LATEST ADDITIONS

The guitarist John Fahey was born on February 28, 1939, and died just days before what would have been his 62nd birthday, on February 22, 2001. Like so many other beautiful things that continue to have enormous impact on my life, Fahey’s music was introduced to me by <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/clouds_taste_metallic/">Miche…;. The album was 1997’s <i>City of Refuge</i>. We were in our second year at Fairleigh Dickinson University, in the second year of our relationship. Michelle had claimed the album from our campus radio station and brought it back to our dorm room and played it for me.

Though the recordings sell in <A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR20100… numbers</A>, the real thing continues to thrive. Do you attend classical music concerts?

The relationship between the internet and music continues to evolve in new and bizarre ways. The latest is Guvera, a site that offers free music downloads, that the principals say uses the sponsorship model in new and they hope successful ways and keeps everyone&#151;from artist to label to consume&#151;happy. When you register for the site, they ask you a battery of questions about your likes and dislikes and then you’re free to search for a song or an artist. The site will then direct you to a channel or channels, sponsored by an advertiser, which has what you’re looking for. Using the information from those initial customers’ surveys and then your subsequent download history, the site’s algorhythms find the target audience for certain advertisers and grab their eyeballs in a better way than pop up or strip ads. They also tell the advertisers what music the customers they want to reach listen to. The advertiser pays the royalties on the music to whoever holds the copyright. In other words, either the record label or the artist gets paid. It ain’t stealing.

Last night at <a href="http://lepoissonrouge.com/">Le Poisson Rouge</a>,<br>
<a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/four_tet_there_is_love_in_you… Hebden</a> made all the kids<br>
slither and groove.

It’s been nearly a week since PBS’ broadcast of the White House concert of music from the civil-rights era, and its sounds and images keep popping up in my brain.

Playback Designs was founded less than three years ago. However, with the release in 2008 of its MPS-5 Music Playback System&#151;a slim, full-featured SACD/CD player and DAC that costs $15,000 and is built in the US&#151;the company has since established itself as a significant player in high-performance digital audio.

If you’re a fan of John Fahey&#151a fan of his music, his writing, his thoughts on life, whatever&#151and especially if you’re sort of sad, like I am, about having never met him, then you’ll enjoy this disc. The Three Day Band is Fahey and musician <a href="http://www.myspace.com/ayalsr">Ayal Senior</a> who, in addition to capturing Fahey on four-track here, also edited much of Fahey’s second collection of stories, <i><a href="http://www.dragcity.com/products/vampire-vultures">Vampire Vultures</a></i>. (Senior’s also got a bunch of good-looking cassettes available.)