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All in Bands

Sometimes, I feel as though I use a lot of words to say nothing at all.

Last Saturday night, my band — the multi-purpose solution — played with Tris McCall & the New Jack Trippers at Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey. Today, I posted a review of Tris' new album, I'm Assuming You're All In Bands.

A review of Tris' album deserves a better writer.

Making Vinyl Records, Part 1

How records are made: This segment covers making the lacquer and then cutting it.

How Records Are Made, Part 2

This segment covers plating and pressing. Audiophiles should note that this example uses the simpler (and less replicable) one-step plating process, which is why there's no mention of an archival "mother," just a stamper.

Another note: Thicker audiophile pressings take longer than the 28-second pressing cycle reported—more like 40-seconds or more.

Oh Boy, Another List

But this one's the Best Summer Music Reads from Pitchfork. And the only one I've already read is King Dork.

Oh Boy, Another List

But this one's the Best Summer Music Reads from Pitchfork. And the only one I've already read is King Dork.

Graham Greene's Last Interview

I love the way the interview begins with a line that echoes the opening line of Burgess' Earthly Powers. The man who gave us The Quiet American also had some prescient things to say about future conflicts America might participate in.

Tools Galore!

I've been remodeling my downstairs into a dedicated office, small listening room, and home theater and, as a result, I've been constantly scratching my head and muttering how do you do that? Well, the answer to most of those questions has been in the Lee Valley Tools catalog and website.

The hardware section has more hinges, pulls, screws, and doodads than any other place I've found—if you're into building Craftsman furniture or Tansu boxes, they've got the goods. Heck, if you want to build coffins, they'll sell you the plans and the handles and hinges.

Plus, they're the…

Of Zest and Verve

Four Thursdays have powered up and cooled down since this year's Home Entertainment Show in Los Angeles, and I'm still reading the show reports. Beyond that, I'm enjoying them more and more. This is a good sign, I realize. I'm enjoying the reports more because they're making more sense to me. The language is becoming a part of me.

Jonathan Scull tells me, "Once bitten, quality becomes a lifelong pursuit." Sure: we were talking about something else — something more beautiful — but I think it applies to hi-fi, as well.

In our latest e-Newsletter, Jason Victor Serinus…

Katherine Whalen

Dirty Little Secret

The Squirrel Nut Zippers popularity was always vague mystifying until you realized the audience for their roaring twenties jazz were the same frat boys who adored drinking to it the first time around. In the middle of the whole SNZ thing, was actual talent in the form of Katharine Whalen, whose Billie Holiday-like voice went on to do an out of focus, jazzy first solo record with her band, the Jazz Squad. Fortunately, Whalen’s dumped the horns, and now seven years after that first solo record is back wandering through this multi-hued record that’s sure to wrinkle…

Willie Nile's a Superstar

No matter how you feel about the whole New Orleans fiasco—my two cents: Ray "chocolate city" Nagin’s lack of chops are now going to be exposed posthaste—there are parts of that town that cannot be allowed to go away, first and foremost the musicians, many of whom still teeter on the brink or have fallen head first into the abyss of financial ruin.

Tonight’s benefit for the Tipitina’s Artist Relief Fund at Southpaw in Brooklyn is one of many events in NYC put on to aid NOLA musicians in this, their time of trouble. Besides trying to help by adding my twenty bucks to the pile, I’m going to…