Music is Good - Guardian Blog Jam

greg

A month or two ago I applied for the MIG blog to be included in the Guardian Blog Jam. Nothing happened so I thought they did not want MiG included, but I got an email late yesterday, below

hi Greg,

Are you still up for featuring in the blog jam series?
If so, could you answer the following within the next couple of days?




Who are you and what’s your blog called?

Where are you based?

Describe your blog in a sentence.

How long have your blog been going?

What music do you write about?

In no more than 200 words, tell us why people should visit your blog

What’s your top song right now? (Include Soundcloud or YouTube link)

What’s your favourite music blog aside from your own (and why)?

So I need to reply really in the next 24 hours or so. I'm OK on some aspects but some help to one or two of the questions would be great to make sure i get this right.

What is the top Mig song right now?? Any great ideas. Anybody got a succinct sentence for MiG? 200 words - I could use the introductory paragraph, but any ideas to update that? I'll mention Jonah's Bird is the Worm as my favourite other blog, but if Jonah would like to say one sentence for why that would be great.

If MiG gets onto the Guardian Blog Jam it would be brilliant publicity. See Guardian Music for their website and Blog Jam to see other blogs featured.

greg

First attempt at some of the questions. Please comment/change

Who are you and what’s your blog called?

We are a collective of music lovers of all genres brought together through www.emusers.org message board. Our blog is called Music is Good

Where are you based?

We are a virtual collective based across the USA and Western Europe, including the UK and Ireland

Describe your blog in a sentence.

musicisgood.org is dedicated to spreading the word about all that is good in the world of music, including everything from classical to indie pop, jazz to drone, afrobeat to bluegrass, and every classic and trendy genre in between.

How long have your blog been going?

Music is Good has been going since November 2011

What music do you write about?

Anything and everything, as long as it is good music! Recent articles have included....

In no more than 200 words, tell us why people should visit your blog

Starting point - Brought together as a community at emusers.org we began searching for a way to share our love of music. What better way to do that than to start a blog? To that end, musicisgood.org aims to bring you news, reviews, histories, and stories spanning our varied tastes, and in the process spread the word about our favorite artists and songs. This is possible for one reason only: we like nothing more than to both listen to and talk about music, because Music Is Good.

What’s your top song right now? (Include Soundcloud or YouTube link) HELP!!!

What’s your favourite music blog aside from your own (and why)?

Bird is the Worm http://www.birdistheworm.com Jonah, why should I include this??

Nereffid

Well, any attempt to identify a single song that sums up our entire musical tastes is doomed to failure, so I suggest you say something like "We can't decide between Kate Campbell, Makunouchi Bento, or the Clemencic Consort" or some similar very wide range.

Or the Narwhal Song.

amclark2

Wow, that's great news, whatever the favorite song is!

cafreema

That's fantastic Greg! I'll give it some thought, but yeah a single song for us is difficult...to say the least. I think the only way we could answer that question is a humorous answer.

Craig

bremble

Favorite song? 4'33.

greg

Thanks all - the current favourite song is just part of their standard features, but I reckon I could adapt Nereffid's idea and put three or four to illustrate the depth. I'll email back tomorrow morning UK time, so any responses before then would be great

cafreema

Heh. That's not bad bremble!

A legitimate answer may be Bang on a Can All Star's performance of Eno's Music for Airports. That seems to pull in everyone in one way or another. Thoughts?

Craig

jonahpwll

Favorite song (obviously) is whatever I tell you it is.

Also, the song we use for favorite song is gonna need a soundcloud or youtube link, so that will limit our choices (I wonder if they'd accept bandcamp, or if that's excluded by way of it being a retail shop). It might be good to refer back to some of those mixtape recipe posts to see if there's something to pluck from there. I seem to remember lots of comments on those posts.

Favorite other blog doesn't necessarily have to be mine. While the extra press would certainly be nice, it is very specific to jazz and there might be a more varied site than mine that many of the emusers visit regularly. And nerrefid's classical blog is a pretty nice resource too.

Good job, Greg. That'll get the spotlight on MiG for sure.

Cheers.

bremble

No...really...here's the link...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKdeNv3Rlv0

Doofy

If you were going to be strategical about it, you might consider going back a few weeks for a song featured on the blog. Maybe something that looks interesting on the second page of "older posts"...See if you could get people to visit and spend a little more time exploring.

Congrats on this, btw! That feature sounds like fun.

Germanprof

I'm late to the party here - well done Greg. My thoughts re our favorite track: I suggest thinking in terms of what kind of reaction we are looking for from the eventual reader of this piece.My own hunch would be that a helpful reader reaction would be "oh my, that is a cool piece of music and I hadn't come across that before" - because that is one good reason why they should come look at our blog. (This is better than e.g. "Oh my, they like what I like" which is not going to work with MiG) My feeling is that neither the silly-humorous nor the currently popular not the overly obscure would achieve this. So I would suggest selecting something from recent stuff that a subset of us have been excited about that (a) folk may not have heard of and (b) is relatively accessible to the average reader of this piece - melodic, not too avant garde or droney fringe or whatever. I think this counts against the Cage and against a jokey response. Within those parameters the choice is actually somewhat arbitrary, and it would have to be accepted that it would not represent the whole blog or all of our tastes.

So what things are there that are pretty and have drawn the attention of groups of us rather than just lone individuals and made ripples on the now listening thread? A few first ideas (with no investment here in what gets chosen):

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqApTUXn6QE&feature=fvwrel
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V7sezmo7r0&feature=related (all I could find on a quick search from the Lessazo on youtube)
3. http://soundcloud.com/clappingmusic/egyptology-the-skies
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlM1H3IbOu8
5. ........?

(Personally I think 1 and 4 are especially strong candidates, but that's just me, though only one of them is in my collection).

One more thought: would it be a bad idea for the "favorite song" and "favorite other blog" to be in same musical genre in terms of giving the impression we are focused on that genre - so maybe don't use the Jason Parker AND Jonah, or the Frahm AND Nereffid.

BigD-Bluez

Craig, oddly enough as I was scrolling down I was thinking, What? Maybe Music For Airports?

Dr. Mutex

Perhaps my recording, "Jackhammer Jam"?

Seriously though, the concept of a "top song" is the antithesis of what MiG is about. One might speak of the dozen-odd recordings that currently drift in and out of our attention but a top song? It almost makes me want to ask one of my musician friends to record "Top Song" with Ukulele accompaniment.

Top song
This is the top song
Top song
This is the top song

It's really a hot song
A totally on top song
Top song

etc.

cafreema

I definitely think the favorite song and other blog should be different genres.

GP gives some good options, but I still think Music For Airports fits us as a whole better than most anything else (despite agreeing completely that this is the opposite of the MiG ethos). It just seems to incorporate so much more of our varied tastes than really anything else I can think of.

Craig

Germanprof

Yes, I'm fine with MfA too.

greg

Thanks all for your input. I had thought of the Lessazo album too. I'll check through GP's ideas, before coming to any conclusion. I'll let all know if/when it is up

Nereffid

Brian Eno: Nereffid says aye.

Dr. Mutex

MfA's ok with me.

I was going to make a snarky remark that we should specify that it be played backwards. Now when I get home, I want to play it backwards. I'll report back if I do the experiment.

Daniel, Esq.

so wait, is your blog now affiliated with the guardian UK? if so, that's fantastic. sorry, i've been so swept up in my own nonsense for so long that i haven't been able to focus on the outside world very much.

jonahpwll

Are we doing Eno's MFA or Bang-on-a-Can's version. I suggest BOAC's version, just because they're relevant and, well, much of their expansive sounds and goals, I think, really speak to a lot of what we all here love about music. I'm not saying Eno doesn't... just that BOAC might be a better choice. That way, we can show that we love innovative music, we like music of the past, but also follow bands of the present. But I may be overthinking this.

Dr. Mutex

I like that idea. I've got the BOAC version playing now.

Nereffid

Well, Craig suggested BOAC initially so I assumed that was what we were talking about.

jonahpwll

Oh, hey, you're right. I might have to consider reading that guy's posts.

cafreema

You better, or I'll start editing your MiG articles to say nice things about me.

Craig