Someone To Drive You Home

Thesixtyone is a music site yeah ? That’s cool you’re thinking but why are you writing about it, well its got achievements! Combining two of my favourite passions listening to obscure bands and metagaming.  Thesixtyone doesn’t just allow you to listen to songs it also remembers what you’ve listened to and gives you Reputation (rep), think of rep as musical experience points, and every time you get to a milestone number of rep you are bumped up to a higher user level.

Well what does a higher level give you? You cry! well so far the only ability I know of is that you can heart a song more than once pushing it up the charts (extra rep is earned if a song you hearted is featured on the front page). At this point you guys are more than likely split into two camps those of you who think this sounds totally stupid and those who are intrigued and the real decider is if you don’t really like music that much this is a bit of a non starter for you. I thought it was a great way to find new music (I personally am always looking for new ways to find music that wouldn’t get any play in traditional media).

The website is super slick as well for instance it will load a whole page in the background so that the song you are listening to won’t be interrupted, this is achieved by some fancy pants AJAX computer nerds, it also allows you to download tracks or points you in the direction of a outlet where they can be bought from.

All in all a fairly interesting site it does have some basic social networking features you can friend people, send them messages, listen to their radio made up of tracks they have hearted. Nothing approaching Last.fm’s level of social integration but honestly not really fussed about that aspect (it’s all about the music man!).

Oh yeah and when you get there tell them Pedantic Sent you.

The difficult sophmore post, hmm , What to post about now. Well just so happens I got a comic in the post the other day that’s pretty darn good! Its the new Phonogram The Singles Club issue. How hard it was to get a hold of as well its sold out everywhere in Scotland. I had to order it off Ebay from America! Expensive!

It’s written and drawn by two nice chaps from England (Kieron Gillen , Jamie McKelvie) one of which you might be familiar with if you are into games journalism.

Anyway This latest issue they have made the jump into the world of glorious technicolor (the first story arc being all line drawn) it looks really good not that I know that much about comic book art. Truth be told I am a bit new to the whole comics thing been reading web comics for ages (man I still remember the time I went through the entire Questionable Content archive ) but only recently made the jump to the real deal hold it in your hand kind.

Yeah so what’s it about well talk about dove tailing interests its about music with Gillen quoting lyrics in dialogue almost constantly (which is fun its kinda like all that time I spent listening to the manics wasn’t wasted) and magic! Which is pretty much a winning combination! The story of the first trade paperback focusing on a phonomancer by the name of David Kohl who’s source (Britpop) is being tampered with. Oh dont look at me like that! There is a reason its a comic and not a rambling blog its good fun!

Anyway if your not totally put off by my recommendation you should check it out the first trade paper back is available on the Forbidden Planet website. I got mines at Dead Head Comics In Edinburgh (Support your Local Poet!) which is a lovely wee comic place near greyfriers bobby.