Friday Playlist

IMG_4302

I’ve just recently started listening to music at all while riding, and while I still don’t always, I have enjoyed doing so. I ride with just one headphone in, on the right side (since traffic is most often on my left), and I’ve felt able to still clearly hear what’s happening around me.

In any case, I’ve been sort of curating a list of music on my old 20gb iPod that I like listening to while riding, and I thought it would be fun to occasionally share which songs randomly came up that day.

This morning, my iPod started off with:

Then moved on to:

From there, we went to:

And last, but not least:

And then I arrived at work. Not a bad note to end on, eh?

Right now, the mix I’ve compiled has songs from Arcade Fire, The Beatles, Beck, Beyoncé, Big L, Björk, Bright Eyes, Broken Bells, The Cardigans, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Climber, Coldplay, The Cranberries, Dave Matthews Band, Eisley, Emilie Simon, Eminem, Feist, Fiona Apple, The Flaming Lips, Fleetwood Mac, The Fugees, Glen Phillips, Guns N’ Roses, H.I.M., Imogen Heap, Jay-Z, Jem, Jenny Lewis, John Lennon, Kanye West, Kent, Lady Gaga, Lauryn Hill, Michael Jackson, Moby, Mos Def, Mumford & Sons, Muse, My Brightest Diamond, OutKast, Paul Simon, Pearl Jam, Peter Schilling, The Police, The Postal Service, Prince, Queen, R.E.M., Radiohead, The Rasmus, Regina Spektor, Rilo Kiley, The Roots, Shiny Toy Guns, The Smashing Pumpkins, St. Vincent, Stars, Talib Kweli, Temple of the Dog, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Tom Petty, Tori Amos, Toto, Travis, U2, The Wallflowers, Weezer, The White Stripes, Yael Naïm, and Zwan.

What have you all been listening to lately?

This entry was posted in portland and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.
  • Bicyclekitty

    I don’t listen to music but I sing.  Que sera sera was this morning’s tune.
    Judging by your photo above, you should plan on attending this year’s Tweed Ride!  April 1st, 1pm meet at Kenilworth Park.   Bring your own tea cup for tea at Peninsula Park.  Free beer party after at Velocult (new shop in Hollywood).

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

       Hah, nice! We’ll see about the tweed ride, I’ll at least try to keep myself apprised as it comes closer. Cheers!

  • http://twitter.com/Lascurettes John Lascurettes

    I resisted listening to music for a long time as I felt it was unsafe. Then I experimented with it. Now I do, with both headphones in. I just keep the volume low enough that I can still hear the road noise around me. So even with headphones in, I can still hear the environment around me better than any cager can inside a sound-insulated car – with their radio off. 

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

       Yeah, that was my hesitation as well, but I’ve become pretty comfortable with it at this point – I have in-ear headphones (ear buds like the iPod headphones never stay in my ears), which pretty well seal off the ear canals, so I wouldn’t want to use both of them, but with one ear open, I’ve been fine so far.

  • Alex Reed

    I never felt comfortable wearing headphones while biking. Since I’ve purchased a smartphone, I’ve started having it play music from its speakers at moderate volumes on most of my rides. I figure I’m not any louder than a car driving around with music on and windows open….

  • David Thorough

    I ride with headphones in.  My commute is between work in San Francisco and home in Marin County (I take the ferry in to make sure I am on time for work).  I keep the music low enough to hear traffic.  My feeling is that if it is down to hearing screeching tires or someone yelling “LOOK OUT!!!”… it’s too late at that point.  If I’m on a busy street that doesn’t have a good bike lane, I go ahead and take them out.  When I get down to the Chrissy Field bike path and over the Golden Gate Bridge there is obviously no issue with hearing.  In Marin almost all the roads are SUPER bike~friendly or I am on a dedicated bike path all the way home.  

    I have a couple of great mixes of over a thousand of my very favorite songs.  One is mellow the other upbeat and I will listen to those on my rides.  I have a hard rock one, but just don’t listen to it so much.  Love the songs, but I guess I’m just… as Gregg Allman titled a solo effort… “Laid Back”.  I’m funny with music.  When I like something, I really like it and never seem to tire of listening to it.  I encountered the Low song “Just like Christmas” on December 23… and listened to NOTHING ELSE FOR TWO DAYS… 150 times in a row!  I’ll do the same thing with artists.  In 2011 I’d listen to the 40-50 My Morning Jacket songs on my rides.  This year the two Dawes albums get me home when I repeat a couple of my favorites.

  • http://profiles.google.com/acastil05 ashley castillo

    I use to listen to music until my Ipod is broke, but now I still like to have the earbuds in so I won’t get as many honks, catcalls, and whistles.

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      Oh, sad on both counts :( Did you have a favorite thing to listen to before the iPod broke?

  • Dan

    Garbage: I’m only happy when it rains
    Pet Shop Boys: Integral, I’m with Stupid, Heaven
    The entire Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (yea, Neil Patrick Harris!)

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      “Garbage: I’m only happy when it rains”

      Ah, a true Portlander :)

      Dr. Horrible is amazing :)

  • David Thorough

    Thought about you guys tonight.  Since I listened to it on the ferry on the way over… the Dawes ran out in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge, so I put in “Half Right” by Heatmizer for the downhill half of the span.  Absolutely a great beat for peddling.  Took a minute to look at the city lights and boats on the Bay from the Marin vista point and put it Iron and Wine… “Dearest Forsaken”, “Morning” “Friends They Are Jewels”, “Such Great Heights”, “Swans And The Swimming”, “Serpent Charmer”, “Carried Home”, “Communion Cups And Someone’s Coat”, “Kingdom Of The Animals”, “The Trapeze Swinger”, “Peng! 33″, “No Moon”, “He Lays In The Reins” and “Burn That Broken Bed”… that almost made it all the way home.  Finished up with Jeff Beck… “Angel (Footsteps)”, “Diamond Dust”, “Declan”, “Brush With The Blues”, “Another Place” and very appropriately for a long, cold, lonely ride to an empty place on Valentine’s weekend… “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers”.

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      Oh, I bet Iron and Wine would be perfect for an evening ride with the lights of the city in the distance.

      Every year in Portland, there’s a “worst day of the year” bike ride on Valentine’s Day :) hope your weekend goes alright, despite the empty house!

  • David Thorough

    Yep… I don’t think about it much but riding from downtown to the Marina on Polk at 9pm, it was just packed with hot babes and more of a dating buzz than usual… and I remembered it was Valentine’s Day weekend.  Didn’t help that I came home and looked up the “Friends Only” FB page of the love of my life (who was probably still in love with me on her wedding day… to another guy) and found her profile picture changed to one of herself in a really lovely wedding dress.  Anyhow… life is good and a big part of that is NOT being burdened by the complications of a relationship!

  • kfg

    Bit of Doris Day (Yeah, Que Sera Sera again, but later  Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps I’m gonna take a Sentimental Journey), bit of the Andrews Sisters,  Peggy Lee, Margaret Whiting and even a bit of Zooey,  but mostly June Christy.

    I wish  Beyoncé would listen to a lot of June Christy. She might learn how to sing.

    While riding a bike I still listen to the infinite shuffle of The World sound track.

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      Nice! We have Doris Day’s “Tea for Two” soundtrack – I’m going to have to make sure I’ve recorded that digitally… http://www.flickr.com/photos/poetas/6449451831/

      Do you like the Boswell Sisters at all? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUB3ZR4F8vw

      • kfg

        The Boswell Sisters kick ass. I totally didn’t think of looking for them on YouTube. Ain’t that a kick in the head? Thanks for giving it to me.

        Doris had a wonderful voice, but she really was a ballad specialist and I can only take so many ballads before it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

        Of course today I’ve been listening to Hot Tuna’s foray into power rock. The yard bike has tire troubles and I got them Walkin’ Blues.

        And baby it’s cooooooold outside.

  • Guest

    What about the differences in channels you get with stereo? Doesn’t almost all music recorded since the 60′s have at least some stereo effects?

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      Actually, I find that’s a much bigger problem with 1960′s music. Almost all Beatles songs have something like John’s vocals in one channel, Paul’s in the other, bass and drums with Paul’s and guitar with John’s. I have a couple of their pre-stereo records which I’ve recorded digitally, and use those recordings in this case :)

      There are a few exceptions – I’ve noticed quite a bit of Radiohead’s music has the same issue, and also some of Moby’s.

      Most modern music, while recorded in stereo, is actually just mirrored between channels.

      I actually really like listening to music recorded in true stereo with headphones, when I’m using both headphones, but you’re right, it does cause a bit of a problem when only using one :)

  • Amy Gawthrop

    I ride with both earbuds in and the music cranked up as loud as I can get it. Thing is, I can STILL hear cars coming. Not sure if it’s just that I have really sad earbuds, or there’s just really loud cars here! :) Sound travels weird in the mountains too, so a lot of times I hear cars that I never see (and vice versa). 

    Nice playlist too! You’ve got quite the diverse musical tastes too I see. I’ve got stuff ranging from Judas Priest/ Misfits/Ramones to Bach (B Minor Mass)/ Rachmaninov/Handel’s Messiah to Massive Attack (LOVE me some MA)/Fluke/The Crystal Method and Underworld to the Cure/REM/Dave Matthew’s Band (makes me miss RVA though…)/Bowie/Cranberries/Fiona Apple/Dido/Gus Gus/Jeff Buckley and Tori Amos to just weird stuff like Esquivel/The Dr. Demento 20th anniversary collection/Rocky Horror and Voltaire and even more stuff like Zoe Keating/Mocean Worker/Afro Celt Sound System to Ella Fitzgerald and Taj Mahal. Oh, and of course, TMBG. The list goes on and on! :)

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      Yeah, I have in-ear headphones, so they pretty well seal my ears. I haven’t tried with both in, but i suspect I wouldn’t be able to hear well enough.

      I haven’t stuck any jazz or classical stuff on here yet, but we have quite a bit, from Elgar’s cello concerto, to Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, to Shostakovich’s string quartets, to the Boswell Sisters, to Louis Armstrong to Bing Crosby and Billie Holiday. My wife used to sing in jazz choir, and I play cello, so we have some background there as well :)

      Also, how did I not put any David Bowie in there? That is inexcusable.