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Island in the Stream…that is what I am.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that for my wife Katie and me, the Kenny & Dolly duet is “our song”. So, before you even skim my list of 2011 music that I deem excellent, I’ve already destroyed any smidge of credibility you might have assumed that I had. You must understand that sometimes lovebirds don’t choose their song; rather, their song chooses them. Such is the anomaly Katie and I shared during our third date. It’s an anomaly that we both now own, and proudly. But, that’s another story for another time.
Don't judge me, not yet at least.
Let me explain why I’m an island in the stream. I’m in the Stream because I no longer consume music from files that I store on a hard drive. Instead of a carefully researched and price-shopped collection of music that I assembled, I depend on the cloud (and Spotify’s label affiliations) to hear anything in their catalog of more than 15 million songs. I can’t imagine returning to music, and life, as it was with an 50 GB iTunes library.
I’m an island because I have few friends using Spotify. I jumped into a premium Spotify subscription in mid-July, soon after they launched service in the U.S., and I haven’t looked back since. If only the 10 or 12 people whose taste in music I really value would do the same, the Spotify experience would be further enhanced. Maybe I’ll ramp up my recruitment efforts in 2012.
Spotify is not without flaws. Most importantly, artists get a miniscule revenues from streamed music. This seems fair for the albums I wouldn’t have purchases outright, and grossly unfair for the albums I would have bought. Katie has reminded me that I don’t make the stuff I like as available as I did with iTunes. That’s because I only sync playlists with my phone, and not with the family mp3 players we use around the house and on the go.
There are some new releases (maybe about 5% in my brief experience) that I can’t find when I look for them. Interestingly, two of my favorite albums from this year (by The Weeknd and A$AP Rocky) were mixtapes available on the web for free download. To hear them in Spotify, I have to import them from a local directory. I also miss all the metadata tied to albums in iTunes (e.g. BPM, year, etc.).
Overall, I love Spotify. It’s cut my annual music budget by more than half, and I have access to almost anything at almost any time. Before this post turns into a full-blown Spotify review (too late?), I’ll get to the point of all this.
Albums
In sharp contrast to the iTunes years, using a subscription service has resulted in listening more to full albums and EPs. When I relied on hard-drive storage for music files, individual mp3s were the basic units in my collection.
I would pick and choose songs and avoid purchasing LPs to save money. Now that I no long have a discrete collection, and unlimited access to (most) albums, I’m back to consuming long-form recordings. And to think, I used to the album as a genre was dead!
Also, I’ll go on record as saying that I think three of the best-received albums of 2011 according to Metacritic’s aggregation are overrated (PJ Harvey, Bon Iver, and The Horrors). My daughter would agree — when I played Bon Iver soon after it came out, Jackie gave me a bored look and pleaded, “let’s play some JAMS Daddy.”
These are my 20 favorites of the past year, classified in four tiers below:
Tier One
Days – Real Estate
House of Balloons* – The Weeknd
SUBTRKT – Sbtrkt
The English Riviera – Metronomy
Black Up – Shabazz Palaces
Tier Two
Lenses Alien – Cymbals Eat Guitars
Electronic Dream – araabMUZIK
Wounded Rhymes – Lykke Li
Sepalcure — Sepalcure
Parallax – Atlas Sound
Tier Three
Looping State of Mind – The Field
Mirror Traffic – Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks
A$AP Rocky — LiveLoveA$AP
Tomboy – Panda Bear
No Color – The Dodos
Tier Four
Helplessness Blues – Fleet Foxes
Hurry Up We’re Dreaming – M83
Smother – Wild Beasts
Carrion Crawler/The Dream – Thee Oh Sees
It’s All True – Junior Boys
Songs
My 60 favorite songs of 2011 are listed below, and here’s the link to the Spotify playlist.
- It’s Real – Real Estate
- An echo from the hosts that profess infinitum — Shabazz Palaces
- The Bay – Metronomy
- Wildfire (feat. Little Dragon) – Sbtrkt
- Rifle Eyesight (Proper Name) – Cymbals Eat Guitar
- I’ll Take Care Of U – Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx
- The Morning* – The Weeknd
- Black Night – The Dodos
- Street Joy – White Denim
- Video Games – Lana Del Rey
- Nasty – Nas
- Gorilla* – Clams Casino
- Stick Figures In Love – Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks
- Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out – The Antlers
- Streetz Tonight – araabMUSIK
- Still Sound – Toro Y Moi
- Reach A Bit Further – Wild Beasts
- Love Out Of Lust – Lykke Li
- Pencil Pimp – Sepalcure
- Ungirthed* – Purity Ring
- Is This Power – The Field
- New Map – M83
- Come To The City – The War On Drugs
- Street Halo – Burial
- Alsatian Darn – Panda Bear
- Lotus Flower – Radiohead
- Need You Now – Cut Copy
- Ritual Union – Little Dragon
- Top Bunk – Gauntlet Hair
- Brand New Guy (feat. ScHoolboy Q) (prod. Lyle) – ASAP Rocky
- Edge of Extremes – Clubfeet
- Make My – The Roots
- All The Same – Real Estate
- What You Need* – The Weeknd
- Santa Fe – Beirut
- If I Had A Boat – James Vincent McMorrow
- Other Side – Family Portrait
- My Mistakes – Eleanor Friedberger
- Shut Up, Man (feat. El-P) – Das Racist
- Songs 4 Women* – Frank Ocean
- I Follow Rivers – Lykke Li
- Grown Ocean – Fleet Foxes
- Woods – The Rosebuds
- Falls (Violet) – Van Hunt
- Angel Is Broken – Atlas Sound
- Every Night – James Pants
- Don’t Move – Phantogram
- Under Cover Of Darkness – The Strokes
- Like Gentle Giants – Corduroi
- Something Goes Right – Sbtrkt
- Banana Ripple – Junior Boys
- Something Came Over Me – WILD FLAG
- Wait In The Dark – Memory Tapes
- Get Right – Megafaun
- Hey Sparrow – Peaking Lights
- Gangsta – Tune-Yards
- Weekend – Smith Westerns
- Get Away – Yuck
- Make Me Proud – Drake
- Holocene – Bon Iver
* denotes a track that can’t be found on Spotify, but can easily be found on the web.
As you might guess, the Burns Family Reunion in Vogel State Park (in north Georgia) is about spending time with family. Katie and Jackie are blue bloods; they are genetically obligated to hang out with the other Burns blue bloods all day. Robah, me, and any other spouse, pet, or guest are outlaws. We outlaws are made to feel accepted and loved; we truly feel honored to be a part of this week-long family gathering.
But once in awhile, outlaws like to spend a little time away from the throngs of blue bloods. Maybe the outlaw retreats back to an empty cabin and reads a book. Maybe a couple of outlaws drive over to Helen for a few hours. Robah and I chose to walk through the woods every morning. I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge my other dog, who didn’t make the trip. Baxter doesn’t travel very well, so he was left behind at Camp Canine (which he seems to really like).
There are several trailheads in the middle of the park. On our first morning at Vogel, we hiked the four-mile Bear Hair Gap Trail. Every subsequent day, we hiked a little farther. Our goal was to work our way up to a long hike on Friday — the Coosa Backcountry Trail, a 16-mile trail through the Chattahoochee National Forest that begins at Vogel, crosses the summit of Duncan Ridge, intersects the Appalachian Trail, and takes the hikers near Blood and Slaughter Mountains (not as violent as they might sound).
Coosa Backcountry Trail from Google Maps
It’s not the distance that makes it daunting. Rather, it was the 7,735 feet of aggregate elevation gain that really wore us down. As you can see from the graph below, the elevation gain during the first half is a tease for the climbs and descents in the second half.
Elevation, by mile
Here are the final stats of our hike. By the way, I captured this data using the GPS receiver and My Tracks on my EVO phone. My Tracks is an incredible tool that is especially helpful for a directionally-challenged guy in the woods with nothing, and no one, in sight or earshot. Here are the hike statistics that My Tracks captured:
Now that you’ve seen the objective data about the hike, let me tell you about a few things that my smartphone couldn’t assist me with. Except for a few guys camping near the trailhead, Robah and I saw no one else anywhere near the trail all day. Thinking that the unfamiliar part of the long trail would have about the same amount of creek water access as the familiar part, I decided to travel light and carry only enough water for me. I had about 70 ounces for me, and Robah could drink from the many creeks along the way. This was a potentially dangerous mistake on my part.
Finally, it seemed to me before we set off that 85 degrees in the north Georgia mountains would feel cooler than 85 degrees in Raleigh, because we would be shaded for almost all of the hike. We were shaded, but we got hotter and hotter the more we walked. I didn’t bring enough water, but I did bring changes of shirts, shorts, and socks. Despite the dry changes of clothes, my pack was dripping wet when we finished.
Here’s a list of highlights from the hike, in order and marked on the map:
- Robah and I embark around 9:30 a.m., fully hydrated.
- I drink my first bottle of water (24-oz.) at Burnett Gap. Robah drinks from a creek, as planned.
- We come upon a recently-vacated campsite. A red Toyota pickup is parked next to a boombox that is playing an unfamiliar Red Hot Chili Peppers song. No one is there.
- GPS notwithstanding, I think we’ve taken a wrong turn after the Coosa trail intersects a couple of different Appalachian Trail spurs. After some backtracking and worrying, we figure out the right direction and keep moving.
- We meet a deer and Robah goes into berserk mode. I finally convince him to forget about it.
- After hiking the last few miles soaked in sweat, I change shirts, get out a fresh sweat towel, and eat half a sandwich and some carrots I brought. Robah scarfs a few Pupperonis (his favorite).
- There is no creek anywhere in sight, but Robah is thirsty. I give Robah some water and finish off my last water bottle. We’re officially out of water with approximately eight miles to go…not even half-way. The dry socks I put on are heavenly.
- We reach the second crossing of Highway 180, and I realize that the next ascent is just as high as the previous one. In about 20 minutes, we’ll both be hiking (or struggling) on all fours as we climb the mountain. We take breaks every fifty feet during the climb. It’s getting a little hard to swallow.
- At the top of the incline, we are greeted by a sea of ferns. Relief and natural peace help us carry on.
- A tall man in a white lab coat appears to be gathering rocks from the ground. After a few confused seconds pass, I realize it’s a minor hallucination. It’s actually a half-dead tree. Robah looks at me like I’m weird.
- The trail (if you can call it that) is barely recognizable. Bees are swarming in a couple of places. I hurry Robah along, pretty sure that the bees are not just in my head.
- I’m feeling better about things now that we’re heading downhill. We scare several quails from their ground nests as we go.
- More bees.
- Gorgeous, delicate red wildflowers align the trail. I decide against picking some illegally for my girls.
- FINALLY, a creek. Robah and I find our respective spots in the water and lie down. We each drink a couple of liters from the creek.
- Rain falls on us as we reach familiar territory. I’ve been soaking wet all day, so the rain is no inconvenience. After 16 miles of up and down, we get back to our cabin around 2:30 p.m.
Here are a couple of pictures of my hiking partner. If you’re going to be out in the woods for awhile, there’s no better dog in the world (nothing against Baxter — he has other virtues).
This brief post is sort of a test…I’m trying the WordPress app for Android on the EVO 4G I’ve had for a week and a half now.
So far, I’ve been really pleased with my transition away from “the cathedral,” to “the bazaar.” The hardware and OS are killer. If Sprint delivered better 4G coverage, the advertising hype would match reality.
Oh, and the picture of my boys fighting over a stick was taken with the EVO.
