I used to have this feature where every Monday I'd shuffle my entire MP3 collection in iTunes and list the first ten songs that played. I'm not sure why I stopped. I think I'll start it up again.
Here are the ten tunes I heard today with a personal story about one of them.
- 120 - Custom
- What A Difference A Day Mad - Sarah Vaghan
- The Sorrowful Wife - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
- 16 Horses - Soul Coughing
- Natural Beauty - Neil Young
- Sweet Home Chicago - Robert Johnson
- 1989 - Mindless Self Indulgence
- New Year's Day - U2
- World Container - The Tragically Hip
- Church For Thugs - The Game
I haven't written about Custom in a while because I'm baffled. Custom is a multi-talented Canadian musician and director living in Manhattan I befriended a few years ago. He released a very cool album in 2002 called Fast which includes the wicked "120" that just played during my shuffle.
Custom contacted me in early 2005 after he stumbled upon something I wrote about "Hey Mister". We hit it off instantly, and I ended up helping him rescue his domain name from his old label that went under. He also let me build him a site and start up the official Custom forum. He also sent me his new material which sounds fantastic. Over the past few years, I'd hear that he was "this close" to signing a new deal and getting his tunes back in the airwaves. Now, I'm just baffled. This stuff is awesome but the only place you'll hear it is on my iPod.
Custom, you multi-talented freak. Screw the record companies. Let's get the music out there and let it spread organically. Enough of this "hurry up and wait" bullshit. We can do this ourselves.
