Goodman Games

MASTODON!

I made a playlist on Pandora using as many of these songs as I could find in their database.
I called it "DCC radio", here's a direct link

Not being familiar with Pandora, do I have to be logged in to hear your mix?

Clicking the link, the first song that played was by all-female garage band She. And even though is says DCC radio at the top, the next three songs were not from Joseph's list, either...

I think playlists are one of the features reserved for people that pay, and that the free listening which is available is only the "this is similar to the artist or song entered" type.

I could be wrong, as I have not checked on their policies since their removal of the limit on how many hours per month free listeners could use.

Pandora's pretty awesome. Go check it out, you'll dig it. I think streaming is the way the music industry is going. Which means it'll probably get overrun with shitty commercials before too long. Anyways, right now it's not.

Pandora will also play "similar" songs/artists, so you can potentially get a wide range of stuff playing. This can be annoying, as when something that you thumbs-up on one station (Rolling Stones, e.g.) shows up on another (your Nick Drake channel).

I would add Om, Sleep, Fu Manchu, Kyuss, QotSA, and probably Neurosis to the list of DCC bands, btw. And Black Sabbath / Dio of course.

That is pretty annoying... no where near as bad as when you want one type of music and it keeps playing unrelated music that was popular in the same time-frame.

Keeps playing Foo Fighters, Green Day, Nirvana, and Bush on my Metallica channel.

You might be able to get around it by having a "Thrash Metal" channel, and thumbing down any mid to late 90s sucky Metallica or non-metal stuff (grunge etc). Or do something less mainstream like Celtic Frost or Slayer or Anthrax and you should stay on the fringes and not pick up the mainstream stuff.

As far as I know, no.

Pandora allows you to make custom radio stations. Unlike Spotify, it doesn't just play the songs and bands you select but it creates an playlist for your station based on the bands or songs you seed the station with. I've got about 8 stations and I've found that populating a station with songs (instead of bands) gives you a more diverse selection of songs that appear on your station. I populated "DCC radio" with as many of the songs from Joseph Goodman's list that I could find in Pandora's database.

When you're logged in to Pandora you can 'thumbs down' a song, which means you will never hear that song again on that station.

There are some weird glitchy things where sometimes it will play a divergent song from the station and then the next few songs are similar to that last song instead of the station. For instance, I have a "post-punk" station populated only with the bands Devo and REM, and occasionally a B-52s song comes up and then the next few songs are similar to rockabilly or house party music. After thee to five songs, the stations snaps back to it's theme, and if you're thumbing songs up and down it changes the theme of the station even more.

I've been listening to custom stations on Pandora for over a year now and I've never had to pay anything. Paying for a subscription just means that you don't get ads between songs and you can do a few more funky little tricks with stations. The advertising is never invasive though, so I've never felt inclined to pay. That being said, I love the Pandora setup and I do have eight custom stations!

I highly recommend that you sign up for an account and make a few stations, play around with it for a week or so and get acquainted with the way it works. It doesn't bomb you with long advertisements and you will never be stuck listening to "wacky" DJs with dumb jokes who prattle on ignorantly while you sit there thinking "Just play a damn song already!"

Lastfm.com

When it comes to more obscure music, their radio player is much better than pandora.

You don't get the functions of pandora's player, but you'll discover many, many more new artists similar to your original choice which you likely wouldn't discover otherwise.

I've used both and I always go back to Pandora over lastfm.
Call it personal preference.

I listen to vinyl mostly these days or rip my own music at much higher quality. Yahoo launchcast did the same thing 10 years ago, it's funny how the propagation of high speed internet has now made a service like Pandora marketable.

For light background music while playing I like:

Wongraven
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4IQumJOpzU

Crypt of the Wizard-era Mortiis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiNxKnJbstw

The Summoning (particularly Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdiab2D0Ohs

Just great dungeon-synth background music that isn't too obtrusive to the game.

Much like DCC itself (an awesome blend of old-school and new-school) these bands pick up where Black Sabbath left off. If you love Black Sabbath and can't understand why there isn't more new bands utilizing their thing (detuned guitars, moody, dark tones) this is gonna change your world.

It's what I use for background music during play and prep:

Electric Wizard (my new favorite band)
Mammatus (these guys have some great instrumentals)

Also rad metal:

Sword (as previously mentioned)
Grand Magus
Celtic Frost
Candlemass
Mastodon (as previously mentioned)

Guys, that's not how Pandora works. It's radio. It only plays similar music, that's how it works.

If you want straight "this is a playlist" go Spotify, which is very popular.

For both services, you definitely need to pay their annual fee or you'll hear very jarring audio commercials.

I'm working on a game day playlist on Spotify right now, I'll post it up when it's ready.

Call me a genre snob then because Nirvana is not what I would describe as similar to Metallica, and yet clicking on my station that I created by typing in "metallica" results in pandora playing a smattering of songs from Metallica, Megadeth, covers of Metallica songs by other bands - all of which are similar to Metallica - and then will also play Nirvana, Bush, Foo Fighters, Green Day, and Dishwalla which are a completely different style of music.

Ya, you gotta "school" her a bit. We call it slappin' Pandora around once in a while to keep her in line. On the other hand, you'll also discover new music that you'll dig.

The more you work on the station, the better it will get. Ups downs and more seeds will give her more to go on. It's pretty cool. I use both Pandora and Spotify depending on my needs.

I have one station that I've worked on for several years that I feel confident plugging in at a party or a bar without fear of being too embarrassed.

For game play, I recommend Spotify so you can control it completely - a "what the f*ck are you playing right now, dude?" moment could break some cool moment in the game.

As promised, here's the Spotify playlist I intend to use. I'll be adding more soon, but some of this stoner metal has *really* long songs. One is 63 minutes, so setting it to shuffle and you should be good for a full session without any repeats. Again, lose the ads, they are horrible esp. for gaming.

Enjoy.

BeatnikTom's Righteous DCC Playlist:
http://open.spotify.com/user/1219290832/playlist/4Vk7i5JoCrzlTjTZkmH7A0

I went and made a Spotify playlist as well, though mine's intended more for inspiration than for during play. And for good measure I added a big chunk of yours to mine.

http://open.spotify.com/user/threeheavystones/playlist/2FBw61MGfb59chU61BvcNr

It's a collaborative list, so theoretically anyone who subscribes to it can add songs to it. Lay 'em on me.

Is it just me, or would "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones be a good song for a chaotic patron?