Been a bit slow blogging lately. Swamped at work and working at home on the new TACFUG site using Matt Woodward’s CHUG application. At work I also got an office mate!! It’s been awhile since I’ve shared an office with anyone but it’s always interesting to see how other people work. He doesn’t listen to anything during the day. I’m the exact opposite - I’m always plugged into my MP3 player…
Dan Switzer is about the only other person I’ve seen post about music on a regular basis… We seem to have similar musical tastes - a bit of metal, progressive rock, etc.
So what do you listen too (if anything) while you code? If you don’t listen to music - how do you stay sane? 
Right now I’ve got TNT blasting away…
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Currently: Elvis Costello
Generally: classic rock, modern rock, blues, the occasional oldies classic, 80’s nostalgia
Need More: indie rock
I publish a “Musical Renaissance” post from time to time, but have done so less frequently since moving to robwilkerson.org from robwilkerson.instantspot.com.
Currently: Death Cab For Cutie - it’s easy to listen to when doing routine work.
Generally: Anything with big vocals, guitar and drums! Biffy Clyro has been my main choice of late. The Vertigo Of Bliss is their best album IMHO. Infinity Land and Blackened Sky are very good as well, Puzzle less so but still impressive. Rage Against The Machine gets me in the coding mood as well!
I can’t say enough good things about The Raconteurs new one ‘Consolers of the Lonely’.
http://www.amazon.com/Consoler.....p;sr=103-1
I’ll check out TNT
Funny you should mention that. I just picked up Korn’s Greatest Hits album at lunch today. Playing RIGHT NOW on my QuickMix in Pandora is Three Days Grace’s “Animal I Have Become”. In general an odd mix of ’80s, top 40, and I guess what is called “Nu Metal”.
I’m very thankful that I didn’t read this 5 minutes ago or something from my “Sexyback” station would have been playing on my QuickMix! LOL!
Did I just admit that?
@Jeff - that’s OK - we all have our guilty pleasures…
Lately, a couple of Aussie rock/prog metal bands…
- Cog, awesome band. Kinda Tool’ish but with slightly more melodic vocals
- Dead Letter Circus, they only have an EP out at the moment but have a big sound similar to Karnivool (another solid Aussie band, check them out too)
- Birds of Tokyo, has the lead singer from Karnivool and they have an new album due this year, but their first album ‘Day One’ won a bunch of awards. They rock
Check out any of those bands on MySpace to hear a couple of tracks. Some of the best stuff to come out of Oz in the last few years IMO!
I’m a bit of a music junkie (extreme understatement) and almost ALWAYS have music going in the background while I work.
If I’m upstairs in the office, it’s iTunes on “shuffle”, providing about 50% of my CD collection — Public Enemy, Slayer, Depeche Mode, tons of local/underground bands, Front 242, Gary Numan, David Bowie, Far, Deftones, The Cure, Beastie Boys, and on and on…
When working downstairs, I’ve got Tivo’d epsides of 120 Minutes and Headbangers Ball VH1 Classic that work pretty well.
…tho there is the rare day when I need absolute silence while I track down a random crash bug or obscure memory leak. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to myself while I work on those, and I can’t hear myself if I have music going at the same time.
I’ll post a “Friday Playlist” on my blog when I have time, or when I need a quick sanity break from coding.
It depends on how the spirit moves me at the time.
Friday I started listening to one of my favorite radio stations out of Dublin Ireland 2fm. Then, after a meeting or two, it felt like a Led Zeppelin to me so I listened to Led Zep for a couple hours. Finished off the day listening to Poe.
Many times, I head over to muxtape.com and check out different mix tapes others have made many of them containing tasty indie tracks.
1/2 - 3/4 day: Podcasts from WSJ, Bloomberg, CFWeekly, Mad Money, Fast Money
remaining or whatever: In the morning to mid-day finish my daily podcasts, than a variety of music hard rock, rock, alternative and even techno.
kinda depends on the current flow of the day, weather, etc. I like to jump around as to not overplay a recently downloaded track.
being in a office I find that listening to music definitely increases productivity as well as makes the day go by really fast.
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