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Besides the reading I do here at Stereophile, I read a lot on the morning train. When Murakami is pissing me off with his cats and dead friends, I turn to the free dailies handed out by the dudes in the bright orange jackets standing outside the station. I pick one up and I say to myself, "I think I'll get a little stupid this morning." I go for Metro—"the world's largest global newspaper." Dressed in a cheery green and with a friendly font, it is clearly designed for those in jeans and sneakers, whereas AM New York is meant for the more serious suits.
Dear Readers,
I admit it. When Jerry commented to last week's entry, saying that vinyl wears out with every single trip around the platter, it kind of shook me up. My heart raced and blood rushed to my head. I began to sweat. What had I done? What was I getting into? How would I afford this? Had I stepped into AlexO's bottomless pit?
I admit it. When Jerry commented to last week's entry, saying that vinyl wears out with every single trip around the platter, it kind of shook me up. My heart raced and blood rushed to my head. I began to sweat. What had I done? What was I getting into? How would I afford this? Had I stepped into AlexO's bottomless pit?
While some queer, poetic part of me enjoys the idea that vinyl is this living, breathing thing that slowly dwindles and decays over time—like a flower, like love—I would really prefer for my records to last the next fifty or…
If you visit our Gallery, you'll see that Christian bought an LP. Vinyl, that is. Funny thing about that: Christian doesn't own a record player.
And so goes the sweet cycle. Poor dude's walking in my own drunken steps. Like me, like ErikB, like Catch 22, like countless others—I am sure—Christian is already collecting vinyl. He cannot help himself. Michael Lavorgna and John DeVore knew.
Michael Lavorgna and John DeVore—audiophiles, music lovers, enablers that they are—exchanged dark, deliberate glances as they watched my vinyl…
Buddha said:
One day some people came to the vinyl lover and asked:
How can you be happy in a world of such impermanence, where you cannot protect your beloved LPs from harm, wear and death?
The vinyl lover held up an LP and said:
Someone gave me this LP, and I really like it. It plays music admirably and its sound pleases me. I touch the needle to it and it sings! One day the wind may blow it off the shelf, or my elbow may knock it from the table or scratch it irreparably. I know this LP is already broken, so I enjoy it incredibly.
There it was again. Goosebumps. Even a grainy old out–of–synch YouTube video of a 1986 sound check at Maxwell's in Hoboken still evoked a shiver. At the risk of living in the rock 'n' roll past, The Replacements were one of the best bands, bar or otherwise, that I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing. Over the years I saw Westerberg, Mars and the Stinson Bros many, many times. I saw them when they were riotously drunk, careening from one tune to the next, never finishing any of them. I saw them once at an unbilled gig do not a note of their own music, preferring instead to rip through TV…
Friday night, I went to the 55 Bar—one of several small, inviting, low-to-no-cover jazz clubs in New York City’s West Village—to hear Kendra Shank sing in celebration of her (improbably) 50th birthday. Audiophiles will recall Shank’s mid’90s album, Afterglow (on the Mapleshade label), one of the best-sounding jazz-vocal records in recent times as well as a balladeer’s strong debut. In the years since, her voice has grown suppler, deeper, more versatile, dynamic, controlled, and adventurous. Her first mentor was the late Shirley Horn, and her biggest strength remains the ballad (she opened…
Dusting is boring and makes me sneeze, so I had been putting it off. I don't know how many months and months had passed. It had been awhile. In fact, to an outside observer, it might have appeared as though I was trying to determine just how much dust I could collect on my bookcases. It was even starting to bother me. My bookcases no longer boasted their cheap cherry shine, but had taken on a soft, sickly grey. This weekend, I figured it was time.
In the cabinet beneath my sink, I found a package of Pledge Unscented Dust & Allergen Dry Cloths. I normally use these with my…
I'm happy to say that this terribly grey day has turned suddenly bright and blue. And with sun in our eyes, so that we have to squint a bit, I invite you to join me on a short trip back to January 2003.
In our January 2003 issue, we introduced Art Dudley's "Listening" column. I didn't know it then, but that particular column, like those that have followed, would be very important to me. In AD's first column, he says a lot of cool things about a lot of cool things, and this is just one of them:
Music is easy to miss for the listener who thinks his job is to concentrate on…
Personally, I think Pink Floyd should do a reunion tour simply because this would make a fabulous concept album.
Has John Zorn gone mellow? His two new CDs, The Dreamers and Lucifer (both on his self-owned label, Tzadik), are swaying, swinging, crazy with catchy hooks, occasionally downright mellifluous. I don’t mean to overstate the contrast with the preceding Zorn oeuvre (which entails over a hundred albums, at least a thousand compositions). The time has long passed when Zorn—whose name is, almost novelistically, German for “anger”—gained notoriety for squealing on the alto sax like a banshee and cutting up compositions into surreal collage. The stereotype was never right: from the start of his…