What do You listen to?

Some of the Rock/Blues/Pop CD's in my collection:
Led Zeppelin - just about everything
Hendrix - just about everything
Doors- several
Cream - several
Jefferson Airplane
Moby Grape
Rush
Kansas
Van Halen
Def Leppard
Country Joe and the Fish
Grateful Dead
Kenny Wayne Shepard
Stevie Ray Vaughn
Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Steely Dan
Stones
Beatles
Blue Oyster Cult

Smooth Jazz/Jazz
Jazzmasters (Paul Hardcastle)-several
Spyro Gyra - several
Peter White- several
Grover Washington - a couple
Boney James
Tom Grant
Joe Sample
Down to the Bone
David Sanborn
Kenny G
Sade

I am listening to mostly Smooth Jazz now days because it allows me to enjoy the sound of my system better and is more relaxing. I just turned 50 so I guess I'm getting old!

I constantly listen to some musicians I'm sure almost no one on Audiogon or most people on earth are familiar with.

One of my favorite guitarists is Robby Longley. I first heard him four or five years ago playing live on Saturday night at a Borders bookstore in Torrance, CA. He's originally from New Orleans, but is heavily influenced by flamenco and Carlos Montoya. What results is an amazing gumbo of sound and passion. Since first seeing him I have caught three more of his appearances at Borders. I own many of his CDs and have brought a few along when shopping for audio gear. I never get tired of his music and listen to it in the car and on my rig at home. I believe some of his releases are available on Amazon. My favorites are "Sanctuary" and "Danza Mora".

The other musicians are a drummer named Tom Maxwell and a guitarist named Steve Denny. I first heard about these artists from my good friend Dave Pascal who is producing their first solo efforts.

Tom is the drummer for the popular surf band The Blue Hawaiians, and his solo release "Bliss of a Madman" under the banner of Magic Box is an incredible instrumental journey incorporating jazz, classical and electronica with Middle Eastern and World influences.

Steve Denny is a talented guitarist influenced by flamenco and his love of movies. His first release "Oscuro" is a blend of rock, jazz, movie music, flamenco and world rhythms. His sound is of deep emotions with control and pathos. His guitar work is also featured on "Bliss of a Madman".

I've been luck y to hear the development of both Magic Box and Oscuro since the beginning two years ago up until the final pressings last month. My friend Dave would periodically drop a CD on my desk of their latest rough tracks. It was fun to hear the evolution of their music throughout the creative and production process, but most of all I loved the music. Anyone interested can get more information on them at: http://www.pascalrecords.com.

The three artists above have more playing time on my Theta Pearl and car CD player than all my other CDs combined!

Audiophanatik, your music selection is made up of alot of "in your face" stuff. I am thinking you are an SS man, right? Loud and proud. I can dig it. Yeah, I'm hip to the scene.

It's easier to say what I don't listen too:

crappy folk stuff like Eagles and/or Austin Lounge Lizards;

too classical stuff like Beatles or ELP;

crappy smooth jazz like Kenny G;

all pop and rap.

Matchstikman

I guess the seperation of Rap and HipHop is basically determined by the attitude of the music. Since mainstream rap/hiphop is still relativly new, its expanding out into different distinct styles, much as Heavy metal turned into Thrash, Death metal, Heavy metal, Punk, Inrustrial, and so on.

I guess the best way figure it, is Rap is usually more agressive in nature, Alot of the time Rap is about inner city issues, like the best way to "off" the pimp who slapped your ho, or Grabbing you "Gat" and dealing with N*ggaz, or boasting how tough of a mo'fo you are. Prime examples are Dr. Dre, SnoopDogg, NWA, Ict Cube/ Ice Tea and such. Alot of rapping about life in the ghetto

HipHop is alot brighter in general atmosphere, it more focuses on living a dream, IE Bling-Bling, big cars, big houses, Big boats. Big Booty Hos, and basically living larger than life. Both will have a tendancy to fade twards eachother from time to time.

Santana, i consider blues, i guess in the way i consider eric clapton blues. Clapton spreads across genres as well as santana, but they both do what they do best with blues. I have a couple santana CD's and that guy is phenominal!

Breakbeat is a little hidden treasure i manage to salvage from my drug induced rave-days. (mind you im a respectable part of socioty now, not still some dumb punk kid)

This will probaably sound like nails on a chalkboard to TWL, but i compare breakbeat to Classical Symphony.

Breakbeak is normally one guy, with a bunch of vinyl, making alot of sharp cuts from one song to the next. Sounds like a normal DJ? Not in this case, in this case they will take small 10-15 second quips or maybe several minuits and arrange it into a song. While most nomral DJ's will sit there and mix music, Breakbeat takes it to a whole new level.
ColdCut is my favorite Breakbeat DJ, One of his "songs" is called Bits' nd pieces, it is a conglomeration of 5-10 seconds of over 70 different pieces of music arranged into a 4-5 minuit song.
(hold on TWL, ill explain the reference to classical)
It sounds like mass confusion andnot too appealing, i will admit it. Breakbeat is probably the hardest DJ freestyle form and to get it to sound good is a monumental task. Coldcut can do this and man can he do it. It constantly changes, loses and regains form, and as far as putting on your High-End equipment, coldcut will push your system to its limits. Not just dynamic limits, or volume, or bass, because this is NOT dance music. You cannot dance to breakbeat without hurting yourself.hehehe
Some of his music strays from the breakbeat to the Classic "Techno dj" stuff, but the other stuff is out of this world.

Now, the classical reference reffers to the unusual dnamics and spread of style speed, and tempo. Classical and Breakbeat both hit points of tranquility of simple tunes, then can at any moment blast into a full dynamic sound production of a conglomeration of sources, and can change on a heartbeak taking you in a completely different direction.

Honestly its one of my favorite forms of music, and i really dont like techno much save for a few select groups, and those are actual groups of multiple individuals arranging the myusic live, not some dude on a computer generating loops and assemleing them. Thats what i call "plug and play"

Honestly, i dont know much christian metal. There is a big difference between satanic music and christian music i have noticed. Satanic music, might have 1-2 references to the devil on the whole CD, The band itself is satanic, thier concerts there will be alot more of that nonsence, but they normally leave it out of thier music for the most part. The rest might just be disturbing ideas or regular songs about love or anger or loss, like any other music. Christian rock, from my small exposure kinda rams god down your throat. While every christian rock song ive heard praises god and his glory, satanic bands just keep a very basic undertone of thier beliefs and dont incorperate them much.
Besides, most of these "Satanists" are athiests with a sick sence of humor and try to do it for shock value. If they try to recruit people to satanism, they would lose thier "cool" edge as they probably consider it.

Disclaimer, I do in fact know that SATANISM is not the worship of the devil, as commonly assumed and believed. Satanism, if i remember correctly, is a believe in equalibrium, which entails the respect and worship of both good and evil. The ying-Yang thing...

And also, i heart that Mozart had a wooden hookah as a peg leg!
he used to get high with bach