I recently spent a few days filling in for a local engineer, recording middle-school and high-school bands and choral ensembles. This was a requirement of the statewide music-educator adjudication process. (Don't laugh; recording high-school bands is how Telarc got its start.)
Like many specialty audio companies, <A HREF="http://www.nhthifi.com">NHT</A> has had its ups and downs. The Benicia, CA–based loudspeaker manufacturer, founded by <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/232/">Ken Kantor</A> and Chris Byrne in 1986, was sold to Jensen International in the early 1990s, sold again to accesssories perveyor Recoton, and then acquired (and some would suggest saved) by Rockford Corporation towards the end of 2002.
In an era when music as instant entertainment enjoys increasing dominance over music as art, cellular phones have emerged as the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/101005upod/">latest purveyor of music on demand</A>. Issues of sound quality mean little when the goal is to accumulate more and more files at an ever-accelerating pace and have ever easier access to those files.
Want to improve your hearing? Have someone tickle your toes, or lightly stroke the palm of your hand. Sounds crazy, but it works, and things get even weirder.
So, I arrived at home (I mean, at Wes') one night, and decided to take <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/101705huckleberry/">John DeVore's advice</a> about popping a CD into the hi-fi as simple background noise. My plan was to listen to Smog's <i>A River Ain't Too Much to Love</i> while feeding the cats in the kitchen.
I was in bed for what felt like five minutes (it was actually five hours) when the little alarm clock let loose its hybrid buzz-chirp: 7am, time to wake up. I stumbled into the bathroom, my mind filled with thoughts of the previous night at Maxwell’s. The fluorescent white light above the cracked mirror blinked on and off for a couple of moments before steadying itself, reminding me of the camera bulbs that flashed while we were on stage. I heard myself think: “We’ll never play a bad show again. That’s all behind us now.”
At the show, there were—no kidding(!)—<i>five</i> people who came over and complimented me on this here blog. I was flattered. One was <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/101805asynth/">Josh Gladstone</a> who said he was surprised to learn that he was the first to buy Todd’s At Work CD. And, patting his pant pocket, he added: “I’ve already got it in my <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/mediaservers/934/index.html">iPod</a>.” Another was Mike C., of <a href="http://www.hobokenrockcity.com/">Hoboken Rock City</a>, who keeps a blog of his own and frequently sends out fun <a href="http://www.hobokenrockcity.com/playlists.asp">podcasts</a>.
<a href="http://www.ericswanson.com/">Eric Swanson</a>, the man who makes our covers look so awesome, is visiting from Santa Fe, New Mexico. He’s in NYC to attend the <a href="http://www.photoplusexpo.com">PhotoPlus Expo</a> at the Javits Center, but was able to drop by our office today and treat me to lunch. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Eric for about four years, but had never met him in person. We’d only communicated via e-mail and over the phone. I always thought, by the sound of his voice, that he’d be a kind and thoughtful person. I was right.
“Are these things on?”
I really love the comments tool, but I wish it would notify me of when new comments are left for old blog entries. Because it doesn’t, I have to scroll through each entry and check. This isn’t such a big deal, but it does mean that I’ll miss a few comments every now and then, or that it’ll take me a few days to get around to them. And that’s not cool because web-time flies.