My taste in music is so weird.

I go from listening to some Canibus, the greatest rapper alive, to songs like Christy Moore’s “Ride On.”  I think I might have to pick up his whole “Live in Dublin 2006″ album sometime.  I’ve seen a few of the songs on YouTube and they’re all pretty great.  Anyways:

One of my favorite live performances

I’ve been on a bit of an A Perfect Circle kick lately.  I’ve been listening Mer De Noms and Thirteenth Step (their first two albums) back-to-back, and this is reflected by my YouTube activity.  I found this video of APC playing “Three Libras” live on Leno, and I have to share it.  It’s no secret that Maynard James Keenan – frontman of Tool and A Perfect Circle – is an amazing singer.  What’s more he’s one of the few singers in this genre that probably sounds better live than on an album.

I remember my brother showing me a recording of this exact performance many years ago.  He knew in advance that they’d be on Leno and had recorded a VHS copy (dating us both a bit there, as well as APC I suppose) and when we watched it he commented on how it was one of the best performances he’d seen.  I’d have to agree.  Unfortunately the YouTube version I found has been disabled for embeds, but here’s the same video from imeem in a lesser quality:

3 Libras – A Perfect Circle – Live @ TONIGHT SHOW w/ Jay Leno

I also favorited the video on YouTube so if you still want to see that version you can check out my channel there.  Username is dmkemick.

Pandora Radio and complementary tools

Pandora Radio has changed the way I’ve listened to music.  It’s the most powerful music recommendation application I’ve ever used, and it’s led to me spending a lot on new albums.  If you’re a music lover looking to broaden your horizons, check it out at pandora.com.

In this video not only do I talk about Pandora Radio, but some complementary tools to improve your Pandora listening experience.  The first tool is PandoraBoy, a Google Code project that runs Pandora as an application (OSX only, but Pandora also has a platform-independent Adobe AIR application).  This is cool for a couple reasons – first of all, it lets you cut out the big advertisements that are on Pandora.com and in the Adobe AIR version of Pandora, and secondly it adds some functionality (Growl notifications, keyboard shortcuts) which only a desktop application can deliver.

The second tool is a plugin for Adium, which is (in my opinion) the best instant messenger client for OSX.  The script lets you use whatever is playing in PandoraBoy as your Adium status.  If you’ve used iTunes to show your Now Playing song in Adium you’ll know what I mean.  Check out the video and leave a comment!  Thanks for watching!

PandoraBoy
http://code.google.com/p/pandoraboy/

“Now Playing in Pandora” Adium script
http://www.adiumxtras.com/index.php?a=xtras&xtra_id=4604

Pandora Radio

Now Playing:
Young Dubliners – Follow Me Up To Carlow
Fallout 3