Impulsive Music Hunches - Every now and then I hear a single song, and impulsively buy massive quantities of music by that artist. It's probably just a well-honed hunch, but often in a single song I can find that spark that says "wow, I LOVE this music." Recently, I'm *very* pleased to say that my hunch worked again.

I was listening to an adult learning education lecture in a podcast series from the Skirball Center in New York. I found the podcasts by accident, just browsing and surfing through the iTunes store. At the time, I didn't realize there was more than one Skirball Center, thinking the one here in the Los Angeles area was the only one. The moderator of one lecture was expounding on the weekly Torah portion (called in Hebrew: Parashat ha-Shavua) -- which is a section of the Torah (Hebrew Bible) read in Jewish services. In Judaism, the Torah is read publicly over the course of a year, with one major portion read each week in the Shabbat morning service [that's Wikipedia's definition, by the way].

The moderator wanted to diverge from the main story in the selection to discuss one of the finer points. But rather than ignore the main tale, he played a single song for everyone to listen and reflect first, and then move on in his lecture. He apologized with "full disclosure" that the song he played was actually recorded by his son's band, so maybe he was a little biased.

I replayed the song several times before listening to the rest of the lecture, and when the moderator was done with his lesson and the podcast was over, I rewound the recording and played the song several more times. On a hunch, I went out and purchased all three albums by the band without hearing a single additional song from them.

Hunch powers: WIN!

The first song I heard of theirs was "Hineni" from their 2nd album, "70 Faces." I've been listening to the music all evening now, while washing dishes, organizing things around the house, etc. And I can tell this playlist is going to be a favorite for a while.

There's a great interview with the band, which mentions "Hineni," as well as the one that made me laugh out loud from their first album, "Flippin' Out" (and I found a great reference for the lyrics with some links to definitions here). They have their own website as well as a profile on myspace. I bought all three albums from Sameach Music, since they actually had all three in stock.

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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Proud papa's, who share their kids' music with us. Well done, guys!