Ipods and the operating room plus free music

Unlike some of my old-school professors of surgery, I do not subscribe to the maxim that you have to be miserable and uncomfortable while performing surgery. For me this means having my IPOD hooked up providing background music. Up until a couple years ago music in the OR meant a stack of oft-scratched CD stacks that tended to accumulate in the OR.

The IPOD changed all that & I was a fairly early adopter back when I was training in Louisville,KY (all props to Drs. Marc Salzman & Steve Rowe who were the first people I saw doing this back in 2002-3). Prior to this I had a large CD collection and favored myself a bit of a hipster/music snob for alt-rock and singer-songwriter music. I've now got an Ipod with almost 4000 songs from all over which serves as my "virtual radio station" (WROB as one nurse called it).

I always get asked where my music comes from. Like I said, I had a large preexisting CD collection (which now sit unplayed) that I burned hundreds of songs from. I had discovered NAPSTER a number of months prior to it breaking big in pop culture during 2001 and amassed hundereds of songs before it was declared illeagle. Since then I've been a good citizen and bought a lot of songs thru the I-tunes store.

However, always one to look for bargins, I'm constantly looking for free & legal sources for MP3 downloads. My favorites:

1. PASTE Magazine - a great music magazine with monthly CD's featuring alternative/singer-songwriter types. It's a good source for discovering new artists.




2. Salon.com's Audio-file columns - a lefty media site, that despite (or in spite of) it's politics always is entertaining. Most colums have free download links to up and coming & and a few well-known artists.




3. iTunes store - the weekly download has a lot of really good artists with a free single each week.




4. SPIN Magazine - frequently has free MP3 downloads in the MUSIC section




5. Artists' web sites - many artists' websites will have some free songs. I'm a big fan of Richard Thompson who's website has a number of free things. Also check out the late,great Chris Whitley's homepage for some links to rare tracks. Other personal recs. include Adrian Legg, Chris Smither, Bruce Cockburn

Richard Thompson, Chris Whitley, Chris Smither, Bruce cockburn