I really loved seeing and listening to all the street musicians in Europe. I often wish I was better at playing guitar and/or singing, so I could just take my case and travel around, busking my way from city to city. That would be pretty cool. I was actually thinking about doing something like that for my next euro trip. It would help pay for things like daily meals, although the extra money I would spend to get my guitar over and back might not be worth it... Still, something to consider.
I've been listening to music a lot more lately. It's a bit strange, really, since I wrote on the blog not long ago that my music listening has gone way down, and my podcast consumption way up. Since that post I've been listening to music more and more, especially while I'm in the truck. What I'm about to say next is probably going to sound a bit strange, since I have a hard time explaining it in fluid words to myself. When I listen to music in the truck, it gives me anxiety a little bit, because I feel like I should be using that time to listen to podcasts or audiobooks. But when I put on a podcast, I second guess my choice because I convince myself that there's a better podcast that I could be spending my time on. I don't know what it is lately, but this feeling has been exasperated since I got back from Europe. I have this constant, anxiety like feeling, like I'm forgetting something, or like I should be doing something else because what I'm doing at that moment is a waste of time or isn't worth my time. It's pretty annoying.
But every once in awhile my mind will latch on to something else and I can just kind of zone out and not have those feelings anymore. Mainly this happens when I have some song on that I don't know the words too, or music that doesn't have any words. I can just allow my mind to wander and think about book ideas, or things I should have done in High School (this takes up most of my spare thinking time, unfortunately), or crazy situations where I have super powers or something. i probably spend way too much time fantasizing about things that could literally never happen, like super strength or telekinesis. It's a bit counter productive that I think about stuff like that quite often, but then get anxious when I'm listening to an educational podcast, because there might be a different educational podcast that my time would be better spent listening to. My brain is dumb sometimes...
Things have gotten a bit tangental, but the reason I wanted to talk about music is because of this band I've discovered recently. Infected Mushroom is an Israeli duo who make psychedelic trance music. It's basically like super high temp techno with lots of crazy twists, turns, and drops. It's been my jam lately. I've been listening to it sometimes in the truck, but mainly when I've been writing. I have it on right now. It's nice because only a few of the songs have lyrics, and even the ones that do are quite downplayed and usually only a few words. It's high tempo, so it keeps my energy up. It's really good background music, most of the time. There are some songs that have these really weird sections with super annoying sounds, and if one of those sections happens to match up with a lull in my writing, it can make me incredibly irritated in no time flat.
If you haven't heard of them before I would really suggest giving them a listen. The album "Army of Mushrooms" is my favourite so far, and the third track is called "Send Me an Angel", and it's absolutely rad as fuck. They sing in Hebrew in it, and it sounds super amazing. Seriously, even if you don't like techno or dubstep or trance music, give this track a listen. It's dope.
Other than that a lot of the music I listen to is the same stuff I listened to in my teens, in high school. This is probably the reason I think about high school so much when I'm listening to music. I find it hard recently to find good new artists that I enjoy though. What are some of your favourite tunes/artists? How do you find new music? If you've got any suggestions for songs, hit me up below in the comments. It doesn't have to be psych trance, I like pretty much any genre, and I will give literally anything you suggest a chance at least once. I'm always on the lookout for good, new tunes, so SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT!