August 2002

Grandpa Loves Music

This Month:
1. Tom Wilson - A Southern boy the Chesapeake made good
2. Lounge Radio - When you can hear it, it's still the best mix on the net
3. Dublab.com - Rocks me with sounds from Brazil, and it's always on!

Tom Wilson
Two weeks ago, we added a new button to our home page's primary frame. The new button will connect you with the web-site for the freshest new musician in Maryland: Tom Wilson. His constantly revised web-site is complete with tour dates, MP3's, and pics from recent gigs.

Bigfoot and I have seen Tom perform three times: once in Baltimore and twice in Annapolis. His shows offer a number of his own pieces, sprinkled here and there with a few covers. In a nutshell, I think that accept for his rendition of "Shout" (by Tears for Fears), I can give or take him singing cover songs. For once you have heard his own music, you are not interested in another person's work.

The mix of contemporary folk and classic country music create a sound that is deceptively simple. His songs, about love, loss and redemption, are sung with sincerity and wit. Being that the songs are also honest, he appears confident and loose on stage. One would not guess that he had been performing for less than a year.

I found that he does not have the same looseness on stage when performing cover songs. In all the years that I worked in bars, I saw dozens of solo artists play entire evenings of covers, night after night. Many of these singers would toss in one or two songs of their own. I always felt embarrassed for them because they changed almost instantly from seasoned players to first timers.

Tom is the opposite. There is a noticeable change in his voice and the delivery of the lyrics when he is covering a song. The one exception is, as mentioned earlier, "Shout". By changing the way the song is played, he is able to re-write the song, making it something new and better.

Tom is recording his music and posting sounds on the net for his fans. He is looking forward to putting out a real live CD in the near future. Stay tuned on tomwilson.com for details.

Lounge Radio
Months ago, I began blathering on and on about a new web-radio station, Lounge Radio, out of Switzerland. Yes, months have passed, but Lounge Radio is still going strong and is bigger than ever.

When Lounge Radio (a button linking you to the 'Sounds for Couch Potatoes' is to your left) started, no more than 10 people could listen at a time. Now, 300 people can listen at one time! Three weeks ago, Lounge Radio received a license from Switzerland, making it a completely legal web-based broadcaster.

In recent months, tons of web-based radio stations have closed down because of a harsh, new system of royalties paid to record companies. While I do not agree with the government's decision in theory, the costs have forced many not-for-profit music sites to shut down. Thankfully, our friends in Switzerland have kept the world safe for the sweetest electronic grooves from across the globe.

Until this past week, though, I have been struggling to get onto the stream when I am at work. More often than not, the server is full. But this past Monday, I slapped Lounge Radio on my Real Player early in the morning and listened all day long. I did that every day this week! It was well worth the wait. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Hell yeah!

Dublab.com
When I cannot listen to Lounge Radio, I listen to dublab.com. Dublab is a small, web-radio station that cranks out long DJ sessions of the most dubliminal music in the UNIVERSE. Truth be told, I am often torn between my love of Lounge Radio and Dublab. I love them both so much that I wish I had two more ears!

Godzilla is also a fan of dublab's DJ sessions. This last week, he and I spoke at length about the copious amount of hot Brazilian music played on dublab every day (the music makes me want to take my clothes off). If I closed my eyes, I could picture a beautiful topless beach on the Atlantic coast. Lucky me, I see Demi Moore, but not Michael Cane.

As I have said before, bookmark dublab.com on your computer and listen for at least an hour every day. You will be glad that you did.

(If you really like dublab.com, be sure to send them a proton grant ($$$.) They are small and need help paying the record companies for all the music they play. If dublab.com falls like SOMAFM, there will be hell to pay.)