I must have been suffering from writer's block lately because I haven't put anything up for a couple weeks. I'm certainly not suffering from music block, though. There's still plenty of that floating around.
First of all, I downloaded Coldplay's FREE live album from their website. You should, too. The download will be available until the end of Coldplay's current tour near the end of July. That gives you plenty of time to get on board.
After that, I went over to Wilco's site, where the band is streaming it's new album, Wilco (The Album). Can't download that one, but you can't put it in one browser and open up another -- say, to write a blog entry -- and listen. It's due out in CD form on June 30.
Then I bought my tickets for Gavin DeGraw's next show at the House of Blues downtown. Sure, I've already seen him a couple times, including last summer at the HOB, but he's fantastic. This time he'll be with Collective Soul, which has a new album due out in August. This after scoring last-minute, seventh-row seats for $20 under face value to see Neko Case at Allen Theater last month.
My two favorite songs of 2009 have been seeing some increased exposure lately. Ida Maria made it to the states for a brief tour (not to Cleveland, sadly) and appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to play "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked." She's also been getting some play on my favorite local station, 88.7-FM WBWC from Baldwin-Wallace College. That station also pumped me up when it played Tim Brantley's "Damage" recently. His album "Goldtop Heights" was just released and is receiving rave reviews. I wasn't pumped up to hear it on The Hills as well, simply because I didn't hear it played on The Hills. Have to watch it to hear it. But it did make that MTV reality show. And now he's returning to the HOB on July 15 with Josh Hoge. So am I.
Oh, and Ruben Studdard released a cover of Extreme's horrible song "More Than Words" on his new album. Come to think of it, that might be what gave me writer's block.