Episode 500 - Howie Day: Collide

Well today is my 500th post on Reading Between the Grooves and while it takes a commitment to do this nearly every day, I am reassured that it is worth it when I see the stats every 100 posts. In the last two weeks, three people mentioned to me that they had discovered the blog and have learned a bit from it. I’ve had an interest in music since childhood and began to take notes on recordings even as a teenager. Twenty years of work in the radio industry has prepared me to be loquacious about great music.

Today’s TV Thursday Hit was featured in the pilot for the TV show Bones. TNT ran this very first episode about two weeks ago and Howie Day’s “Collide” was featured in the last 15 minutes of the show. It has also been featured in several other shows such as Scrubs and Grey’s Anatomy. “Collide” is Day’s only certified gold single and it charted in the US at #20 on the Hot 100.

Howie Day is from Brewer, Maine – which is about 40 miles from where my grandmother was born. Incidentally, her maiden name was also Day. I often wondered if we were related as the Days of southern Maine tended to come from one colonial family. I know my ancestors go back to 18th century Maine. So there is a possibility that there is a distant relationship.

RBTG’s 500th Post Retrospect

Like I had reported with the 100th, 200th, 300th and 400th posts, I took a look backward on how we are doing visitor wise. I began this blog on September 26, 2009, but did not start monitoring the visits until October 16, 2009. Currently, we have 18 declared followers of the blog; however, there are many more who have followed without declaring themselves as followers. The statistics are listed below:

Variable	Statistic
Unique Visitors	16,543
Times Visited	19,186
Number of Pages Viewed	30,179
People Visiting 200+ Times	611
People Visiting 101-200 Times	247
People Visiting 51-100 Times	217
People Visiting 26-50 Times	121
Number of Visitor Countries Represented	120
Percentage of Visitors Referred from Search Engines	53.12%
Percentage of Visitors Referred from Other Sites	35.95%
Percentage of Visitors via Direct Access	10.93%

The Top Ten Charts

As one would find in music trade magazines, I have prepared some Top Ten Charts for "Reading between the Grooves."

The Top Ten Visitor Countries

Since the 400th post on November 9, 2010, the number of visitor countries increased from 104 to 120. The same countries made the Top 10 since the 200th anniversary; however, Brazil and Italy switched slots since the 400th.

Since picking up 16 new countries, we are shy 3 from having all of South America – we are missing the Guianas – French Guiana, Surinam, and Guyana. Central America is represented by every country with the exception of Nicaragua and Panama. The biggest hole in the Americas is the Caribbean. Europe is nearly covered with the exception of Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Moldova, and Montenegro. Africa remains the continent (excluding Antarctica) that has most countries that have not visited Reading Between the Grooves.

Rank	Country	Visits
1	United States	10,257
2	United Kingdom	1,524
3	Canada	977
4	Germany	783
5	France	481
6	Brazil	400
7	Italy	395
8	Australia	373
9	The Netherlands	285
10	Japan	243

The Top Ten Pages via Direct Access

While most people (2,093) have visited the home page for “Reading Between the Grooves,” others enter distinct pages through page specific links and via search engine returns. No new pages joined the list and the only significant change was Fairport Convention’s “Matty Groves” move from 7 to 4. This particular chart is slow moving as it is cumulative – newer features on this site will have to be really popular to catch up to the total direct accesses of these ten songs.

Rank	Artist: Song	Visits
1	Deep Purple before “Smoke on the Water”	1,148
2	Mungo Jerry: “In the Summertime”	671
3	Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks: “How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away”	446
4	Fairport Convention: “Matty Groves”	440
5	Walter Egan: “Magnet & Steel”	415
6	The Talk Box Guitar Effect	389
7	The Who: “Join Together”	380
8	The Hooters: “And We Danced”	368
9	The Heavy: “How Do You Like Me Now”	346
8	Moody Blues: “On the Threshold of a Dream” LP	335
10	The Heavy: “How Do You Like Me Now”	248

The Top Days by Total Visits

This chart represents the days that encountered the most visits and the content that was featured on those particular days. Only three were on the list at the 400th post – ”Buffalo Springfield Again,” Elliot Murphy’s “Wild Horses,” and “The Prescription is More Cowbell.” Yesterday’s decision to include “Something in the Air” was a wise choice as it placed second on the top total visits chart.

Rank	Day	Date	Associated Content	Visits
1	SAT	2 FEB 2011	Mason Proffit: Eugene Pratt	188
2	WED	23 FEB 2011	Thunderclap Newman “Something In The Air”	171
3	SAT	27 SEP 2010	”Buffalo Springfield Again”	162
4	MON	08 NOV 2010	Elliot Murphy “Wild Horses”	160
5	TUE	15 FEB 2011	Baskery “On a Day Like This”	154
6	SUN	13 FEB 2011	The Kelly Family “Brother, Brother”	151
7	FRI	11 FEB 2011	The Beatles “I Saw Her Standing There”	145
8	WED	14 APR 2010	Episode 200 “The Prescription is ‘More Cowbell’”	143
9	SAT	8 JAN 2011	Little River Band “Home On A Monday”	140
10	TUE	11 JAN 2011	Fludd “Cousin Mary”	139

The Top Days by New Visitors

This chart represents the days that encountered the most visits by first time visitors and the content that was featured on those particular days. All but one of these posts came within the last 100 posts. The only one remaining from the previous list is Kansas’ “Dust In The Wind” which moved from the number 1 slot to the number 10 slot. Three of the top ten came from the previous two weeks including the number 1 song which is by Laurie Lee C. – a virtual unknown, but a fantastic instrumentalist and vocalist in her own right. By the way her song was found completely by accident – ah, serendipity.

Rank	Day	Date	Associated Content	New Visitors
1	SUN	20 FEB 2011	Laurie Lee C. “Amazing Grace / You Gotta Move”	90
2	SAT	8 JAN 2011	Little River Band “Home On A Monday”	89
3	SAT	2 FEB 2011	Mason Proffit: Eugene Pratt	88
4	SUN	13 FEB 2011	The Kelly Family “Brother, Brother”	86
5	TUE	11 JAN 2011	Fludd “Cousin Mary”	85
6	SUN	2 JAN 2011	Joan Baez “God is God”	84
7	SAT	15 JAN 2011	Emerson, Lake, & Palmer “Lucky Man”	83
8	SUN	16 JAN 2011	Mylon LeFevre “You're Still On His Mind”	81
9	THU	07 OCT 2010	Kansas “Dust in the Wind”	79
10	MON	21 FEB 2011	Greg Hawkes “Eleanor Rigby”	79

As always, I want to take this time to thank all of you for your support of this site and the encouragement to keep going forward. Thanks again for Reading between the Grooves.