New Sonos app dropped, and it wrecked my system. I can no longer search my local music library, stored on a file share. I only have 1800 albums, so it's not like that's a big deal. If I needed to change a setting on my local library, I'm out of luck - those settings are no longer available. Gone is last.fm scrobbling, queue editing, alarms, sleep timers, and the ability to connect to Subsonic servers.  I'm sure there's a large list of missing features that I'm not aware of.

The release notes were not useful. Support was not useful. "We're not sure if or when  those features are being added back."

I guess it's time to start seeing what else is out there...

I've been listening Constant Headache a lot.  No album, just a song.  It's not a quite a cover, but a collaboration of the original artist, Joyce Manor, and Tigers Jaw.  The new version of song is a little less raw sounding than the original: cleaner vocal delivery, the arrangement is tighter and more driving, and overall all more polished production.  While the original is great, I think I like this version more.

Bandcamp | elsewhere

EchoFeed, where have you been all my life? EchoFeed a useful little service that takes RSS feeds and sends them out to other services like social media. Pretty neat but we’ve had things like that in the past, right? Well finally I can post a picture on Flickr and have it sent to social media with a decent sized image, as an image and not just a link preview.

I wrote to the developer for this feature and he graciously implemented it super quick and I have to say I love it.

Spent some time yesterday tinkering with my music server setup.  For many years I used iTunes and was relatively happy.  Then I got some Sonos speakers and mirrored my iTunes library to a Raspberry Pi so Sonos could mount the music directly.  As I've written before, I started using PlexAmp a year or so ago.  Such a great app.  Doesn't really play well with Sonos, though AirPlay works fine.

I decided to setup a Navidrome server with bonob on the RPi.  bonob takes the Navidrome library and serves it up in a way that Sonos can see it.  Now all my Sonos speakers can see my library local on the network and I get some library features like Recently Added, which the Sonos library sorely lacks.

Yeah, I can get this through the Plex library, but unfortunately it looks like Plex requires a connection to a server outside of the network to coordinate plays, even though the files are transferred locally.  I'm really enjoying Plex and PlexAmp so far, but am just doing some prep if Plex ever goes down the path of enshittification.  With a little extra effort, I can also have the Navidrome server accessible from the outside, and stream it to my phone.  If it ever comes to that.

Yes, I've looked at Roon.  Even if I could swallow the pricing, I just didn't like it every time I tried the trial.

Cloud Nothings' new album just came out.  Good, short, lo-fi rock album.  Some of the highlights for me are the title track, Silence, and Running Through the Campus (about Case Western?).  I also like Mouse Policy, if for no other reason than the title.

Cloud Nothings is from Cleveland.  I'm going to see them for the first time in June – they are on tour supporting the new album right now.

Listen or Buy

Saw Jeff Rosenstock on Thursday.  I think I enjoyed Scram! the most.  The sound was good and it was the first song where he really let loose.  The show was good - a great mix of stuff off his new album and older stuff.

Had to go alone because the music is a little frantic for my wife.  I can say that Jeff delivers that same energy live.  Highly recommended, if you like his music.

Bandcamp / everywhere else

#music

I've picked up a few Elway albums over the last year.  I love the second track on this album, "Hold On".

listen

#music

Not sure what I'm going to put in this blog.  I have other sites, one is very old and shared by friends, the other is more photography focussed.  Neither are updated very much.

Simple posts for sure.  Maybe short journal of music that I'm currently listening to.