Spring brings many good things: blossoms, Farmers' Market, more live music, the kickoff of the summer music festival circuit. It was great to go downtown today to buy some fresh veggies at Saturday Market and get to hear all the different sounds -- the buskers, the main stage performers, the (stereotypically Eugene hippie) drum circle. I'm not sure I've had enough music in my life lately -- well clearly, if the drum circle was a welcome sound -- but things will change now it's spring, I hope. I'm heading up to Portland next week to see Deer Tick, arguably one of my favorite bands. And at the end of May, I'm headed to the Sasquatch Music Festival, again, arguably some of my favorite bands.

I'm out-of-sorts musically. In part, I think it's because I have switched to a new computer. I'd had my previous computer for five years, and in that time my music collection had become rather a beast. And thanks to a really dumbass move on my part (o! i am a technowizard), it was not a smooth music/video/audiobook/podcast library transfer. I'd love to be able to jump on the "Blame Steve Jobs" bandwagon here and accuse iTunes and Apple of some sort of authoritarian control of my media library, but really, I was stupid. I think some files got deleted, including both a David Sedaris and a Neil Gaiman audiobook. (And yet, somehow my whole collection of 80s one-hit-wonders transferred unscathed. Sigh.) My computer now has no idea which were my most played, most favorite (OMG 5 stars) songs. And I feel that iTunes, once so deeply tied into my listening habits -- I mean, my iPod knew when I needed to hear a Dead song or needed to hear ABBA -- now iTunes keeps coughing up these random songs that are just, well, random and a reminder that I own a lot of Manu Chao and a ton of really shitty music.

I'm going to just pretend like iTunes will somehow "get" my taste in better soon. (LOL Genius). And so I'm trying to train it better to understand what sort of songs I prefer, playing all my favorite albums and songs, raising their play count, giving them star ratings.

Despite its size, I think being out-of-whack with my music collection has made me feel sick of the songs I've got (which is silly and don't suggest "Pandora," ok, because I am not a fan of subscription music services), and again relieved that I've got live shows and new bands to catch this summer.

Being sick of my music also makes me want to turn to my friends who are also big music fans and check out what they're listening to lately. As I've written before, I love to share music. Despite the invention of the headphones and despite the doomsday predictions from Bono, music is social.

I made a mixtape for a friend this afternoon. (Well, sorta.)

Mixtape For You allows users to create a tape for a friend and send it virtually rather than record it onto a cassette. You can upload an image for cover art, include a message, and annotate each song. You upload the MP3s of the songs you want to put on Side A and Side B. And send. Only one person can receive the mixtape, and once they download the songs, they're deleted from the server. The concept is based on Andrew Dubber's "I Made You a Tape" idea.

There was an interesting article in Techdirt last week about Mixtape, Andrew Dubber's giving away ideas, the Sasquatch Music Festival, and entrepreneurship. Synchronity, she says,

...as iTunes plays The Police.