Finding Great New Music Can Make Your Whole Week!

Friday is fun because it's always about music. And there's at least one playlist. This week there's more because it's about Mixcloud. And internet radio shows. And all of that everything!

Music is the best. And finding new music – whether brand new or very old (but new to you) – is one of the very special joys. I hope you’ll agree. On Fridays I like to share at least one playlist – I’ve made a weekly playlist every Friday for over two years now. And it’s always the same (20 songs) but it’s always different (new songs). It’s a starting point. You might not like everything, but you might hear a song or two that you want to further explore. Some thought has definitely been put into the order, and flow. Sometimes a very prominent, definite theme or mood arrives. Other times it’s just a set of songs. But it’s always something that’s been worked on.

I’m not DJ. But in my heart, I am.

I used to love selecting music for bars – I had a few gigs back in the day where I would play a set for the punters. It was about the long haul too. My favourite was an 8-hour shift, starting at 8pm and building a set of tunes that went through until 4am. This was a day’s work. (Well, a night’s work actually). And I loved it. It was exhausting, invigorating, sometimes quite overwhelming. You could get away with near-murder, putting in all sorts of gimmick-tunes and whimsy, but you had to keep the intensity up or it would fall over completely. You had to be trying to tell a story. There had to be some movement. But you didn’t ever want to peak too soon – playing bangers to an empty-ish bar is no good, but playing something weird and lonely is awkward when the bar doesn’t have the numbers. You had to keep thinking the whole time about where you were trying to go. And how you pull in the imaginary punter that walked up the steps only to hear their favourite new song!

It was serious work. And I loved it. And I was lucky to be allowed to do it a decade or so ago – being a ‘selector’ or something like it.

Classic radio shows were – and are – epic. Rick Dees’ Weekly Top 40 was the first I remember. I recently came into possession of a radio-station copy of one of the Weekly Top 40 shows on vinyl. 1986. A random week. All the bangers you’d expect. And a few weird songs I don’t remember at all. Split across three records, it tells the story of that week in history. It is a radio show that was put on vinyl and sent out to other radio stations. Bizarre. Brilliant. I often live for such little curios.

The internet hasn’t killed the radio star at all. It’s allowed them to evolve. Radio shows now exist in multiple and amazing formats. They are podcasts. They are YouTube channels. They are mixtapes. They are live-format DJ sessions. They are private radio stations, they are lifelines. There are curated lists that people are building, finding rare gems, telling new stories out of old tunes.

There is simply too much music for us all – and there are too many DJs doing brilliant things also. It is absolutely impossible to be across even a fraction of the good in this world. So to hear anyone tell you they are bored of music or bored with the choices is not engaging in the right way, or is temporarily lost on the path of endless and infinite discovery.

My own crisis with music listening has been well documented. And mostly by me. I’ve spent two decades writing about music and as much as I’ve talked about gems and shared favourites, I’ve also ragged on what I consider bad choices or lazy writing (indulging in my own lazy writing too, it’s unavoidable when you write about music every single day…which I did for far too long).

Now I’m about the positive – writing one weekly music post there’s really no need to say something is terrible (unless of course I genuinely feel let down by an album or artist I was expecting more from). It’s more about picking a thing to highlight, old, new or somewhere in the middle.

This week, my revelation has been properly discovering Mixcloud.

And all I really mean by that, is I finally went mobile. I downloaded the app. Much as when I committed to Bandcamp, and YouTube, I am now properly part of the Mixcloud club. It’s too easy, and lazy to just have Spotify on your phone – though I’ll acknowledge for some people that’s all they’ll ever need. But I’m always searching. Forever hungry for more than I’ll ever need when it comes to music. I’ve always been that way, and over the last few years I’ve worked hard to curb my spending and accumulating when it comes to physical media. To properly hone and curate collections and jettison the trash. (Unless it’s spectacular trash of course! Sometimes trash is the real treasure).

Anyway, I downloaded the Mixcloud app, found my old account, and got to proper-listening.

What worlds exist there for us to discover. And what amazing people are out there doing all that incredible work.

Neptune’s Selector is an internet radio show created by Auckland-based Greg Smith. I met Greg through Facebook years ago in that way people with similar interests connect. Greg is Zelig-like, an actor, an artist, sculptor, jewellery maker, musician, DJ – he had a Flying Nun record contract, was an extra on Shortland Street and in movies without any training. Just one of those guys with a look. And a sound. He does voice-overs. He’s everywhere. And also, he’s nowhere at the very same time. Living in his own head, making his own vibe. I love Greg. His energy is palpable and infectious. His glass work is sublime. We’ve only met in person a couple of times, but I felt a kinship instantly.

So much so I visited him in his house and recorded a conversation back when I was podcasting.

And so if you listen there you’ll hear some of his hilarious and amazing stories, told in his unique way. You’ll also hear so much about the music he loves.

But a better thing to do is listen to one of his shows on Mixcloud. Or sign up and listen to all of them!

His latest is five hours – and it’s the kind of five hours that unfolds like the best epic movie. You just sit back and marvel. I have been listening to it through this week, I’ve made it through two and a half times. There’s all manner of psych-rock and nostalgia, it runs the gamut. I found myself digging Supertramp way more than I ever thought I could, I was stoked to hear Jimi Hendrix’s I Don’t Live Today because to me that’s one of the absolute gems – but it’s probably second-tier Jimi to most. And Eels. Everyone needs a reminder that Eels have made some of the heartbreakingly best music of the last 30 years.

I’ve listened to bits of Greg’s shows across the years. He messages them out – but because I’m not tied to a desk and computer to listen, and I never had the mobile option previously, I’ve not always had the full experience. It was something. Let me tell you.

And now I’m discovering all these other great things I banked up on Mixcloud way back. Some boffin in the UK restores old gig footage to its best-sounding and sends it out. I’m writing this while listening to Kate Bush’s 1979 Tour of Life from Manchester. Until a couple of years ago this was her only ever live tour.

I messaged Greg about his latest show. And I’m sure he won’t mind me sharing some of the dialogue. (It’s too late, he never would have wanted me to write all this about him, but I just wanted to. So tough!)

I had said his show was absolutely a revelation. Having it in my ears all week had in fact made the week, it had been the soundtrack and mood-enhancer, it was the thrill and drive that was getting me by.

He said, “Great to hear from you Simon. Thank you for that, glad you enjoy the selections. The creation of my shows plays a big part in my life so it’s great to get feedback”.

I like to think I knew exactly what he meant, I know a thing or two about labour-of-love projects. Eight-hour DJ sets to bars that fluctuate, 20-song playlists for two years in a row. Getting up early or staying up late to write about music. And you know I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Happy Friday.

Happy Mixcloud Discovery Day, if you too are new to it.

Happy Neptune’s Selector Listening.

Please share any Mixcloud shows or similar finds that you know about.

And please find Vol. 113 of A Little Something For The Weekend…Sounds Good! right here: