Mannheim Steamroller's Carol Of The Bells = Christmas song equivalent of Game Of Thrones. (The song is free, incidentally, for Amazon Prime members).

AbandonedScore

BeatOven

DuranDuran

My new mini-hobby: instagramming musical detritus found in my neighborhood. A few recent examples of the sadly discarded.

November 2014 - I had a lovely time at the ASCAP Awards, celebrating with my boss Steve Rosenthal and the amazing Jocelyn Arem, winners of the Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Multimedia Award for the Caffe Lena History Project. Well-deserved recognition for this book, CD box set (now heading into a second pressing!) and website documenting Saratoga, NY's much-loved folk club.

My reading and listening list got a lot longer, too. I can't wait to dive into ASCAP Award winning essays and articles (and related recordings), including Andy Zax's "Scenes from the Chocolate Orchid Piano Bar", Patrick Joseph Huber's "Black Hillbillies: African American Musicians on Old-Time Records, 1924-1932" and so much more.