• The @F_Lionheart disc, /The Jack of Hearts/, gets four stars out of five from me! #

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• The acoustic Waterdeep show? At least four stars, and totally worth listening to. It's 44 tracks and epically long, but worth it. -GFM #

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• FTR, I'm very happy with my own recording on the Waterdeep concert. I give myself four stars for not sucking recording an awesome show. #

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• The Portishead live record gets four stars, which surprises exactly none of you. #
• Good gravy, the new Shearwater album is EPIC. Teetering on the precipice of five stars. #

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• /100th Window/ got four stars from me. More electronic than triphop. Still, good stuff. #
• The DCfC bootleg gets three stars. Little echo-y, which is understandable for an arena show. #
• It's rare to have a decision on a recording so fast, but while the feed is good, there's static and a DJ who won't shut up. Two stars. #
• This CC bootleg is pretty solid. I'm giving it three stars, but only because I don't like the newer CC stuff. If it leaned more older, … #

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• Really digging the Charlotte Gainsbourg. Thanks @derekwebb and @cjhubbs for the call. Need to listen to this with the new Spoon record … #
• The Massive Attack gets three stars. I'm not a Pitchfork head, but they were right … this doesn't really goooooo anywhere. Sad. #
• http://www.fromthebasement.tv/artists/gnarls-barkley/performances/crazy is an amazing jam. #gnarlsbarkley Thanks @michaelaterry #
• /Heligoland/ gets just three stars from me, despite wanting to like it more than I do. It just sorta lays there like an animatronic fish… #
• /Protection/ gets four stars from me. I have the feeling the older stuff from MA is better than the new stuff. #
• /Mezzanine/ gets three stars from me. Solid grooves. #

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In a larger entry about information, Rands writes:

Those frustrated with Twitter are frustrated because they have a belief that a story needs a beginning, middle, and end. And that it should have all of those parts before it’s presented to them. What the hell am I supposed to learn from a tweet? The point of Twitter isn’t knowledge or understanding, it’s merely connective information tissue. It’s small bits of information carefully selected by those you’ve chosen to follow and its value isn’t in what they send, it’s how it fits into the story in your head. There are great stories to be found on Twitter, but you have to do the work.

I tell a narrative with my tweets—the narrative of my life, mainly. I announced my probable bi-polar II diagnosis on Twitter long before I posted it here. [And before I got some great feedback from friends who wanted to tell me that I'm not alone. That made it worth it.] My friends have an idea what’s going on in my life, because I share a goodly chunk of it on Twitter. Jonathan figured out that I had an obsession to eating sushi last week. My tweeps know I’m sick today. [Oddly enough, I didn't tweet where I went in to work for a couple of hours because I felt I had to do it. It was the right idea, but I'm paying for it now in feeling puny. I'll live.]

I’ve often said that I don’t know why someone who didn’t know me would read my Twitter. I’m largely the same way with Twitter—I care about the people that I follow, for the most part. I know about my friend Justin’s music school debt, how it creates angst for him and has him in a job he hates because it pays him well enough to get out of that debt. I know that some friends saw a lot of snow today, and some saw none. [And folks know that I saw very little at my house but a lot out by where Stephen and Misty live.]

Now, few of these little blips of information make a whole lot of sense if you don’t have some sense of the larger picture, which is why I write here. Why I share my life online, I’m never 100% sure, but the fact of the matter is that I do it. Part of me thinks that it’s self-expression. Part of me thinks that it’s narcissism. But I find value in it, which is why I’ve done it for almost a decade [!]. But these moments make more sense in the context of friendship, which is why I enjoy it when I go visit Rick and Jessica and don’t have to fill in gaps about what’s been going on with me since they last saw me, or how I’m excited when Mike Terry or Josh Stockment come to visit and roll on up to Nashville ['cause that's how we do], or when we meet Hubbs in Nashville.

Fundamentally, I find that Twitter is a channel of that narrative, a way of taking your friend’s temperature. What has their eye? [when it comes to links]. What has their ear? [when it comes to music.] What has their ire up? Are they at GEOFCON TWO? Are they happy about something? Have they been in a car wreck? [Happened to two different friends this week. Found out via Twitter both times.] I care about Twitter because I care about people, both those I’ve met and those I’d like to meet.

• Just for the record … this Bleu is not the /Redhead/, /Watched Pot/, or whatever Bleu. This is some modern jazz trio. Not bad, but … #
• I gave the Jazz thing 2 stars. Heh. For those seeking the Bleu I thought this was, try https://www.noisetrade.com/bleu . Love the dude. #
• Now leave me alone, @michaelterry and @joshstockment #
• The Wilco DC bootleg from the other day: four stars, yo. #
• The old Wilco boot gets three stars, and thanks to iTunes for refunding my money on the "Bleu". #

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• If you like The Decemberists playing their extended song cycles, you'll like that bootleg. I do, and it gets 3.5 stars. #
• For the record, Greg Laswell's /Three Flights from Alto Nido/ is great proposal-writing music. Mad that my iPhone doesn't have the new PG. #
• Songs like "House of Gold" are why I bought the Patty Griffin gospel record. I have the feeling I'm really going to like it from 1st 2 trks #
• For the record, I give the Patty Griffin four full stars. Mr. @tonykevinjr gets three. Good start to your career, sir. #

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• The Gnarls Barkley I added today? It is FULL OF WIN. #
• Shhhh, but … http://gfmorris.net/audio/ has that Gnarls Barkley show. For a limited time! #
• I'm torn between giving this MMJ bootleg three and four stars. Want to listen to it at home on better speakers. #
• #gnm #
• Clearly, I don't have Twitter tools completely nailed down just yet. Just added Spoon's /Transference/. #
• And I've decided on the MMJ bootleg: first disc got three stars, second got four. One of those concerts where it got better as it went. #
• Listening to the new Spoon now … it runs the risk of being same-sounding, but I am digging it. Four stars on my initial listen. #
• Okay, I'm appeasing @michaelaterry with my next selection. But man, "Got Nuffin" is a killer track. Good on you, Spoon. #
• Okay, @thecivilwars's /Poison & Wine EP/ was a quality purchase. $4 on @amazonmp3. Good call @michaelaterry. Four stars. #
• This @thecivilwars live EP is enjoyable. Get it at http://noisetrade.com/thecivilwars/ for FREE. Four stars. #
• Ugh, this Wilco bootleg is muddy and indistinct. But hey, it was free. Meh. NEXT! #
• The B.B. King duets compilation is pleasant and enjoyable, but nothing spectacular. Three stars. #

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Here’s what made me laugh today:

@gfmorris dude, you have over 18k twitter updates. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? the math boggles my mind.

– @derekwebb

My reply:

@derekwebb Follow me for a day and you will understand.

I use BitTorrent to legally trade permitted concert bootlegs, including many I record myself and release on IndieRiver for the Square Peg Alliance. Yesterday, I had the idea to snag IndieRiver a Twitter account. Other than the obvious use case of announcing new torrents available, I just had the following brainstorm: what about a use case where a poorly-or-not-at-all torrent is suddenly leeched and is tweeted? “Hey, I need help seeding on $torrent … got peers that need seeds!”

Maybe.

[This is one of those "I blog out loud and hope it makes sense to someone else ..." posts.]

So I’ve been thinking lately about openness. I am, fundamentally, an open person. As such, my decision six months ago to lock down my Twitter account was a very hard one. I reversed it today. Why? Simple: I am an open person. You ask me a question, and you’re going to get an answer. Whether you like it or not really isn’t my concern. I talk about my faults, probably not often enough. I understand and respect the reasons for privacy, but at my core, I would rather be transparent than not. As such, I have a tendency to say some surprising and shocking things—partially because I don’t have much of a filter, and partially because would rather just speak my mind and be judged for that rather than hiding things.

So I’m sitting here in my terribly messy house, waiting for guys to bring in my furniture. In fact, they just called—they’re 15 minutes out. Is my house a wreck? Yes, it is, but I’m working on it. My house is a metaphor for my life, I think—too much junk, too much stuff of little value being held onto, entropic, chaotic and full of music and computers. It’s just who I am, for better or for worse. There is some of that that I’d like to change—de-junk the house, learn to let things go more, etc.—and I think that I can change that if I put forth the effort. But I really don’t want to change the fact that I’m a fundamentally open person.

As such, you can read my Twitter account if you wish. Warning: it can be scary inside my head.

I’ve disabled auto-tweeting back here, and my Twitter is now friends-only.

This is mainly for reasons directly related to my blood pressure. There are … things I would say there that I don’t need everyone and their mother knowing. Feel free to friend me on Twitter, but I will probably be choosy with who I friend in return. ‘kay? ‘kay.