Well, hello there, and nice to meet you. This page is literally about me, and for some reason I felt the need to write a lot about myself. I’m Zo, and I’m a middle-aged, married, music lover, living in Northwest Arkansas. I am proud to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community, too. Other than music, I have many interests, but they mostly consist of video games, drag, horror, linguistics, mental health, computer science, and spending time with my awesome family.

I’ve attempted starting a music blog in the past. I’m not sure how long ago it was, but it’s at least a decade. Anyway, this time it’s going to stick. I shall keep this up, dammit. Music has always been a vital aspect of my life. I remember dancing in the living room of my childhood home while watching CMT. I refused to let anybody do anything except give me their undivided attention. As my parent’s youngest child of four, I got quite a lot of it. To this day, I’m still a massive fan Dwight Yoakam, Reba, Sawyer Brown, and Shania Twain. I was Clint Black one year for Halloween. Nobody had any idea. I was crushed.

My music interests broadened as I got older. I remember getting cds for Backstreet Boys’ “Millennium” and Filter’s “Title of Record” in the same transaction. In high school and junior high, I got into Beck, Radiohead, David Bowie, Bjork, and Wilco. If I had to choose a favorite band or artist, Beck would be mine. Hands down.

I’ve dabbled in making music of my own, and almost studied it in college. I still find the little bits of music that create an entire composition incredibly fascinating. I had a goal of creating music for film for a while. When you are not like other people, and constantly live in a state of fear and anxiety, you get excellent at conditioning yourself into not trying too hard at anything.

My inner saboteur (as Mother Ru calls them) couldn’t keep my desire from consuming as much music as possible at bay. This naturally led to me being able to recall albums, artists, and genres like some sort of “sound savant.” I still have a difficult time remembering release dates, however. I studied why I liked certain albums or film scores. I researched songwriters, producers, contributing musicians, etc… It wasn’t long before patterns started to emerge. I enjoy being able to articulate why I like listening to something.

This obsession has given me an uncanny knack for finding music other people may like, regardless if I enjoy it or not. I studied recommender systems during my machine learning program at Holberton Tulsa, and they are quite powerful. You can create hybrid systems based on different factors when attempting to associate similarities between artists or songs. For some reason, people associate musical similarities of artists with race, age, gender, and geographical location. Also, based on the performers chosen instrument (I will never understand why people have tried to associate Tori Amos and Kate Bush. They are both female and play the piano. That’s it.) Programmatically, I understand how that would be easy to configure. It just doesn’t work out in my brain. The algorithms work, but are ultimately flawed.

My recommendations are also flawed, but I’m a person and that’s acceptable. Hopefully, you will get some enjoyment out of reading my self-indulgent nonsense. I think I’m a hoot. You can decide for yourself. My goal is to have at least one album review a week. I will also review live events I attend, and hopefully get some interviews with local artists.

Thanks for reading!

Zo