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<i>The Vivian Girls (from left): Ali Koehler, Cassie Ramone, and Kickball Katy. Photo: Arnaud Bianquis.</i>

Look at this thing. It’s a <a href="http://www.verityaudio.com/en/index.php/products/finn">Verity Audio Finn</a> in seductive Norwegian Birch. Don’t you want to just squeeze it? Don’t you want to just bring it home with you?

Still on the road in Memphis. At the center of any music trip to Memphis is the odd but very telling juxtaposition of Graceland and the relatively new Stax museum. Elvis was always very up front about where his influences came from&#151;black blues and R&B, along with gospel music, both white and black, and Tin Pan Alley&#151’ most of which is honored in the Stax museum. And for the record let me say that I will never understand how Memphis, THE big city for all the delta blues pioneers, not to mention the town’s subsequent musical history, B.B. King, Elvis, Alex Chilton, Ardent Studios, etc. took their eye off the ball and lost the Rock Hall (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) to the mistake by the lake. Such a pity. It would have given this town a triple threat of music tourism. Whoever was Mayor then, not to mention the city council, the local state legislators and oh yes, the fine gun&#150;totin’, God Afearin’ folks of the Tennessee delegation to Congress ought to be beaten.

This is what my life will be like starting this Thursday and ending next Tuesday. I should’ve been in this video, though. I mean, seriously: Thao, give me a call next time. What’s up?

The November 2009 issue of <i>Stereophile</i> is now on newsstands. On the cover, you’ll see a close-up of the Aerial Acoustics Model 20T V2 loudspeaker, which John Atkinson praised for its silky treble and weighty, well-defined bass. An interview with Aerial’s designer, Michael Kelly, appears <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/467/index.html">here</a&gt;, while Michael Fremer’s review of the original 20T can be found <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/404aerial/index.html">here…;.

It’s that kind of place. Despite it’s economic distress, the empty streets, the half&#150;assed Bourbon Street mess that Beale Street has become (goddamned is it bad!), and what seems to be a full on crime wave in certain parts of town, in Memphis you cannot keep the music out of your head. It may be the wash over that comes from being so close to the Delta, but I couldn’t keep, “Walking in Memphis” by Marc Cohen or the words to one of John Hiatt’s greatest songs, (and that my friends is truly saying something because John Hiatt has written a shitload, okay, like 25 genuinely great songs) “Memphis in the Meantime” out of my head.

<I>“If we could just get off a that beat little girl
Maybe we could find the groove
At least we can get a decent meal
Down at the rendez&#150;vous”</I>

Needless to say, I wasn’t in town half an hour and I was at the Rendezvous (www.hogsfly.com), down in the basement as it were, wolfing down chopped chicken, pickles, big hunks of cheddar cheese, cole slaw with vinegar and cumin, sweet tea, fries, red beans and rice (laced with sliced mushrooms?) and the best ribs I have ever tasted. The best. All covered in that secret shake mixture of spices that makes this place world famous. My God it was good. It’s so damned nice to find a “legendary” restaurant that actually lives up, or in this case exceeds its billing.

Right from the start&#151from the very first musical moment&#151it’s the gorgeous, spacious sound we’ve grown to love from Espers’ Greg Weeks and his <a href="http://www.myspace.com/hexhamhead">Hexham Head Studio</a> in Philadelphia. While <i>III</i>’s rather straightforward instrumentation (churning, scintillating acoustic guitars, appropriately warm, round bass, and steady, impactful drums) marks a subtle departure from the doumbek and dholak of <i><a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/musicroom/facethemusic/042706espers/">II</a…;, the quality of sound is no less complex or stirring. We hear the sounds of wood and brass meeting with flesh and skin, of bow hair as it courses along cello strings, of cello moan and sigh, of the most delicious fuzzed-out guitar placed in realistic, three-dimensional space&#151all with such <i>truth</i>, such <i>blood</i>, such respect of momentum and flow, that we are fooled into thinking that the very space around us is, in fact, growing, exhaling, beating.