Music

My primary listening tends to be Broadway musicals, most often ones by Stephen Sondheim. I'm also tremendously fond of William Finn's Falsettos, although the second half is much weaker than the first. Jonathan Larson's Rent definitely deserves a mention, especially since I've been listening to it obsessively for the past year and a half.

As time goes by I become curious about various musical sub-genres and attempt to familiarise myself with them. For a while I had a lot of fun wandering around the filk/folk continuum. For instance:

• Local to the Bay Area there's Annwn. They do a fair number of traditionals, and likely count as Celtic folk/rock, but they also do some songs of their own which have a decidedly filkish feel.
• To my great dismay, Heather Alexander moved from Half Moon Bay to Portland, which means that I no longer get to see her in concert once a month. Her music is definitely Celtic folk, but she does a fair amount of filk (Elfquest songs, for example) as well. I have the sense that the filk is her older stuff; in recent years she seems to be focusing on writing & performing her own folk.
• While at OryCon 20 I let St. Emily the Just talk me into listening to a concert given by Echo's Children, a female duo who do a lot of a capella songs. I was utterly charmed and immediately bought their CD. Some of their music was definitely filk (B5 songs), while others had a definitely feel of gaming but didn't seem to be genre-specific.
• I've been a fan of The Flash Girls since October of 1995, when I somehow convinced most of the then-existing Horde to go see them at a bar in Mountain View. My sole reason for doing so was that I liked Emma Bull's books, but as it turned out my faith was completely justified. Unfortunately Emma & Will decided to move to LA sometime in 1996, so the Flash Girls are no more, but I continue to hope that they'll get back together. Their music is (was?) best described as 'gothic folk', which means they do some traditionals (jigs), mixed with a lot of weird stuff written either by Emma or by Neil Gaiman.
• I've only heard Lojo Russo's solo albums a few times, but they're really good stuff, sort of jazzy folk with the occasional utterly depressing blues song. Lojo's music is probably more accessible to non-geeks than anything else I've listed so far.
• Dar Williams is another folk singer whose work is pretty accessible to non-geeks. She's sort of like Joan Baez, but different. Give her a try.

My current fascination is with Brian Eno, and by extension with the genres of ambient and trance. Pretty much all I know at this point is that I really enjoy Eno's early rock work, and that the one ambient album I have by him Music For Airports is amazing.