And as I've expanded into playing around with MP3s and players like the iPod, I've discovered great resources like the website Songhenge and this podcast by Marc Gunn:
Great stuff! When I was a graduate student and recently graduated alumnus of Rice University, I did my turn as a bartender in the graduate student pub on campus in the basement of the old Chemistry building. Before they got all hi-techy and computerized their sound system, we used to have a CD player hooked up to the speaker system, and I would go visit Houston Public Library downtown and go select 3-5 new Celtic music CDs from various artists I had yet to listen to and then inflict these tunes upon my bar patrons. More often than not it was a success and patrons really liked the music. It transformed the whole atmosphere from an ordinary basement bar into something more like a cozy Irish pub, if only for the hour I was on duty as a bartender. I think our Guinness sales went up slightly when I was on duty, too. I think technically what I was doing was in violation of traditional copyright law, as we, the volunteer staff of the place, did not have the "performance rights" to the songs, but this to me is one of the more dick-headed perversions of Copyright law. Promoting such non-mainstream music in such a venue is only likely to pique interest and INCREASE music sales, but intellectual property lawyers don't give a sh*t about such cultural enhancements that improve the community even while they skirt the law a tad. I frequently had bar patrons come up and ask to see the album cover and sometimes the liner notes, which I gladly provided. This was admittedly back in the mid 1990s, when the Celtic New Wave was roaring at rip tide (it has subsided a bit since the early 2000s). I still love it, but my family origin is Scottish, so I have personal reasons to stay connected to this music.
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