Shocking the Monkey

One could say that I eclectic tastes in music. My ipod is a strange mishmash of different artists from Beethoven to Jay-Z. Dead Can Dance, Jonny Cash, Devo and the most disturbing of artists Richard Cheese. I am willing to listen to just about any music but jangly jazz and twangy country. I'll give anything a try. You never know what you'll find. Most recently I discovered Nerdcore artist MC Frontalot, take a listen. If you are a geek or a nerd, you might like it.

Peter Gabriel has been a favorite of mine since high school. I remember with almost crystal clarity the day a guy who was an AV tech for the school handed me a cassette maked "Gabriel-Live". I put it in the player and was absolutely blown away by his live version of
'The Rhythem of the Heat'. It was so good that I simply played it over and over again, ignoring the rest of this great album for about a week. Remember, this is back before the Internets. No downloading MP3's or checking the artists blog. One of the first music purchases I ever made was Runny Window on cassette. My first CD purchase? Peter Gabriel Plays Live. I still own it, all scratched to hell. I lent it to a friend who went into the Army. It took three years of bugging him to get it back, but I got it.

Flash forward to today. Peter Gabriel releases the original source tracks for his famous 'Shock the Monkey' and asks people to remix it as part of a contest. People go crazy, coming up with all kinds of different versions. The winning version is pretty sweet. Take a listen. What are you listening to?