This has been a pretty good week. Workwise, blogwise, and in general. In Sweden we were celebrating Walpurgis Night and I opted to do so by watching a huge bonfire with a few friends and colleagues, which turned into an evening with a ton of fun. I finally completed that post with all the UK tours this May. Additionally I’ve added all those events to the IROK events listing, which was a bit time-consuming but feels somewhat worthwhile anyway because I like seeing the coming events in the sidebar. And I’ve gotten the material I need to write the post for Jambinai‘s Europe tour, that I mentioned last week, but I think I will wait until all the current UK touring has been completed before I take action.
What hasn’t been so good is that the site at times has been very, very slow. Apparently this is because somebody else that shares the same bluehost server is misusing some resources and there doesn’t seem like there’s much that can be done about it. Today has been better than most other days though, so I hope that it’ll continue that way. Meanwhile all I can do is apologize for the slow loading and navigation you might’ve experienced around here. And keep bugging bluehost support to take action whenever I notice it happening myself.
As for music listening, right now I’m stuck with Monoban‘s “Dandelion” on repeat. I haven’t really been listening to them previously, but with Monoban being a recent Hello Rookie candidate and all I figured I should check them out. I found the Ghost Ship EP on Spotify. The whole guitar + cello + cajón is working really well for me, but I was always a sucker for the cello. Then there’s a part of “Dandelion” that vaguely reminisces “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger“, though maybe eAeon‘s version more than the original, that I very much enjoy.
I’ve also been listening a lot to a very special and very awesome cover album this weekend. It’s been sitting in my collection since last summer, but since it’s on cassette tape it was only after I came across it on Bandcamp that I actually got around to listening to it. I wanted to write a review on it, but ended up spending most of my blog time on other posts instead. There will most definitely be something about it posted soon, however, so I’ll refrain from naming the just now to be able to put it in the right context. Because I have a feeling it might need it.
And because of my recent Bandcamp adventures here’s a few related questions to you: Do you buy digital music, and if so where? How did you begin buying digital music? Are you still buying music on physical media? Do you buy the digital version even though you already have it in another format? So far the only ever digital release I’ve bought is 10‘s UFO and that was 5-6 years ago. I think my aversion to digital releases is mostly because of the feeling of volatility. That the music could disappear from me at any time if it’s not connected to a physical object (other than my laptop or smart phone, that is).
I’m sort of beginning to warm up to the thought though. My preference for digital music would be to go with Bandcamp, but that’s not always possible. I know that when given an alternative I should steer clear of the Korean options. And last time I was looking into it (many, many years ago…) iTunes forced you to actually use iTunes to listen so that’s not really an option either. Is Amazon any good for this purpose? What are the best options if I want to be able to listen on any device with the media player of my choice and at the same time have as big portion as possible of my money go straight to the artist?