COPE with it!

Hey y'all, I hope everyone's been doing well. I haven't posted lately due to the whole work/sleep thing, but had a moment to zone out on the computer, so I figured I'd share one of my and Melinda's passions. Music. All kinds of music. Live, studio, acoustic, electric, vocal, metal, blue grass, hip hop, folk, blues, rock,... we love it. The only exception would be most of the crap they play on the radio and oh, yeah, recorded opera. I didn't mind playing in the orchestra for an opera (when I was playing bassoon in college), and I would go to an opera, but can't stand to hear it on the radio/tv. And as far as radio... well regardless of whether it's top 40, country, "alternative", or whatever, Most of it boils down to mediocrity. I'm not saying that those musicians are not talented, but I am saying that the stuff they're putting on the radio tends to be fabricated on some sort of "American Idol" like assembly line. BTW, the best part of American Idol is the auditions!!! I would like American idol IF the contestants were only allowed 1 or 2 covers for the whole show, the rest of the shows they had to sing/play their OWN songs which they had written themselves or in collaboration with each other. Then, it might be impressive. Again, I'm not saying that those folks aren't talented or can't sing, I just think it's lame that they get sucked into the whole "sellout" mentality and become another generic "Pop Sensation" for a year or two then gone.

Speaking of sellouts (just kidding!), one of our FAVORITE musicians for going on 7 or so years now is Citizen Cope (aka Clarence Greenwood). You might recognize some of his tunes on recent tv commercial (hence the "sellout" I was alluding to... I really don't think he's sold out, I think the man is just trying to make a living... and probably has a promoter who elbowed his way into some kind of "commercial" contract... that's all). Anyways, we usually go to a big concert or two per year and we saw Citizen Cope in a small-ish venue in Atlanta last year called "Center Stage" and it was greaat... we just missed him last week (bummer), but we'd already been to our big show this year (G. Love & Special Sauce with John Butler Trio opening... JBT took the show by the way)...
Anyways, Cope is an incredible songwriter and is good to listen to anytime, even with the kids (not his debut album though, unless you can get a censored copy). I just thought I'd put a link or two for you folks to check out... he's got a new acoustic album coming out in December... would make a pretty good Christmas gift!
Hope you enjoy it!