Play That Funky Music, Caucasian Guy

The musician in me has re-emerged lately - spurred, no doubt, by the sudden appearance in my life of two Pods.  No, I'm not starring in a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers - these are Pods of a musical nature.  And while they're both musical, electronic, and have very similar names, they influence music in vastly different ways.

The first is my new iPod Touch.  This little gem was a birthday gift from my Lady Friend, who, unlike me, is quite adept at picking up on subtle hints ("gee, I'd like an iPod Touch"), yet can still keep me in the dark about it.  It's the 16 gigabyte version (from the greek "giga", meaning "a shitload of" and "byte", meaning "music"), and holds 4,000 average length songs, or two-and-a-half Grateful Dead concert bootlegs.

I've now spent the last 6 weeks ripping my CD collection and purchasing music, both from the iTunes store and from Amazon.com.  iTunes pros: huge selection, nice interface, and nearly flawless song information.  iTunes con:  DRM, or digital rights management.  Listen up, you RIAA bastards - I've now purchased Shout at the Devil four times.  Twice on vinyl, once on CD, and once online.  If I want to make a damn backup copy, or throw a copy on another computer in my house, I'm damn well going to - stick your copyright protection up your ass.

Amazon.com is nice, too.  Pros:  prices on some tracks are only 89 cents, the selection is pretty damn good, and most importantly: no DRM.  Cons:  the ID3 data is frequently inaccurate.  It may be niggly to some people, but to me it's really annoying.  I'm so anal, I put the original composition dates on all my Mozart tracks.  How many people can say they have playlists for the 70's and 80's - and they're talking about the 18th century?

But I digress.  Amassing the music library, and all the hours spent listening to all that music on the new iPod have re-ignited my passion for music - particularly the early to mid-80's rock and metal that inspired me to take up guitar.  And that leads us to my other new Pod...

The Line 6 POD xt - a small, red, lima-bean shaped device that recreates some of the most famous rock guitar sounds over the last four decades.  I plug my guitar into it, spin the knobs and Presto! the Eruption sound.  Or, at least, what Eruption would have sounded like if they'd put my rusty ass on Eddie's gear in the studio instead of him.  Another spin of the knob, and now I'm transformed into a reasonable approximation of U2's The Edge, wondering what godforsaken town has streets with no names.

In a nutshell, the POD has complex circuitry and software that is built to "model" not just the sound but the subtle characteristics of nearly three dozen different amplifiers.  On top of that, add the ability to mimic dozens of classic stompbox effects used by everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Kirk Hammett, and you've got a fantastic tool to keep your favorite guitar player hidden in his basement for as long as you'd like.  Or perhaps much longer, if you actually like the guy.  I, for one, think it's the Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread.

And if you don't believe me, where do you think I've been lately?  Okay, well maybe there.  Yeah, and there, too.