TheSixtyOne has held me in its musical grip since January and it doesn’t look to be letting go any time soon. I’ve already tried to explain to you why it’s so good. Let me see if I can put it another way in an attempt to lure you into the all-consuming fire.

You know how people are medically addicted to WoW these days? I know why. It’s because humans have an irresistible attraction to leveling up, regardless of the platform. We collect things. We get really good at golf and can describe every hole of every course in a 50 mile radius. We practice the guitar until we can play Flight of the Bumblebee at 340 beats per minute. We obsess over world records just to be able to say we hold the record.

There are a million areas of interest out there. And there are people getting better at each and every one of them as we speak.

We are all obsessive compulsive to a certain degree. The reason we’re not medically diagnosed with it is because most of us have the ability to resist it if it gets in the way of our daily lives. Barely.

Let’s look at a specific area of interest: music. I am not a bona fide music collector because my parents weren’t yuppies, but I am well on my way thanks almost entirely to thesixtyone. Music does something to me that nothing else can do. I’m not talking about performing it, I’m talking about blasting it in your car during afternoon rush hour on a Friday with your windows down, which coincidentally I’ll be doing in about 40 minutes.

There is a problem with being a music listener though. There are so many people that really really love music that it’s hard to break into the inner-culture unless you live on the fringe of society. It’s not very fun to become a “music collector” because one of two things tends to get in the way: 1) as soon as you begin to share your expertise with others a much more seasoned collector inevitably comes along and scoffs at your shallow opinions, informing you that he not only owns a vinyl copy of your favorite 10 albums, but he’s been backstage at all the concerts; or 2) you become that guy and lose most of your friends.

So, we’ve discussed the intense desire to “level up” in life. We’ve discussed how much we love music. And we’ve discussed why it’s frustrating to love music so much. I have good news for you. There is a place at the innernets where you can combine your desire to level up with discovering good new music that will be big in 6 months, all without the frustration of the music snob. That place is located here: www.thesixtyone.com

When I play WoW, the level-up aspect is very satisfying until I realize that ultimately it has no bearing on the “outside” world. I can’t share it with my wife or my friends because when you boil it down it is solely for my benefit.

When I listen to thesixtyone, on the other hand, not only is the level-up aspect insanely satisfying, but it has a positive effect on my “outside” world because it is teaching me about music and giving me songs, albums, and bands that I can take with me for the rest of my life. I’ve had long conversations with my friends who are already on the site (Dan, Adrian, Phil, Luke, Jesse, and my brother) over new artists, leveling up, getting achievements & feature unlocks, and techniques on playing the game.

With that being said, here is my list of top 5 bands that I’ve discovered so far. I would have never heard of any of these bands if it weren’t for thesixtyone.

5. The National

See their profile on thesixtyone.

Man these guys are eerie. A baritone lead singer paired with heavy piano usage and constant beats, plus semi-depressing lyrics and a sense of hopelessness, all somehow pull me into The National. I know, counter-intuitive right? Just listen to Fake Empire and be completely amazed.

Required listening:

4. Leatherbag

See their profile on thesixtyone.

Just one guy who calls himself Leatherbag (preforming with the aid of a band) has captured my heart with another lonely, half-depressed song called Caroline. It is one of my favorite songs of all time and I immediately went and learned it on the geetar - banjo licks and all.

Required listening:

The lyrics really get me. It’s a sad love song, and I just HAVE to post a sample for you below:

Standing around this northern town
Patiently I stand and wait
When I find my sweet Caroline
We’ll spread our wings and we’ll fly away

Her hair is gold and her words are silver
She’s a lily in the month of May
She’s tall as hell and like the wind she whispers
Do I love her I cannot say

WOW. I’m not one for poetry, but I’ll be damned if I’ve ever heard anything so sad and poetic.

3. Chris Merritt

See their profile on thesixtyone.

Chris Merritt has about twice as many chords in his songs as other non-superhuman artists. Just listen to Linger or The Long Road to get a feel for his frequent key change-ups. He has a song on his new album called Mafia that’s even crazier. I had to listen to it three times to understand his insane chord progressions. What’s great is the song is still amazing and you can tell that a lot of thought went into each note.

Required listening:

What a great buildup and it doesn’t disappoint.

2. Your Vegas

See their profile on thesixtyone.

I guarantee you these guys are the next Coldplay/Snow Patrol/Keane/[enter favorite UK pop band]. Their songs are all epic. All. Epic. We’ll be hearing them on the radio in a few months.

Required listening:

The last half of the song is the most epic. It might be one of the best individual songs on all of thesixtyone.

1. White Light Riot

See their profile on thesixtyone.

I ordered a poster from White Light Riot’s merch site. I don’t buy music posters. That is saying a lot. These guys simply rock my socks right off every single day (which is how often I listen to at least one of their songs). I love them so much that when I noticed their entire album was available to download for free from thesixtyone, I notified them of the blunder and they quickly remedied it. I bet someone out there hates me. But you know what? I bought the album from their site for full price, so you better do the same.

Required listening:

“Can’t you see beyond the silver screens, the backward dreams, the scripted scenes?”

Well that about does it. Honorable mention includes Band of Horses, Ugress, and RAC. Sample some songs from these bands and tell me what you think, or let me know your favorite newly discovered bands on thesixtyone. I’m working on another Top Fiver for individual songs which is pretty enjoyable but much harder to nail down.

So, maybe I’ll see you at thesixtyone? My username is brianmcculloh and my profile is located here: thesixtyone.com/brianmcculloh. You can also see where I currently stand on thesixtyone if you look at my listener badge in the side column of this page where it says “Listen To One Song Plz:”.

It’s Friday. That means multiple posts chocked full of stuff I find on Digg. Hold on to your butts.

If you’ve seen my first post about Flight Of The Bumblebee performances, you know where I’m going with this. There is some new video footage of the fastest guitarist in the world. Officially the fastest. That’s not just an exaggeration.

He performs Flight Of The Bumblebee song faster and faster and faster. Each time I thought it was the fastest the song could possibly be performed. But then he goes one faster. If the speed dial goes to 10, he turned it to 11.

I think if he went any faster, the signal sent from the pickup in the guitar to the amplifier to the speakers to our ear drums wouldn’t be able to keep up with his fingers and it would result in some sort of warp in the time-space continuum flux capacitor 1.21 jigawatts huey lewis & the news elisabeth shue fish under the sea dance. And we would all die and/or get injured.

Fast forward the video to 2:56 and get ready to live.

Which films did I annoyingly quote and/or reference in this blog post? Hint: there are 4 of them.

Well, I was gonna post about how 99% of cops are complete idiots, but that is going to be a more involved post that I don’t feel like doing right now. In the meantime I stumbled upon a little gem on Digg today. So, here’s a little more light-hearted fun for you:

Step 1: Read this article and watch all the videos (the first two South Park videos are not required).

Step 2: Watch the new Pork and Beans video by Weezer.

They wouldn’t let me embed the video, so you have to go over to YouTube to see it.

I can’t believe some of these people came out of the woodwork, including Chocolate Rain Guy and Leave Britney Alone Girl. Do you think they got paid? If so, how much?

I bet these numbskulls did it for free.

I’m astounded at how much these two broads look alike. In case you don’t know who they are, Katy Perry is this girl. She is a 23 year old pop singer with the current top 40 hit entitled “I Kissed a Girl”. Zooey Deschanel is this girl. She is a 28 year old actress who was in Elf and, most recently, The Happening.

STOP! DO NOT go look up pictures of them. Stick with the images contained in the links above, because otherwise you might come across the pictures in my post and ruin the whole game. And don’t click “see all photos” on Zooey’s IMDB page. Just use the pictures on the front page for reference.

We’re going to play a little game called “Katy or Zooey?” This may seem like a pretty dumb “Perez-Hilton”-esque post, but I am just taken aback by how much they physically resemble each other. You will be too.

Here’s how to play. Study the pair of pictures and determine which one is Katy and which one is Zooey. If you are struggling, just remember the clues you know thus far:

• One’s an actress and one’s a musician
• One’s 4 1/2 years older than the other one

I don’t know how those will help you at all. The Answer key is in the comments so you don’t accidentally scroll down and see them in the post.

The first three are warm-ups to get the blood pumping to your fusiform gyrus. Difficulty level increases at number 4.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

OK, got your answers? Are you sure? I have more than likely tricked you at least once. Did I alternate who is first on each pair? Did I make them all the same order? Did I put two pictures of the same girl together? Is this really all just one person? See the comments for the real answers.

There’s something about musical prodigies that can cause me to waste an entire work day on Youtube. Today is Friday and I stayed up far past my bedtime last night. That means today is one of those days. I have compiled an assortment of videos for your viewing pleasure.

Today’s theme is Flight of the Bumblebee by Rinsky-Korsakov. There’s a point in every musician’s life when they discover that their fingers (or mouth in the case of wind/brass instruments) are able to move at speeds above human comprehension. Once a piece of music is memorized, the fingers are eventually able to play it as if they were autonomous. That is to say, the musician performs the song unconsciously.

I too have experienced the bliss of whizzing through a series of notes at lightning speed (way faster than they’re supposed to be played) and thinking I was invincible. That was before I saw the following videos.

We’ll start at amazing and work our way up to uber-amazing.

That was Flight of the Bumblebee on a good old fashion piano by a guy named Maksim. I estimate about 1% of the world’s population can do or has done this already. I mean, pianos are pretty common, right?

Let’s take it up a notch.

That was Luis Moreno on electric guitar. I estimate about 0.1% of the world’s population can pull that off. I realize guitars are even more common than pianos, but let’s put the amazingness of this in perspective. I played piano for 5 years and was at the point where I could probably play this piece on piano - although not quite as fast as Maksim did it. I’ve been playing guitar for twice as long and there isn’t a chance in heck that I could even attempt to play the first 2 seconds of Moreno’s version.

Hungry for more? It gets even better.

That was David Childs on the euphonium. I estimate about .00001% of the world’s population could achieve what Childs achieves. Why? Because there can’t be more than 30 euphoniums in the entire world. What is a euphonium?

OK, now get ready to step into the big leagues.

That was Jose Feliciano on acoustic/classical guitar. I know what you’re thinking. Let me explain to you why this is better than you think. 2 reasons. First, did you see at the end how he continued playing notes above the highest frets of the guitar? If you don’t know what a fret is, don’t fret. Just watch for the part at the very end where both of his hands are on the base of the guitar and he’s playing the strings above the hole of the guitar. Yeah, that’s impossible. Second - and this one’s gonna convince you if the first one didn’t - Jose Feliciano is blind. BLIND I TELL YOU! That means he makes those huge jumps of 10+ frets at a time using only his mind.

Seriously though, those videos were nothing compared to this next one. Hold on to your butts.

That was Alexander Dmitriev on accordian. Why is that awesome? Because he could whoop anyone at Guitar Hero. It doesn’t need much more explanation than that.

You might as well have just started reading this post right here, because everything you’ve just seen is meaningless compared to this next video.

That’s Greg Pattillo on flute. That’s right, he just beatboxed Flight of the Bumblebee. All my goals and dreams have just been shattered. I am no longer inspired to be the best at anything ever again.

Since I loved that video so much, here’s one last bonus video because I’m feeling very beneficent and magnanimous since it’s Friday. It’s the same guy doing one of my favorite musical suites: Peter and the Wolf. BEATBOX STYLE.