Then came the cell phone and business was booming again. But cell phone legislation, banning driver use in moving vehicles, threatens to put an end to the good times.
On the horizon, however, are multichannel audio systems, along with an array of disorienting surround-sound music discs. At the recent AES convention, I briefly sat through…
Orientalism always exercised a tremendous pull on the British imagination, and here are nearly three hours of settings—as lush and suggestive as an Alma-Tadema nude—for vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra, of verses by a medieval Persian poet.…
Hands down, Little Things Run the World stands as bassist-composer Ben Allison's most adventurous CD, and is in the top echelon of 2008's jazz albums. It's lyrical, colorful, edgy, and teems with exuberance. Conceived with careful…
They're calling this the worst economic period since the Great Depression. Fifteen years ago Bob Dylan channeled the Mississippi Sheiks, popular among Great Depression audiences because, as he observes, "their songs are faultlessly made for these modern times." And so they are: Songs of hypocrisy, lust, and economic and political turmoil. Songs blaming the other guy. Songs, written decades ago, that show that, as a species, we haven't changed much.…
"What on earth can be the readily…
As silly as it sounds now, there was a time not so long ago when musicians were certain that the drum machine was the big bad wolf. Musicians everywhere wrung their hands at how it was the beginning of the end of live music; how hordes of unemployed drummers would soon be wandering the streets; how it was only a matter of time until acoustic instruments in general were on the way out, to be replaced…
When I say you, of course, I mean I. When I first saw The Kiss ($16…
My only other setup-related thought is that the asymmetrical stands may not anchor The Kiss as well as a less stylish solution might. Even with meticulous leveling, mine rocked a bit, until I placed 25-lb York barbell plates on their bases—inelegant but effective.
Kill then, and bliss me / But first come kiss me…
I'm pretty sure, based on the lack of fancy drum flourishes, that it's Jimmy Carl Black bashing the skins, and I have to…