Where do you find your new releases?

Hi,

I learned in school/university a lesson that came from Castaneda. And it is basic physics. "Quality is inversely proportional to quantity" ... very simple. This was massive for "actors" in our theater program, learning to find a better, and less intrusive time in order to learn their lines for a scene, or a play. 

Taking this further, it taught me to LISTEN ... and that meant that I could hear it just once IN ITS ENTIRETY (not just needle and peck!) ... and learn/read what the sleeve said and look at the lyrics if available. I rarely had to listen to any album a 2nd or 3rd time, unless it was one of those ... wow albums ... AD2's Wolf City got worn out on the turntable and I had to get a 2nd copy!

Listening "repeatedly" for me, is, often, counter productive, IF, we are "not sure" what we want to hear, or what we are "expecting" to hear, since it will only help spread those out even further. IF, that happens to me, I sit the album down for a week or two and listen to it later, although I can not even tell you which album that happened to for me in 40 plus years. Actually there was one, and it was Tangerine Dream when I got introduced to "Mysterious Semblance ... " and it scared me and I went back to my headphones and listen to Hawkwind! And it took me 2 days, before I could listen to it again, and since then, it is by very far one of the prettiest things I have ever heard in my life, right next to Fairport Convention's Reynardine with the incredible voice of Sandy Denny.

In the end, for me, it is about staying tuned (sorry radio term), and making sure you can hear it ... and when you do, it normally sets in, unless you do what I call the cardinal sin of listening ...immediately you go "this sounds like ELP", or "this sounds like Ruckamuck", and right away you lose the ability to objectively decipher and interpret the music you are "listening", which in plain terms, it would be considered, not listening, since your attention is side tracked from the music itself.

But there are things that take me a while to get into ... weirdly enough, it took me 3 seconds and Peter Hammill/VdGG were ready for me, but it took me over a year for Gentle Giant to sync in until I found the incredible musicianship involved and their playful ability with it. For me, few bands, have that kind of musical talent that GG showed ... specially with really difficult material instead of the simplistic one note, or one riff sounding and formatted music that we listen to these days!

But I do check as many "corners" as I can. It's just that I don't really care if I miss anything, since there's way too much to ever check out in a lifetime anyway, and I just have a higher success-rate with older music.