The binary packages for Slackware64 13.37 can be found on the packages website, and the SlackBuild scripts can be downloaded form the SVN repo.

In the past I have built packages for, and tested, several music players and music managers. These included Banshee, Exaile, Quod Libet, and Rhythmbox. I settled on Quod Libet as the best out of the bunch for a few reasons. It is fast, simple, light on resources, and worked reasonably well when transferring files to my USB mass storage DAP. However, there are two nagging issues (that I can think of off the top of my head) that afflict that software.

First, Quod Libet has no “Stop” button to stop playback. This seems to plague most GTK+ players I’ve tested. I suppose the argument is that there is really no reason to stop music while “Pause” has the desired effect when dealing with computer files rather than physical media such as tapes, albums, and CDs. However, this causes problems when listening to streams over the Internet. Pausing the music keeps a connection open to the remote host. It also causes issues while resuming playback: at first, the music will pick up where you left off. After a few moments, though, playback will skip to the current streaming content after some buffered amount of data expires. I personally find this to be annoying. Second, Quod Libet has an odd way of dealing with radio streams that contain multiple URLs. All “stations” get lumped together in the “Internet Radio” tab. Stations with multiple URLs show up multiple times in that tab. It’s hard to explain how this causes problems unless it is experienced first hand. Suffice it to say I’ve been annoyed by this set up on several occasions.

While Quod Libet is still my favorite music manager, despite the shortcomings I perceive, I’ll always be on the lookout for something that better suits my needs. Time will tell if Clemetine is that software.

Feel free to check out Clementine 0.5.3 by downloading my binary package for Slackware64 13.1:

clementine-0.5.3

rosegarden-10.04.2

For quite a while I settled on SomaFM‘s Indie Pop Rocks station. SomaFM is a group of listener supported Internet radio stations based out of San Francisco. I enjoy them, and still listen from time to time, but Indie Pop Rocks tended towards Pop more than Rock quite often. Eventually I found myself changing the station throughout the workday. I settled in to a routine of SomaFM and various commercial Internet radio stations that could fill in the void when IPR played what I thought was lame, weak music.

Eventually I tired of bouncing back and forth, so the search continued. Somehow, luckily, I stumbled across Radio Paradise. RP is another commercial-free listener supported station. Based out of Paradise, CA. (a few miles from my current hometown of Chico), it is run by Bill and Rebecca Goldsmith, Debbie Wilson, and their dogs. Bill G has been in radio for quite a long time, including working at KPIG which is located nearby my old hometown of Santa Cruz, CA. He knows what he is doing.

Radio Paradise defies definition. It would be easy to call it a Rock station, but that would not be correct. There is no specific musical genre to which they adhere. Certainly there is a lot of good ole’ rock music played from the past five decades. However, the playlist is an eclectic mix of many different musical styles from artists you know, artists you’re vaguely familiar with, artists you’ve never heard of, and artists you’ve long forgotten about. I don’t like every song that is played, but the vast majority of the music is at the very least acceptable with much of it being downright excellent. Songs are mixed with great care and thought rather than being haphazardly thrown together.

Fans of good music should check out Radio Paradise. I have been listening for several months now. During that time I have been introduced to a wide range of excellent new music I would never had heard otherwise. This great Internet radio station deserves to be explored.