juicy bits

welcome to friday again

well, this is the first time in many weeks that i have been interested in the five, but here it is:

1. who is your favorite singer/musician? why?
   my favorite singer/musician was johnny cash for a few reasons: he was a true man and songwriter; he lived by his words and his convictions; and his convictions were not arrived at frivolously.
2. what one singer/musician can you not stand? why?
   this is really not a fair question and i am completely unable to answer it because i cannot separate an artist from hisorher work and there are so many artists out there that i think are both miserable musicians and miserable human beings. to try and narrow it to one is truly impossible. however, i will say that madonna and her constant needs for attention and to take herself so frickin' seriously is pretty annoying.
3. if your favorite singer wasn't in the music business, do you think you would still like him/her as a person?
   i think that if johnny were still alive, i'd very much like him as a person, even if he were not in the music biz, though i find it unlikely that i might have met him otherwise.
4. have you been to any concerts? if yes, who put on the best show?
   having never seen johnny live, i would say that the best show i have seen was peter gabriel, earlier this summer. i wasn't really a peter gabriel fan before the concert, but i am now.
5. what are your thoughts on downloading free music online vs. purchasing albums? do you feel the riaa is right in its pursuit to stop people from dowloading free music?
   unpopular as this opinion may be, and this is not the first time i have shared it on my blog, i do feel that the downloading of music on p2p networks and otherwise is illegal and that the riaa is not only within their rights to set the examples it has with these recent lawsuits, but that they should have done it sooner. we album purchasers have been paying the price for the illegal downloading of music by others in the elevated prices of cds over the past few years since napster and its progeny appeared and it's time that the infringers paid instead of law-abiding, bona fide customers.