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This post is mostly just for close family members, but since my brother and the guys in his band are moving out of the 'tent city' in the attic of their publishing company I thought it was worth looking back.

The video really doesn't do it justice (they really did live in the 4th story attic of a converted house/office on Music Row in Nashville.) I was in awe of their part-time living quarters in Nashville the first time I saw it. It had a bizarro sort of charm to it that was hard to describe . . . then again I didn't have to live there.

Even though my musical tastes have broadened significantly over the years, whenever I look through my list of most played artists I almost always see the usual suspects at the top - sort of a recurring who's who of my general musical tastes: Jimmy Buffett, Eric Clapton, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Chet Atkins, Keb Mo, John Mayer, Tom Petty, The Allman Bros.

But there's always a handful of individual songs which stand out and don't belong to the usual suspects. As I was listening to a collection of my playlists in the background just a moment ago, two of my all-time favorite songs came on back-to-back for the first time. And while they both have a somewhat similar sound and emerged from the same era, they both end up conveying entirely different emotions.

Nothing's changed on the Guitar Hero front (I still suck) but I've enjoyed the game thus far.

It did get me thinking of an oddball question though . . . how cool/odd/impossible would it be to try to tackle a Chet Atkins tune on Guitar Hero? Most people obviously think rock/blues/metal when they think of guitar greats and I'm no different. But Chet is one of the best of all time regardless of genre. His finger-picking style is so indescribably smooth. With the possible exception of Keb Mo, he's my favorite musician to listen to whenever I just want to relax. This old standard is a bit faster-paced than most of his stuff, but it shows a little of what I'm talking about. Imagine that coming down the fretboard on Guitar Hero.

I was finally able to track down Guitar Hero for the Wii. I had to drive all the way to Fairfield, but since I was on a mission it was worth it. A Guitar Hero for the Wii sighting is almost as rare as an actual Wii sighting. You must act quickly or else it will instantly be gone and no one will ever believe you.

After playing for the last few hours though I've come to the not so shocking realization that I suck. Actually I'm not THAT bad. But it's definitely a different experience and will take some practice . . . practice that could probably be better spent practicing on a real guitar or keyboard. But that would actually be productive so no worries there.

Another problem is that I'm not sure if I should play it right-handed (the way I "play" a normal guitar) or if I should switch over to my natural lefty state. I play a regular guitar right-handed, but that's only because I play chords which requires minimal finger movement. My fingers on my right hand (which would be the fret hand if I was playing lefty) are actually far more nimble and might be better suited to the likes of Guitar Hero.

In the meantime I'll just have to practice (whenever I'm not playing Team Fortress 2 with Adam *hint hint bro*) Eventually I want to play this song (which is actually on the open source PC knockoff Frets on Fire, but I don't care since it's always the first song I think of when I think of the likes of Guitar Hero.) It's not as polished as Guitar Hero, but the beauty of Frets on Fire is you can theoretically set it up to play anything. ;)

I was originally going to do a more intense shoulder workout tonight. But after putting lights on the Christmas tree for the last couple hours I can barely lift my arms.

I made the decision to get more contemporary and go with a new batch of LED lights this year as the 6+ strings of lights we used on our main tree in the past had been gradually shorting out one by one. However, I didn't notice that the spacing between the bulbs on the new lights were MUCH closer than the old strings we'd been using. As a result, I ended up spending nearly an hour snaking the LEDs up and down each branch (like I did in years past) only to find that the new lights barely cover the bottom half of our tree. And with 400 bulbs on only half a tree you can imagine how nice that looked. I ended up ripping down all my previous work and just winging it to a reasonably nice result.

I have to confess, I thought a few times about pre-lit trees during the process. But after seeing virtually every pre-lit tree purchased by friends/family quickly short out I'd rather not bother. And despite my rantings here, I actually look forward to putting the lights up as it's my first dose of getting ready for the holidays (I'm a sucker for the holiday season.) However, I was irritated that SpikeTV was not good enough to provide me with my usual tree-decorating entertainment in the form of the now-expected James Bond Thanksgiving week marathon. For me, nothing rings in the holidays quite like The Man With The Golden Gun or From Russia With Love.

I like a lot of the Pixar-inspired movies which are pretty much the norm these days. But sitting here watching Disney's original Robin Hood with Laney makes me miss the old hand drawn animation from ye olden days.

I also miss the music. I'm not talking about the grand, Broadway-friendly productions from the late 80s and early/mid 90s (although I certainly respect those for being great musicals.) I'm talking about the simple old songs that weren't written with any grand intentions in mind. They were just there to set the mood and support the story and didn't mind coming off as chintzy (even if they really weren't.)

A few of the songs from Robin Hood epitomize this for me. Tunes like Whistle Stop (long before the Hamster Dance perverted it), Oo-De-Lally, and Not in Nottingham. I particularly enjoy the irony that you've got a Texan as the main singer/narrator and several Southern/Western accents as major characters in a story that's supposed to be set in 11th century England. But since we've got animals playing the roles of humans I guess this isn't an instance to be a stickler for details.

There's been a lot of great online music services that have popped up over the last couple years. Pandora got a ton of acclaim for its attractive interface and its ability to analyze the patterns within music to make more recommendations. I've personally had mixed results with it, but I can certainly see the allure.

Last.fm has been around for awhile, but seems to be the service getting the most attention at the moment. I've used this service as well and have been very impressed. It places much more emphasis on the social networking approach to playlists and recommendations than Pandora. And when you think about it, the way a lot of people discover music is through friends so it's arguably the most proven approach.

As nice as these services are, it makes you realize just how incredible Launchcast was when they were offering this caliber of service back when they started in 1999. Since their acquisition by Yahoo in 2001 they've become more commercialized (which depending on your perspective is a good or bad thing.) I've personally been using the service for years and still enjoy it as the more detailed rating system seems to do a better job of learning my tastes. Hopefully they'll eventually be able to finally get it working with a Flash or Ajax frontend so it can be more accessible in a multi-browser, multi-OS world.

Another one I've only recently discovered (not sure how long they've been around) is Finetune. I was looking for a good streaming music solution that worked well with the Wii's browser. Unfortunately none of the options above currently work properly on the Wii. Finetune, however, has built a VERY nice interface designed solely for the Wii. It's very easy to navigate with the remote and looks great on a TV screen. I've got to spend more time customizing my playlists, but I think this could quickly become one of the main sources of music on our home stereo as the inexpensive Wii does an amazing job of taking another step toward the ultimate convergence box.

Unfortunately, I simply don't have the time to fully utilize all these great services. And given the way most of them work, the more time you put into them, the better your experience as it learns your tastes. I'm already heavily-leveraged into Launchcast. And given Finetune's great Wii interface I'll likely continue to use that one as well. If Last.fm had a better Wii interface I'd likely give it another chance, but for now I'll continue to use Finetune.

I was trying to find some music to listen to tonight while I worked out in the basement. I started off with some of my usual stuff, but I suddenly remembered a music video I loved. Sure enough, it was on YouTube.

Of course, I kept digging (workout a distant afterthought now.) Eventually I wound up watching some of the old clips from Eric Clapton's Unplugged performance. Layla and Tears in Heaven were of course the most popular songs to come out of that amazingly successful performance, but my personal favorite was always Old Love. I think this live rendition where the musicians are free to take more liberty with the instrumentals (along with the version on the 24 Nights album) showcases the song at its best. Unfortunately, the YouTube audio capabilities are limited. The original sounds fantastic on a good home audio system.


And as long as I'm embedding YouTube stuff (always fun) I might as well plug in some Keb Mo as I could (and sometimes do) listen to him all day. He was in Birmingham a few months ago opening for Bonnie Raitt and I could shoot myself for not going.

Like a lot of people, the Charlie Brown Christmas special serves as an annual rite of passage in my holiday celebrations (an emerging tradition is the James Bond marathon, but since that one drives Holly crazy I won't go into that.)

When I was younger, it was very much about the cartoon and the story itself. Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang were arguably at the pinnacle of their popularity in the late 70s and early 80s. But as I get older, the draw that keeps me coming back each year (beyond just the story) is the music itself. Guaraldi's jazz twist on traditional Christmas standards as well as his original songs are so well done that they now stand completely on their own as classics.

I recently came across this Seattle Times article talking about the background of the soundtrack and how it almost caused the Christmas special to be canned, yet is now one of the main things that has made the show a holiday institution.

But the Internet being the Internet, I also came across this NPR Audio clip (wma) covering pretty much the same story. So you can take your pick, read or listen. Either way, a good story.

And for the record, my personal favorite is his version of O'Tannenbaum. I'd love to say it was one of the original tunes, but when you can take a Christmas standard and make your version a standard in its own right, that's pretty impressive.

The Shoals did well opening for Gretchen Wilson. They played a mix of their own tunes as well as covers (which you pretty much have to when you're trying to get a crowd that doesn't know you or your original material very well.)

PHOTOS ON FLICKR

Ironically, I think the song that went over best with the crowd was their own song (and my personal favorite) Down South. I noticed a lot of people in the crowd seemed to be grooving along to that one. Like I said in my previous post, it's got a strong chorus. I uploaded a video clip of this to YouTube. You can see it by clicking the play below (you can also click on thru to YouTube for a slightly-larger version.)

Adam's band, The Shoals, will be opening for Gretchen Wilson at the Alabama Music Hall of Fame this weekend. This will be one of their biggest shows to date.

If you haven't listened to them yet, I highly recommend checking them out. You can hear several of their songs on their MySpace page. They're all good songs as they've been working with top songwriters from all over the country. But if I had to pick two, my personal favorites are 'Down South' and 'I Used to Bring Her Roses.' They both have excellent hooks in the chorus.

http://www.myspace.com/theshoals