According to my Last.FM profile, here are my top artists (and number of times I’ve listened to their songs) for 2011.

1. Bob Dylan (557 plays)

2. Hot Water Music (556 plays)

3. The Wooden Birds (502 plays)

4. Daft Punk (433 plays)

5. Johnny Cash (422 plays)

6. Bad Religion (406 plays)

7. State Radio (358 plays)

8. Otis Redding (338 plays)

9. Against Me! (329 plays)

10. Amos Lee (325 plays)

I’ve been messing around with the ridiculously cheesy (but pretty fun) Songify app on the iPhone which auto-tunes spoken word and applies it to a backing musical track.

I thought I’d make my own musical debut. Rebecca Black, watch out!

It’s Monday. (Only it isn’t, because I’m dumb and recorded this song this morning — when it was actually Tuesday.)

[MP3 link]

Of course, I have my Rdio playlist ready to listen to on the flight home.

What?! Who knew that Social Distortion had a new album out?

http://www.rdio.com/artist/Social_Distortion/album/Hard_Times_And_Nursery_Rhymes_(Deluxe_Edition)/

(Mainly posting this to see if I can embed Rdio playlists via the Embed.ly plugin)

Wow! Not too shabby.

[via @jayzombie on Twitter]

Interesting read in Wired about the rise of Ticketmaster: “Everyone Hates Ticketmaster — But No One Can Take It Down”

In 2008, Ticketmaster had made veteran industry shark Irving Azoff—a man so cutthroat (and so short) he is known as the Poison Dwarf—its CEO. Manager of the Eagles since the mid-’70s, Azoff is famously aggressive. He once sent a gift-wrapped boa constrictor to a manager whose wife he considered snakelike, with a note that read “Now you have two!”

Alright, so someone keeps emailing me, thinking they have someone else named Dave Schumaker. This actually happens a lot. After receiving a number of recent forwarded joke emails, I decided to respond. Check out conversation.

It reminds me of this earlier thread I wrote, about receiving strange email.

Update: I just realized that it’s the same Donna in that post!

From: Donna M.
Date: September 17, 2010 3:10:41 PM PDT
To: Dave Schumaker
Subject: FW: Poor mushroom

Forwarded message:

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 12:26:44 -0400
From: [some random person I don’t know]
To: [some other random person I don’t know]
CC: [a bunch of random people I don’t know] Subject: Fwd: Poor mushroom

This is the second or third random forward I’ve gotten from her. I considered adding a filter to my account, but I thought that maybe, I should inform this person they have the wrong email address.

Subject: Re: Poor mushroom
From: Dave Schumaker
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 15:12:34 -0700
To: Donna M.

I think you have the wrong Dave Schumaker’s email address.

Best,

-Dave

There, I think that does the trick! Wait — I just got a reply from her,

From: Donna M.
Subject: RE: Poor mushroom
Date: September 17, 2010 3:42:22 PM PDT
To: Dave Schumaker

I don’t think so 😛

Mom

What?!

You are not my Mom! I have NO IDEA who you are!

Update! I just received a follow up email. It looks like things have been cleared up, folks! It looks like I only have one mother again.

From: Donna M.
Subject: RE: Poor mushroom
Date: September 17, 2010 4:54:53 PM PDT
To: Dave Schumaker

So, so sorry I just talked to my son and I did have the wrong e-mail. Again, I’m sorry

Hahaha, brilliant!

[Via @dlprager on Twitter]

Kerry passed on some info about The Juliana Theory coming to San Francisco in August! They’re another one of my favorite bands and I’m sad I’ve never gotten to see them.

There’s a few things that surprised me.

1.) They broke up 10 years ago.
2.) I had no idea they were on a reunion / farewell tour.

Count me in! I’m absolutely excited.

What’s even scarier is how true the cats comment is.

[Via Ryan Block]