When I read about Napster's new business idea, I was overwhelmed. For a monthly fee I would have access to all the music that I would like. It would make trying out new music so much easier. Of course, I would be able to listen to the music only while subscribing to their service, but if I really wanted a "hard copy" of an album, I could still buy it separately.

But. Napster doesn't work in Finland. So I was left with my trusty old cd:s, mp3:s, last.fm, and eMusic. Which are all great ways of enjoying music. I like…

There are many different opinions about the new look and feel of the Last.fm. I hereby join the "like" crowd. It's not good enough to warrant a "love", but it has many improvements to the old:

- The new "grungey" top bar
- The "Library" view, which I can configure
- The lists, from where I can see the different time sets with a single click
- The ability to add tags, playlists, and other stuff to songs from everywhere

Note that all of the above relate to the "Profile" page. I, for one, do not like the home page,…

Fri 21 Mar – Down

I went to see Down with the brother of my girlfriend. I didn't know much about the band, except that it was mostly made of former Pantera members. Which of course sounded nice, even though I have never listened to Pantera much.

When we got there, there was a video playing. The video showed, among other things, the band members during a previous tour throwing furniture from a balcony to a river. It was fun, and a great way to wait for the gig to start. Everyone else should take note.

The gig itself was…

The mainstream percentage is the opposite of Ecelecto-meters. It counts how many listeners your top 10 artists have in relation to the most listened to artist (Radiohead) on last.fm. Here goes:

Go through your overall top 10 artists and add up the total number of listeners. Divide that number by 10; this is the average number of listeners for your top ten. Now divide the average by the number of Radiohead fans (Radiohead is the artists with the most listeners). Multiply the result by 100: that is your "mainstream percentage".

There is no universally accepted way to find out whether your musical taste is eclectic or not. But there are plenty of "Eclecto-meters", that have been made around Last.FM.

Here I test out a couple of them. I consider my musical taste to be pretty eclectic, as I like to listen to different kinds of music.

So here goes:

The first test is the AEP Calculator by davethemoonman. According to him, it works in the following way:

AEP is a measure of how diverse your music tastes are, based on the top 50 artists in your Last.fm profile. It was…

I am very bored (and a bit sick) atm, and I found this meme on whitetear's journal. So I'm going to give it a shot…

I assume that you take your overall artist chart and answer the following questions accordingly.

1. How did you get into 29?
Conjure one: I think that I found it on last.fm, possibly because of the connection with Delerium.

2. What was the first song you ever heard by 22?
Evanescence: It had to have been Going Under. It was playing in the radio a lot back when. I only started…

Fri 13 Jul – Ilosaarirock

This year's Ilosaari was my first in about 5 years. I mostly went because I found out that Calexico, Porcupine Tree, and The Cinematic Orchestra would be playing there. The ticket price was pretty steep with the Friday club ticket, but I can totally say it was damn well worth it!

FRIDAY

On Friday we came to the area while Stella was playing. It was a nice little Finnish band, didn't arouse my interest. The next act we saw was Ismo Alanko Teholla, which was great! Ismo's songs worked really well trimmed…

Fri 6 Apr – Tuvalu, Candy Cane

I just last week checked out what Annina Antinranta, formerly of Myyt, was doing lately. I found Tuvalu, her new alt rock project with futuristic undertones. (You can find their homepage at http://www.tuvalu.ws/) I promptly checked their page at last.fm, and found out that they were playing in Tampere during Easter!

So I went to Vastavirta-klubi with my girl and my sister to check them out. There were three bands that night, Tuvalu, Navigations, and a HC punk band Candy Cane as the last artist.

Navigations was very interesting. They…

Wed 28 Mar – Trio Candombe, Martin Alvarado
When Wladislaw told me about a Tango gig that costs 15 €, I was very sceptical at first. I knew that there is better tango than the Finnish dance hall type, but had never heard any. My surprise was great when I enjoyed last nights music very much.

First on the stage was Trio Candombe - two boys of about 20 years and a funnily dressed man. The younger guys played guitar and percussions and the older one played bass guitar. The music was mediocre, except for the percussionist, César. He was…

I've seen that it is popular to write a journal every now and then about your top 10 chart bands. If for nothing else, then to see how your listening has changed through time.

So I'll start mine now, with 7972 plays. :) After a year and a half of scrobbling. The next one would naturally come after 10,000 plays, but let's see if I remember to do it… :) Ok, here we go:

#1: dredg (337 plays)

I found dredg about a year ago… from Last.fm! And if for nothing else, that is one thing that I will be…