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Pop Rock Nation

Tag: acoustic

  • Random downloading…

    Random downloading…

    I have found some great stuff via random downloading. I have also found some terrible stuff that way…

    If you are a regular reader of Pop Rock Nation, you know that I am a music lover and enjoy a broad spectrum of musical styles. I often discover music by stumbling across it. If I hear something I like in a bar, for instance, I’ll use Shazam to find out the name of the song and the artist. A lot of times, I’ll then purchase the song. Sometimes I’ll download free songs on Amazon or iTunes. I’ll even pay to download something if the mood strikes me and have quite a few albums in my iTunes library that I bought on a whim.

    Now that I think about it, I’ve actually bought a lot of music that way. Back in the days before the Internet, I used to buy albums without hearing them first. There was a time when there weren’t any “listening posts” in music stores. You basically took a risk whenever you forked over your hard earned money for a new album. Sure, you might have heard a song or two on the radio if the album had a hit or two. But the rest of the album might very well have been a mystery. I had a friend about twenty years ago who often refused to buy albums for that very reason. She only wanted the songs she knew and liked, so she’d buy singles or tape stuff off the radio.

    A couple of weeks ago, I downloaded a couple of albums off of Amazon.com that consisted of Spanish guitar music. I was inspired by our recent trip to Spain and Portugal and wanted something nice in my collection for times when I wanted to make a mental escape back abroad. I kind of knew what I liked and listened to a couple of samples, but otherwise knew nothing about the artists other than what I heard on the short clips Amazon provided. I bought one album by a fellow names Armik because he’s Armenian-Iranian and I used to live in Armenia. From what I heard on Amazon, he plays a hell of a good Spanish style guitar. I bought another by Johannes Linstead because his album got a lot of great reviews. So far, I’m pretty pleased with both purchases.


    “Andalucia” by Johannes Linstead.


    “Flames of Love” by Armik.

    The flip side of this is that sometimes I have ended up with some less impressive purchases. I bought an album by Argentine pianist Raul Di Blasio based on a beautiful acoustic piece I heard on a YouTube video. I could only get the piece by buying the whole album. I did, and it turned out I liked the rest of the album much less than that one beautiful piano piece I’d heard on YouTube. The rest of the album was very new age and kind of bored me.


    Raul Di Blasio’s “Solo”, piano version.

    As much as I love music and engage in random downloading, I also love books. I will even read self-published books if the subject matter interests me. Today’s post was actually inspired by a terrible book I downloaded last night. It was kind of my fault. I didn’t read the description or check up on the author. I thought I was getting a non-fiction book and it turned out I got a very shoddily written novel. I read the thing and was a little annoyed at the end. It wasn’t a total waste, since I was able to write a rather scathing review of the book on one of my other blogs. But it did remind me that I need to be more careful about random downloading.

    Here’s a little something I recently found while random downloading…

  • Thank you, Stephen Bennett…

    Stephen Bennett helped me make it through many a dinner shift…

    Did you ever have a job that made you feel like throwing up every time you went to work? I did. Back in 1998, I took a job waiting tables at a well-established restaurant in Williamsburg, Virginia. When I was hired, I didn’t know the first thing about waiting tables. I was also suffering from pretty significant depression and anxiety. For the first few months of my employment, I was constantly stressed out and on the verge of hyperventilation and/or projectile vomiting. Fortunately, I eventually learned how to wait tables and the job became easier. I was finally promoted to dinner, meaning that I could be scheduled to work at night. On many Friday and Saturday nights in the late 1990s, a then local musician named Steve Bennett would play music.

    Stephen Bennett plays guitar. Actually, he often plays a harp guitar, which he inherited from his great grandmother’s second husband, Edgar Pierce. Steve writes on his official Web site that his great grandmother was married to Pierce for over fifty years, so he thinks of him as his great grandfather, even though the man was not a blood relation. The harp guitar Steve Bennett inherited is a Dyer Brothers symphony harp guitar, which was manufactured in 1909.

    Although Steve was born in Oregon, which is where his great grandparents lived, he grew up in New York. Consequently, he didn’t really know the man whose magnificent harp guitar he inherited and now enchants audiences with. When I knew Steve, he was living in my hometown, Gloucester, Virginia. He has since moved north to Milford, Connecticut with his wife, Nancy. He has released many albums, several of which I own, and has traveled the world playing his guitar and teaching others. When I check to see what he’s up to these days, I feel very fortunate that I got to hear him play every weekend as we worked stressful night shifts at the restaurant. His soothing music got me through many tough evenings.


    A great video showing Stephen Bennett playing “The Water Is Wide” with many, many harp guitar players…

    As I get older, I find myself seeking music that is… shall we say… a little more soothing to the soul. When I listen to Stephen Bennett’s recordings play, I remember watching him live as I worked at the restaurant and how lovingly he held his instruments as he finger picked and flat picked beautiful music. I was always amazed by how he was able to coax such intricate melodies from his guitars. Sometimes he would play popular songs that everyone knew. Sometimes he’d play original compositions. Sometimes he’d sing. I remember a couple of times, he’d have guest musicians play with him. He was pretty well-known in Williamsburg and the surrounding areas. I’m sure his presence is missed by those who used to love to listen to him play as they enjoyed fine cuisine on date night as well as those who were privileged to work in his presence. Virginia’s loss is Connecticut’s gain!


    Here he plays “What Child Is This”/”Greensleeves”…

    While I can’t say I always appreciated living in Gloucester, Virginia when I was growing up, I do love to look at Steve’s CDs and see Gloucester referenced in the credits. Like I said, I’m getting older and starting to appreciate more soothing things. I can now understand why my parents decided to settle in Gloucester back in 1980, having moved us from the Washington, DC area. Back in 1980, Gloucester was a quiet, rural, peaceful place surrounded by rivers. Thirty plus years later, it’s become a lot more populated. But compared to the sprawling metropolis of Newport News, Gloucester is still pretty tranquil. And though Stephen Bennett doesn’t live there anymore, his music often takes me back to the place where I grew up. It calms me down… and frankly, kind of inspires me to want to learn how to play guitar. I’ve tried to before, but it’s not as easy as he makes it look!

    I didn’t enjoy a lot of the shifts I worked when I was waiting tables in Williamsburg, Virginia. But I can say that many good things came from that job. I made a lot of great friends, learned a lot about good food, lost a lot of weight, got driven into graduate school, and was introduced to Stephen Bennett, a stellar musician with a gift for producing wonderful music. If you like acoustic guitar music and have ever wondered about the harp guitar, I highly recommend checking out Stephen Bennett. And if he’s playing anywhere near where you are, you should definitely stop in for a show.


    Stephen Bennett and Tommy Emmanual play a scorching rendition of “Puttin’ On The Ritz”. You have to see this to believe it!

  • Awesome Free Download! Buffalo Tom “Bones” EP

    Buffalo Tom’s ”Skins”
    Buffalo Tom, the venerable Boston indie rock band led by singer-songwriter Bill Janovitz, is getting set to release their 8th studio album, their first since 2007’s truly awesome “reunion” album Three Easy Pieces. The new album’s called Skins and it’s set to hit stores next month, but in anticipation of the record’s release, the band has posted an EP of live acoustic(-ish) performances, including “Arise, Watch” from the new album, “CC and Callas” from their last one, and their 1993 college radio hit “Treehouse”, along with a rambling but touchingly heartfelt take on the New Order classic “Age of Consent” that will have Counting Crows kicking themselves for not having thought of it first. You can see video of all four performances below. You can also click below for a link to download the Bones EP: