The Flaming Lips Do You Realize – that you have the most beautiful face Do You Realize – we’re floating in space – Do You Realize – that happiness makes you cry Do You Realize – that everyone you know someday will die And instead of saying all of your goodbyes – let them know You realize that life goes fast It’s hard to make the good things last You realize the sun doesn’t go down It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round Do You Realize – Oh – Oh – Oh Do You Realize – that…

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arctic Monkeys win Mercury prize   Woohoo!! I love me some Arctic Monkeys. They make me feel not middle-aged (which I really am).   Arctic Monkeys have won this year’s Mercury Prize for their album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not.   The Sheffield-based band, whose album became the fastest-selling debut in the UK in February, were strong favourites to take the award. Now maybe I’ll figure out how to get Last.fm and Audioscrobbler working. iTunes: Arctic Monkeys: Dancing Shoes: Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not [2:21]

American Routes: radio show from New Orleans Monday, 9–11 am: For four months after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, American Routes stayed on the air in the French Louisiana city of Lafayette. In this two-hour special, host Nick Spitzer revisits many artists who were displaced by the storms—including Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, David and Michael Doucet, and Aaron Neville. Plus, music and conversation by Wynton Marsalis and Ghanaian master dummer Yacub Addy, recorded live in New Orleans’s famed Congo Square.   I’m listening to the Labor Day show of this excellent music program. It’s outstanding, and they just played one of…

BBC NEWS | Technology | US Yahoo offers copy-free music Internet company Yahoo has released its first music download from a major record label without copy protection. A Public Affair by Jessica Simpson does not have any digital rights management (DRM) restrictions often found on tracks from other sites. The MP3 is compatible with any digital music player, including Apple’s popular iPod player and others. Nice of them, but it’s Jessica Simpson. Get back to me when it’s someone with musical talent.

I was doing my travel agent-y thing the other morning and had occasion to call a Hilton hotel to try to change an existing reservation. Apparently, they had only trainees available who didn’t know how to make the modification I needed – so I was put on hold while they figured out what to tell me (short answer: book additional nights myself in my system). While on hold, I heard a few notes of the “music” they use for such things, and to my surprise it was not only a tune I recognized, but one I have on iTunes and also one…

I rarely, rarely listen to the radio of an evening anymore, but for reasons that’ll become evident in the next post, I’m listening to WBEZ tonight. At the moment, the show that’s on is called Sound Opinions. The two hosts discuss rock music and pop and usually have guests on where they talk about music, play a few songs, and give a lot of in depth background on today’s best new and veteran artists. Tonight’s program is about the genre of “Rock En Espanol,” and the guest was mentioning various bands, including one from Argentina that he thought was one…

NPR : Verdi’s Requiem Revived as WWII Tribute I heard my friend Debbie singing on the radio the other morning… she’s one of the musicians that performed this piece! When she told me about the project I was so thrilled for her, because she’s had some amazing performance opportunities with the Washington Chorus, and this one just gave me chills when she told me about it. According to the NPR story we heard Monday morning, they performed Verdi’s Requiem (AKA, the Defiant Requiem) on Sunday in the Terezin concentration camp (she tells me the performance space had been an old…