Mainstream radio stations of the world. Decide for your self what you want to listen too. Explore new bands and media. You never know when you will find the next King of Spain.