Very strange to walk into a Barnes and Noble at 9:30 on a Wednesday morning and hear - at a decent volume - Depeche Mode's Just Can't Get Enough followed by Def Leppard's Hysteria. Heck, it was a galldarn pleasure after my weekend of shopping in which I suffered deplorable pre-programmed retail schlock, the best of which was Beyonce shrilling shrieking in my ear as I tried on shoes, and the worst of which sounded like dollar bin rejects from Lite FM mashed-up with the background music for late night adult phone line infomercials with tuned-up vocals by Akon wannabes.

Is this what copyright law has done to us? Forced us to endure terrible, terrible in-store music when all we want to do is buy a new pair of jeans and some sunglasses?

Explanation for lengthy absence: work.  Mixing, editing, de-noising, bouncing, syncing, then waking up and doing it all over again.  I've been mixing a series of educational videos for a website that is scheduled to launch in less than a month.  I primarily work with music, so it's been refreshing and educational to work with sync sound and to focus on things like matching noise floors, balancing dialogue levels and laying in foley. But my heart is in the volatile yet comforting music world, so even though I'll go a week or two commuting with a book or a public radio podcast instead of music on my iPod, I always come back.

My iPod is currently a mish-mash of high-octane tracks from my Gym Mix (Timberlake, Stefani, Air, Lily Allen...) and old timey, folk, hokum, hillbilly tracks from Harry Smith's Anthology of American Music and digitized, nearly-forgotten 78s that circulate on the web.  My husband is to blame (or thank - jury's still out) for introducing me to the Hoosier Hot Shots and Captain Stubby and the Buccaneers.  All of which makes for endlessly amusing shuffling while standing in crowded subway cars.

Our current favorite: Meet Me Tonight In The Cowshed

Sample lyric:

When Betsy and Sally and Mary say "Moo!" / That means they are lonesome and mooing for you.

Second runner-up: She Broke My Heart In Three Places

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRjcdagNKPY]

There is a bird outside my window tweeting the opening riff to EMF's 1991 hit Unbelievable.