This is Gaia and her cousin dancing to Clarence Clearwater, a navajo singer who plays the traditional songs in a non-traditional way. It's pretty good stuff. I shot this video at Indian Summerfest on Friday night.
One of the songs Clarence played was a song called "Skip Dance," which he described as a "ladies choice" dance wherein a girl would ask a boy to dance, and if the boy did, he is obligated to give the girl a quarter. Thats a prett sweet deal for the girls.
I explained to Gaia what "Ladies choice" meant and invited her to go up and dance. She grabbed a girl-- a stranger from the audience-- and they both went up to the front of the stage then and danced their little hearts out. Clearwater seemed to think it was pretty neat, too, because he vamped a little bit in the middle of the song and pointed the girls out to the croud. Check out Clearwater's stuff. He's got samples on his Web site.
Gaia then danced with her cousin Aurora as well as with her daddy. It was a great capper to a great summer.

I don’t understand why I like to get free Music from Amazon so much more than any other free music I can get from any number of awesome places, but there’s just something _awesome_ about picking out nearly four hours of music from the Freebies offered at Amazon.com’s digital music store.

Sure, not much of it is stuff I really know or love, but isn’t that the idea behind free music? Here’s a sample:

I posted the whole track list, clocking in at 3.9 hours of music on my Flickr Account . It probably goes back to my College Radio days, but I have a great appreciation for the Sampler album. Thanks to Amazon for making Samplers come back in such an awesome way.

Oh, One more thing.

Look, I get it. This story was leaked by Amazon and/or the Music Industry in reaction to the ridiculously teeny tiny number of 69-cent tracks available under the new iTunes variable pricing.  I know when I’m being manipulated, ok? But this is a great example of how competition betters the experience for the consumer. This is why Broadband monopolies must end. Without competition, there is nothing to temper the greedy hand of Lord Corporate Bottom Line.

Got an email from my Uncle Jim on Last.FM, of all places.
Last.FM is great because it just hangs out in your system tray and watches what you listen to in iTunes, then makes a feed of what you've listed to, and makes a radiostation based on what you've been listening to. It's a very passive way of greating a radio station, but makes a fairly accurate list of your iTunes collection. However, mine isn't exactly 100% on with my musical tastes. Mostly becuase my Sansa 280e doesn't scrobble.

A more active way to make a "Radio station," but without having to go full-bore into hosting and running your own files are the Mixtape services.
I have also been playing with a service called "muxtape" (http://heygabe.muxtape.com/) and MixWit (www.mixwit.com).
Both of these services let you make "mix tapes" of songs, the former of songs you upload from your own collection, and the other from stuff already available on the Internet.

Anyway, keep on Rockin' Uncle Jim.

Over the weekend, I had a heated discussion with some young fellows about the nature and character of Johnny Cash. I thought it would be important to set the record straight.  I do not dislike Johnny Cash, nor do I consider him a minor deity who graced us with a gravely magic voice. He was a man. Like Elvis. Who recorded a few great songs and a lot of mediocre ones. Like Elvis.

I hung my Head is one of my favorites at the moment. Even though it's technically a Police song, I Hung my Head is pure Cash. It's a story about a regretful incident bringing a sad end to an otherwise regretful life. Like Elvis'.

Cash was at his best when he was singing like a palpable answer to Tex Ritter, case in point, the folk ballad "Same Hall." Imagine if all of  Blood in the Saddle had been performed by Johnny Cash? Awesome, that's what you're Imagining-- pure awesome.