LATEST ADDITIONS

I really don't know anything about the Flying Burrito Bros. I know that Gram Parsons was in the band, and that makes them cool. Michelle, the first girl I ever loved, wore a Flying Burrito Brothers t-shirt (baby blue with a metallic gold logo, purchased from some old train station thrift shop in Hackensack-ack-ack-ack-ack), but she was from San Francisco and talked about Haight-Ashbury and rearranged her furniture twice a week and received phone calls from Pauline Oliveros and Marian Zazeela (in her dorm room!), and I figured the t-shirt was just another one of her crazy things. It was only much later, after she had shaved her head and had her name legally changed to Maya Moksha, that I realized Michelle was way cooler (and crazier) than I'd ever understand.

The May 2009 issue is now on newsstands. The cover's so bright, you gotta wear shades. See that orange LP sitting on the SME 20/12 turntable? That's my copy of Boris's awesome <i>Smile</i>.

Under the soft blue light: Grails' most awesome <i>Interpretations of Three Psychedelic Rock Songs from around the World</i> goes for the ride of its life on the massive SME 20/12 turntable.

After sticking my copy of Boris' <i>Smile</i> in the freezer for a few hours, Jenna thought it'd be a good idea to thaw it out in the microwave. Thanks, Jenna!

It was a glorious day. The Good Lord smiled upon our little blue world with clear skies, warm sunshine, and limited edition 7" singles. I strolled into Tunes at 11:30am, just a half-hour after the store had opened. A large crowd of happy shoppers was already huddled round the main display shelves. Radiohead singles from every era of the band's brilliant career and so many colorful 7" discs and samplers and posters and platter mats and they have already run out of the Sonic Youth/Beck splits. What? Figures! Oh well. I am not disappointed&#151not too terribly. Instead, I am happy for those who came before me, happy for the bands and happy for the labels and happy for the world.

Plenty of you clearly love vinyl, some favor digital discs, and others prefer using a NAS drive. But what, in terms of time used, is the most important source component in your system?

I know from conversations with other reviewers that this sort of thing happens all the time: Something new comes along&#151;a product from a company we've never heard of, a technology we've never encountered before, whatever&#151;and when we're impressed, we end up wondering if the thing is really as good as we think. We're insecure, just like you (footnote 1).