So I put together 6 CDs of mp3s for my trip up to Olympia and back, for something like 50 hours worth of music. I knew I only had 24 hours of driving to do, but I wanted to give myself some leeway. Unfortunately, I left them in my default encoding, which is a high quality VBR that comes out to the file-weight of 192kbps encoding (though, thanks to the magic of VBR, enjoys higher quality. It is one of LAME encoder’s options), and the mp3 software in my Mustang’s cd player didn’t handle that very well. It tended to cause skips and short silences at certain points in the music.

I started the trip with Deltron 3030, and listened to a fair amount of Frank Black on the way up. But the big winner on the trip up north was Magnolia Electric Co., and specifically the song The Dark Don’t Hide It, which I listened to probably 15 times in the state of Washington alone. It’s the good stuff.

While I was in Washington, I went to a local show featuring the debut performance of a band called Mechanical Birds, a set by Popoko Darling, and some loud guitar music from The Bride Wore Red. I ended up working the lights and recording the official bootleg (which I have yet to listen to, but apparently something did come out, to my surprise).

On the way back, it was an all-Mountain Goats show. There’s just nothing else remotely like them. But then, from my top artists list, that should be no surprise.

Next time, constant bitrate encoding.