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As a collector of small interesting doodads and office supplies, I like to stash certain things away that might be handy to hold on to. As a result, I have a bunch of drawers that end up filled with a menagerie of strange and potentially useful objects. But being the disorganized person I am, I always manage to forget about some of the places I store my odds and ends.

The same thing happens with music. I collect it, stash it away on a shelf or in a hard drive or a wishlist, or perhaps in my Grooveshark / last.fm archives, and I eventually forget that certain music even exists. And then one day, I decide to hit "Shuffle," or I go through the files in my external hard drive, and something pops up that I totally forgot I even had. Sometimes what I find ends up being amazing, and it becomes a part of my regular listening; but other times I wonder "why the heck did I even keep this garbage anyway?"

The Junk Drawer section essentially deals with all the particularly interesting finds that have been lurking in the shadows, but for some reason or other, they never found their way into my regular listening cycle- until now. The drawer has officially been opened.

The first dusty set of artifacts that have recently surfaced come from one of my "Take Note" playlists. If I'm ever on a streaming site that allows users to create playlists, I always set one aside called "Take Note" in order to stash away songs that I'm not totally sure I like, but that I'd rather not forget about either... just in case I change my mind later. These playlists end up being pretty eclectic and interesting, and if I'm in the mood for something fresh, my "Take Note" playlists are usually my first choice.

These were in my "Take Note" playlist from earlier this year...







I'd give the above songs 2 thumbs up now, but at first I wasn't too sure...

Be Bop Deluxe and Bill Nelson were notable discoveries for me back in something like March or April. They caught my interest in a way music doesn't usually do, so it kind of caught me off guard. Bill Nelson has just the right kind of eccentricity and "sci-fi" sensibility to fit my taste, but it's backed up with equally as unusual and artistic instrumentation, and a highly distorted emotional palette.

The only thing that kept Be Bop Deluxe from moving in to my iPod permanently is that the band doesn't go well with anything I currently own. Whenever that happens, I end up with "island" artists or groups with songs that don't fit easily with my other music, and so they don't get very many plays, even though I really enjoy the music. I wasn't too fond of many of the similar artist suggestions for Be Bop or Bill Nelson either. But I'll give them a chance, and hope that by some miracle Bill Nelson "the outcast" might be joined by some similar art rock comrades in the near future. If not, at least his music won't ever be overplayed (by me, that is) .

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Another odd find I ended up including in my "Take Note" playlist at that time was Tracie's "The House The Jack Built." When it comes to pop, all I usually care about is the overall mood of the song. Like most of the songs that end up in my "Take Note" playlists, this track has a kind of obscure, low budget B-list feel to it; like something you would hear playing in a second-hand store or an old novelty shop that feels like it should have been closed decades ago.

As I recall, this song kept creeping into my head for about a week, but I'd never sing it out loud (lyrics aren't Tracie's strong suit- actually, I doubt she wrote them at all!). I don't even remember what led me to Tracie in the first place, but I kind of like having a song on hand that feels like it came out of nowhere. I still don't know how I feel about it, though - or even if I like it or not. It's pleasant and interesting, but I think I'll put this one back to rediscover later.



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Lurking in the back of this particular drawer is a specimen of classic Bachelor Pad exotica. I bet I was searching up a storm trying to find some decent lounge music, and this was probably one of the search results. I'm glad I came across this one again, because it's a really amazing track! It plays like a mini-movie- with suspense, action, romance, drama and everything in between wrapped up in the musical plot.

A quick search for 'Esquivel' leads me to discover that he's considered by some as the "king of space age pop." I'll have to check out his other music to verify that claim, but he looks so promising. We'll have to see about this one...




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