Casa Mai - the Music Room

Music Nora is listening to lately

"The Collection" -- I began cataloging my CDs in January 1999. I also did a similar program for Bruce's music. Now that I've gotten it all entered the frightening truth can be told -- I've got over 1200 CDs. Pretty scary and very eclectic; it would be difficult to not find something you like in my Collection! And I had to buy a super-size rack to hold them, it has the space for 1500 so I have room for future acquisitions.

I try to combine my love of music with my costuming, not too difficult -- The Collection provides a diverse selection for presentations. Sometimes the idea dictates the music choice, other times a piece of music will inspire an entire costume or presentation but either way I firmly believe that music is essential to a good presentation.

As an example, I re-created a Mariachi singer's costume last year (See the Archives page off the Study). I researched the music and found the perfect song to lip-synch to; some of the sites I've found on-line even have the words to many popular Mariachi numbers so I was pretty convincing. I already had several Mariachi albums to pick from; so the Collection proved its usefulness, yet again.

What I'm listening to now: Okay, granted, this will differ from day to day but just to give you a sampling. I'll be changing these selections fairly often.
	Fallen Evanescence They're a Goth band. No matter what others may tell you - they're a Goth band. And a damned good one. Favorite cuts? "Going Under" & "My Immortal" evanescence.com
	Elephunk Black Eyed Peas Lots of fun with a great beat. Yeah, they've got some social statements to make but... I particularly like "Latin Girls" & "Let's Get Retarded" www.blackeyedpeas.com
	Un Dia Normal Juanes Another latino who's starting to make a crossover impression. Good driving beats with some lyrical ballads. Can't pick any specially great tracks - I like them all! www.juanes.net
	CHICAGO the Soundtrack Fun, peri-oid sounding, jazzy. I really like the "Cell Block Tango"

	Millenium Dance Party (2002) Various One day, I was idly going through a Borders bookstore CD department looking for new music, searching for a particular tune that I didn't know who the title or artist was. Fortunately, the astute clerk found them on this CD, and it turns out it has a lot of great music. Put out by Rhino records, it has such well known cuts as "Groove is in the Heart", Moby's "Body Rock", "Unbelievable" by EMF and "Pump Up the Volume", just to name a few. It also has such goodies as "Cantaloop" (heard on a couple of TV commercials and the one I was looking for) and "I See You Baby" by Groove Armada. It's a good upbeat CD. It's been played a lot around the Casa.
	Chillout 2002 Various This is one of my first encounters with the concept of a CD put out for a collection of music to relax by, and I really like it. Thre's hardly a bad cut on it, although it has a very strange dance-oriented edit of Sara McLachlan's "The Arms of an Angel". My favorites are Massive Attack's "Tear Drop" and "Not 17" by Mandalay.
	Dirty Vegas Dirty Vegas Nora picked this one up, actually. It has the techno-pop song "Days Go By" that just about everyone has heard on the MItsubishi car commercial. The video on the cable music channels is actually kind of neat, if you happen to catch it. Only a few of the cuts are techno-pop, the rest are fairly "normal" and listenable.

	Spiderman Various The soundtrack to this movie is pretty good, but it makes me feel a bit old every time I listen to it, since there're a number of artists whose styles are just not to my tastes. I have to be in the right mood. There's enough on here to be accessible to most anyone who likes to rock, nonetheless. Musical preferences are a very personal affair, but I pick Chad Krueger and Josey Scott's "Hero" (which has gotten a lot of airtime), "Somebody" by Bleu, & Theory of a Dead Man's "Invisible Man" as my top choices.
	Start Static Sugarcult I first heard "Bouncing Off the Walls" in a theatre, waiting for a movie to start. Most of the cuts are a bit frenetic in pace, but it's a good pop CD, with a lot of energy.
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