Making the Internet Fun Again

I’ve been self­ish about how I share things online. When I was writ­ing reg­u­lar­ly as a crit­ic, wield­ing my blog like a bull­horn for what­ev­er I desired, I shared with near wreck­less aban­don on vir­tu­al­ly every plat­form at my dis­pos­al. Lately, I’ve turned inward, keep­ing cool arti­cles and ideas nes­tled snug­ly in Instapa­per, or worse, my head, like they’re some pre­cious bauble to hold close. Well, that’s going to change. I’m vow­ing to share more in 2012.

Some­thing I’ve come to love about the most excel­lent writ­ers (call them “cura­tors” if you must) is how they edi­to­ri­al­ize links. I think I’ve been slow to accept this because with music writ­ing, it could be mon­e­tized in clear ways by pub­lish­ing through a third par­ty. When you read great stuff at blogs like dar­ing fire­ball, you mar­vel at how far a link and an ounce of edi­to­r­i­al can take you. Same is true for Twit­ter fol­lows like David Carr, who just re-shared his insight­ful inter­view with Ter­ry Gross on Fresh Air specif­i­cal­ly about this top­ic. Serendip­i­ty! It’s what makes the Inter­net fun and I think that I for­got that some­where along the way while hoard­ing links and arti­cles and ideas in Google Read­er and Reed­er and Twit­ter and Tum­blr and Instapa­per and all the oth­er ways we use the web today.

So 2012 at Ram­say­ings will be about shar­ing those insights. Brace yourself.

Yo La Tengo: Great Rock Band or Greatest Rock Band?

Here’s some­thing I scrib­bled about @TheRealYLT back in 2007. It’s still so true. Need more proof? Fine. Check out these clips of a reunit­ed Pussy Galoredaz­zling the crowd at Maxwell’s last week. Let’s not for­get the fact that Yo La Ten­go are still play­ing their stan­dard 8 night Hanukkah run while Ira recov­ers from an undis­closed ill­ness. Since I could­n’t make it to any of their shows this week, I’m lis­ten­ing to every­thing Yo La Ten­go on Spo­ti­fy. Unsur­pris­ing­ly, it’s per­fect for this week.

These guys are seri­ous­ly the great­est, most gen­er­ous act in indie rock and I can’t help but think peo­ple still take them for grant­ed, because, well, they do.

(I’d be remiss if I did­n’t link over to Jesse Jarnow’s online home, Frank & Earthy, for full setlists from these shows.)

What An Amazing Christmas

Have to say that hav­ing a two and a half year old real­ly reminds you of the true mean­ing of Christ­mas, which in my house­hold means going total­ly bonkers over all the stuff you’re so for­tu­nate to receive as gifts.

Had a love­ly time with fam­i­ly: great food and drink and com­pa­ny are what make the hol­i­days so spe­cial. Already plot­ting for next Christmas!

Hope you had a won­der­ful hol­i­day, too. All the best in 2012.

Last Guy on Earth to Subscribe to Spotify

This is how I used to feel about music 2.0. Now I’m more than will­ing to spend $10 a month to lis­ten to what­ev­er I like, give or take. I will say that the playlists fea­ture is pret­ty great, espe­cial­ly now that I’m not a music edi­tor who would’ve been tasked with assem­bling them. Tedious work, that. That said, I’m enjoy­ing the Pitch­fork Top 100 songs playlist right now. Point me toward good playlists and I will add them.

I’d love to see them add a book­mark fea­ture so I could cat­a­log titles I find as I surf around the web. Think Instapa­per, but for music.