Being a fan of eclectic, non-mainstream music throughout the years people always ask me, “How do you find out about stuff like this?” There is no one answer since they are so many sources that influence musical tastes. Like most people who love music, I enjoy stumbling upon things myself. Of course there have to be other sources involved or I would be living in bubble not discovering anything new. I occasionally listen to the radio: two great stations in my area WFMU and WFUV are great jump starts because they have real DJs picking out music. Some other essential learning places can be small record shops, eMusic, independent magazines and now podcasts are great place to absorb the knowledge of others and become influenced by something unexpected. When podcasts first became popular at the end of 2004 I jumped on the bandwagon and subscribed to a bunch of them. I had a shows synched in iTunes and to my iPod set for my morning commute: my local weather, headline news, movie reviews and of course some music programs, all managed to refresh after I listened to them. Within a very short time it became a hassle to skip forward through last month’s out-dated news, old weather reports and reviews of movies now already on DVD. Now less than two years later there are only a few podcasts that I am still “subscribed to” and are in my regular listening rotation. A magician doesn’t reveal his secrets unless he’s Penn Jillette or that masked guy from Fox a couple years ago but I am going to let you in on a little tip. One of the few podcasts that I am still listening to regularly is a treasure trove of new discoveries. It’s a short podcast called The Sounds in My Head put out weekly every Monday by a guy named Daniel in Brooklyn.

Daniel begins each of his shows with his slogan is “A weekly music show featuring songs and bands you might have missed.” He doesn’t just play stuff that is brand new but TSiMH features music that we may have overlooked. Daniel buys all the music himself which means he is a true music fan and is doing this because he loves it, just like us here at C-Pop. He doesn’t bombard his listeners with tons of songs as the shows are usually under 20 minutes and some random theme specials throughout the year under 40 minutes. Taking cues from hip radio stations, Daniel doesn’t use a fake announcer voice or try to sound like someone he’s not; which means he talks like a real person. He has a relaxed, amiable, smooth voice, which is the glue of his program. He doesn’t focus on one particular genre but seems to prefer indie power pop. Some of his favorite bands are Luna, They Might Be Giants, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Rilo Kiley and C-Pop fav Holly Gollightly. Although he doesn’t play these artists every week, or even every month for that matter, as a listener to his show you become aware of what his favorite music is. Sometimes he’ll play more than one song by an artist if he’s really digging the music to show the depth of an album. He gives you a little tidbit or some history, so you begin absorbing his knowledge whether you realize it or not. Daniel will let you know when album contains only one good song or if it’s chocked-filled with goodies. In between songs he likes to segue in topical snippets from the Daily Show, CNN, Air America that most certainly reflect a liberal opinion; which is fine with me. He’ll also throw in some funny stuff by comedians; lately he’s been featuring Patton Oswalt. Through TSiMH I have discovered new and old artists such The Bees, Jamie Lidell, Saturday Looks Good To Me, Research, Bettye Swann among many others.

He tries to play music that isn’t on the Top 40 but doesn’t always succeed since he doesn’t listen to radio. His July third episode featured two songs by Gnarls Barkley’s. I missed that show; but on that day I gave one of my mixed CDs featuring new stuff from 2006 to all of my friends at a July fourth party. One of my friends, who I was unsure of his musical tastes, said, “I really like that new song Crazy”. His daughter and him caught it on the radio and downloaded the video. I said, “Yep, it’s on there track two!” Although I had read about the song in Entertainment Weekly a couple weeks earlier, which is not always such a great source for new music. I didn’t think the song was popular yet or if it would ever be after reading the review, so I was taken back a bit even though I was aiming for a general audience. A couple weeks later I heard Daniel apologizing for putting “Crazy” on his show explaining that he heard it in on a Top 40 station while he was in a cab after publishing the show. I have come to the conclusion that it’s okay to play stuff that is popular or suddenly becomes pop, it just means we’re right.

Earlier this year Daniel had a friend of his take over the show for one episode. His friend did a great job but what I found interesting was his opinion of Daniel’s show. As TSiMH’s guest host would play his music picks he apologized for playing music that Daniel never would. Curiously, I wondered about that since Daniel seems to play everything which is why I’ve been a listener of TSiMH for such a long time. When you’ve listened to a bunch of his shows and have invited the sounds into your head, I urge you take a listen to his show 30 Hours In Prospect Park which is really long with no songs, except background music and features Daniel talking about his cat; Yes his cat! When I read description I thought I would have no interest and would end up turning it off. Within a few minutes I was captivated and felt like I was listening to an old Jean Shepherd radio show.

If you don’t have time to discover music anymore because you’re too busy, you have kids or maybe a job, or if you can manage to find time to discover new music and your doing it all the time like myself take 20 minutes and listen to the sounds in Daniel’s head, some of them are in mine too.
The Sounds in My Head
Check out this weeks themed episode on Southeast Asian Music.