Many of you probably already know about Spotify.  The quickest explanation is that it is like Netflix Instant Watch or On-Demand, but for a music service.  Like Pandora, but you can pick the playlist or just listen to a whole album straight.

There are many bands who have a song that I think is great but am not ready to spend the money? Here are just a few bands that I like much more (or just discovered) with the help of Spotify:

• Sara Watkins (of Nickel Creek fame) has a great new cd, Sun Midnight Sun.  You and Me is my favorite off of that one.
• Two Man Gentleman Band have some great songs including Pork Chops.
• T.J. Miller, the comedian, has a hilarious rap album called the Extended Play EP, with songs like Appleton and Denver.
• Secret Sisters.  Did some work with Third Man Records.  Produced by T-Bone Burnett.  Listen to Tennessee Me.
• Aunt Sheila mentioned Don Williams during the summer, but wasn’t able to really listen to him till Spotify. Living on Tulsa Time!
• The tribute to Loretta Lynn, Coal Miner’s Daughter, is worth a listen even if you normally don’t like any of the country stars on it.

Here is Clapton doing Tulsa Time:

Greg Proops, of “Whose Line is that” fame, has been a guest on a few of the podcasts that listen and is usually very hilarious, so I recently checked out his podcast and it is hilarious. Other podcasts do interviews or are more like a typical radio show, but his is just an hour or so of him talking. I thought it would get old, but it doesn’t. He talks about history, current events and politics; the topics usually flow in and out of one another. A show from Chicago a while back included his meeting of Ernie Banks which flowed into a rant about the Secret Service in Columbia controversy and concluded with telling a few stories of the bad-ass picture Bob Gibson.

So I watched the SNL from this past weekend, and Seth Macfarlane’s monologue was entertaining, mainly because he did other voices after he pandered out the Peter Griffin, Stewie, and Quagmire for a minute. My favorite part, however, was his impersonation of Ryan Lochte, which I thought was hilarious, especially after seeing the previous post of Ryan Lochte’s terrible interviews.

I’m still having trouble posting the link and the video, so here’s the address.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/401526

I don’t know if this has been posted yet, and I’m too lazy to scroll back, but in the spirit of the Chicago Neighborhood posters, there are these “slightly insulting” variations…

http://slightlyinsultingchicagoposters.tumblr.com/