Blip.fm and Big Hair

I have become a blip.fm junkie. I have discovered lots of great, new music there (see my reviews blog, Militant Reviews) and generally use it for nearly all of my music listening now. Since I'm sitting in front of this computer (or near it) nearly all day everyday, it's the way I connect to music now. I still throw in the occasional CD or load up the MP3 player, of course, but not nearly as often as I used to.

Sadly, the sound system on my computer is better than the one in my pickup. Which is down to one speaker, a broken tape deck, and an antenna that tends to slide in the wind. But enough about my killer ride, back to the music.

I listen to some hard music most of the time. The big names are bands like Slayer, System of a Down (OK, not hard, but loony), Pantera, and so forth. I also like old-school headbangers like Mozart.

Now, here's a little insight into the blip.fm metal culture: Thursdays is "#BigHairThursday" (the hash tag is a Twitter thing). On that day, those DJs I follow are occasionally throwing out big hair bands from the 70s and 80s. You know, the ones you used to make fun of in Jr. High because the lamers listening to them hadn't discovered Metallica yet.

I'm fine with the Big Hair Thursday and I even like a handful of the bands or songs that get blipped, but sometimes it's just too much. Someone on my DJ list, I'll call him @Metal_fn_Rocks to hide his identity, blips bands like WASP.

WASP, dude. WASP. Do I even need to explain further?

OK, I will. WASP doesn't stand for "We Are Satan's People" or "White Anglo-Saxon Person" like you may have been lead to believe. WASP stands for "What A Shitty Punkassbandfullofgaymorons." Don't agree with me? Well, this band is why you don't have a girlfriend, pal. Wake up.

Here's who likes WASP: gay guys who think Rob Halford is too "hardcore," women over age 40, and left handed clowns from Jersey. That's it. Women like WASP, but they are innately suspicious of any man who does. That's why they don't like you.

When WASP is blipped, I usually respond (in a Big Hair Thursday way) with Twisted Sister's "Burn in Hell." Along with comments like "#BigHairThursday WASP? Dude, WASP? You suck. You can just..."

I find this to be quite vindicating. Plus, I'm participating in #BigHairThursday like a good little metal blipper. I get revenge AND participate in the community. This is why my t-shirt says "Genius" on it.


Here's a quick tutorial on using blip.fm to find great tunes:
*Sign up for an account (duh)
*Start searching for bands you like in the search bar and blip their tunes.
*When you do that, other blippers who've also blipped those bands appear at the top of your screen. Click on those people. If their last few blips match stuff you like, click the "follow" button. If not, go to the next person.

That's about it. The rest is extraneous (giving props and so forth). You'll learn that on your own. I'm being followed by like 300 people right now, but I'm only following about 40. Why? Because I don't follow people back automatically, I only follow the ones who fairly consistently blip good music.

For instance, I was following some chick from South America. She blipped great stuff for like two days straight. Then all of the sudden her period came on and she started blipping The Cure and Depeche Commode and other whining Europeans from the 80s.

So I dumped her.

I know, doing that while she's menstruating is kind of rude, but hey, she's in South America. I'm not the governor of South Carolina, so I don't have to publicly apologize for being a dick.

So that's the run-down on my blip.fm usage and why I find a cool new band to review over at Militant Reviews once in a while.



--Read more coherent stuff from Aaron by visiting his main blog at Aaron's EnvironMental Corner - where the environment is looked at mentally. Or something like that. Or just Twitter: Tweet Me