"What do you Love About Music?"

"To Begin With Everything" - Almost Famous

Hi everyone – As some, most or all of you know, my name is Dan, and I live in Somerville, MA - which is just outside of Boston. As the quote from Almost Famous implies, I love music (both live and recorded), and I’m writing this blog to share my love with you.

What type of music do I like?  Generally speaking, I like modern rock, alternative, grunge, independent rock, folk, emo, and on and on, but I am willing to listen to a little bit of anything (if it's good). My wife and I own over 850 cds. We still buy most of our music on physical media, but lately, she’s been doing a bit of downloading as well. So basically, I haven’t joined the world of digital music and iTunes yet. I own an mp3 player, but not an iPod. Most of the time, I rely on cds to listen to music, although lately I've been doing some some online/streaming listening as well.

Maybe more than recorded music, I love seeing live shows. You can see my full concert history on Songkick.com (user name OffHeGoes), but to give you an idea, I’ve seen about 75 shows throughout my life. I’ve seen about 12 shows this year - from some really big ones (U2 at Gillette Stadium) to some really small ones (10 Out of Tenn at Café 939).  I can't fully explain it, but I feel like seeing live shows is the ultimate experience for me.  It's you, the crowd, the music, the artist all coming together, and you really can't beat it.  If it wasn't for the late nights to see live shows and the full time job, I would be seeing even more concerts.  

My favorite band of all time is Pearl Jam. I own over 30 Pearl Jam cds, 5 dvds and have seen them live 11 times. I’ll probably post more on my Pearl Jam love another time.  As this blog goes on, I'll share some of my other favorites, but off the top of my head here are a few other artists I really like: Ryan Adams, Radiohead, Griffin House, Dashboard Confessional, The Killers, and although it's really a rotating group of artists, 10 Out Of Tenn.

In my next post, I’ll talk about some of the ideas and tools I’m going to use in this blog, but in general, I’ll be sharing my thoughts and reviews on anything music related that interests me. I’ll review some live shows and new cds. I’ll share current listening notes on new and old music.  I might talk about interesting websites or music news. And as time goes by, I'll add in anything else music related that may interest me or you.

If you have any comments or thoughts about this blog and what I've done or will be doing, I’d be happy to hear from you. Also, if you are reading this, it would be great to hear from you in the comments!