2003-09-19 - 10:41 a.m. It's The Friday Five! And it has to do with music, so I'm including it here! 1. Who is your favorite singer/musician? Why? Absolutely impossible to say. Too many categories. Songwriting-wise I've been enormously influenced by Elvis Costello, Chrissie Hynde, Stuart Moxham, Martin Phillipps, Black Francis, Paul Westerberg, Joe Strummer, Randy Newman, Robyn Hitchcock, and by the stable of classic rock bands I heard incessantly while growing up. But there are also musicians who I just love, whether or not they've made their mark on me. That would include Throwing Muses, David Bowie, X, PJ Harvey, the Buzzcocks, Loud Family, Barbara Manning, Meat Puppets, NMH, Husker Du, Freedy Johnston, Penelope Houston, Kate Bush, all my friends' bands, etc. 2. What one singer/musician can you not stand? Why? There seems to be a contingent of male pop singers who, I'm guessing, listened to a lot of Pearl Jam and REM and now sing in a tremulous, mannered, hyperbolic style that gives me the hives. 3. If your favorite singer wasn't in the music business, do you think you would still like him/her as a person? I haven't met most of my favorite musicians, but I have projected heroic qualities onto all of them. I would like to think that the personalities they telegraph while performing are at least partly based on fact. 4. Have you been to any concerts? If yes, who put on the best show? I guess these questions are geared towards 13-year-olds, but, um, yeah I've been to one or two concerts. There are too many great shows to itemize here, but I will say that the first concert I ever attended was Tom Waits at the Beekman Theater, when I was in the 7th grade. And it was great. 5. What are your thoughts on downloading free music online vs. purchasing albums? Do you feel the RIAA is right in its pursuit to stop people from dowloading free music? I think we need to work out a system where musicians get paid for their work. But if we've got file-sharing technology available to us, why not come up with a way to put it to good use? Criminalizing downloading is not the answer. Thank you ladies and gentlemen, vote for me! thoughts? (0 comments so far) previous - next blog archive contact