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Needles and Pins

It's not nearly as sexy as the Bellari VP129, but I was still happy to receive it. The Exposure 2010S's phono card ($219) arrived on Thursday afternoon, secured in bubble wrap and covered by Styrofoam peanuts. There were no instructions.

Who needs instructions anyway?

Up until now, I had been listening to my vinyl through the Tangent AMP-50's onboard phono section. For only $259, you get fine styling, 50 watts of power, detailed sound, and the ability to listen to vinyl. Budget-strapped music lovers looking to build a system should definitely consider the Tangent,…

My Name is Brian, I Live on the 6th Floor

My favorite part about compiling the Buyer's Guide is sending emails. Well not the actual sending of the emails but the communication. When staring at spreadsheets and spam blog comments all day, it is nice to have some real communication.

There are some people in the industry who now know my name or at least know of me. Urs Wagner from Ensemble always chats me up. I should give him a ring. Hart Huschens from Audio Advancements is another sweet soul who treats me with respect. And I have spent a good amount of time talking to Creston Funk from Concert Sound.

Alas, there…

A Certain Feeling

For the last few days, in the midst of shipping the gorgeous September issue, I have been thoroughly enjoying the new release from Secretly Canadian's Bodies of Water, A Certain Feeling.

Jon Iverson says it borders on prog. More prog than anything. Ariel agrees. I wouldn't know, but I suppose they're right. Am I really enjoying something that can be described as prog?

First fusion, now this. What is going on with me?

Perhaps it's better to ask: What is going on with music? Good things are happening, and I expect better things to come.

For now,…

Dedicated to Vinyl

At some point, I hope to post a long list of links (A Long List of Links) to sites that specialize in vinyl LPs. This will be for you, dear readers. But also for me! I have been collecting the web addresses and adding them to a Favorites folder. If you know of some sites that offer great selections of LPs (new or used) and you want to help me go deeper into debt (just kidding, Clifton), please do share! Together we will build a database of all the World Wide Web's most alluring online stores. (Not those kinds of stores! LP stores, you naughty naughties.)

Today I made a…

The Art of the Turntablist

In a sense, DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist are music historians and preservationists. In "The Hard Sell," they take us on a scratching, mixing, looping journey through musical genres and fads, from the wildly obscure to the completely commercial, while employing not one, not two, but eight turntables and a collection of original 45rpm seven-inch singles that would make Mikey Fremer's hair go straight.

Straight!

The dynamic DJ duo has been on the road for many months, touring Europe and selling-out London's Roundhouse, but they've now returned to the States for a few final shows…

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

Judging from the video, it appears as though the first Brooklyn Record Riot was a smashing success&#151men and women, old and young, enjoying beer, pierogies, kielbasa, and records. Got a problem with that, fun-haters?

The guys from Iris Records, sponsors of the show, even used my incredibly innovative crumpled up poster treatment as an intro to the video. I feel cool about that. I did not make it to the event, however. Which is, perhaps, a good thing. Just look at all that vinyl! I might have had to rent a U-Haul to get it all back to Jersey City.

The good…

Fuck and Run

Calling anything “IMPORTANT,” particularly a record, often sucks the life out of it and dooms it to a kind of overly academic hell to be debated by talking heads and those that “were there.”

Some of that kind of competitive parsing goes on in Guyville Redux the DVD that accompanies the reissue of Liz Phair’s landmark debut, Exile in Guyville.

Not being female or someone who was in the “Chicago Scene” of the early 1990’s, I can’t speak directly to how she totally rocked my world. But I can say that it’s been out of print for several years, so it’s good to have back. If you…

A Good Turntable

Some people might wonder what it is about me and the Rega P3. Why would I simply settle on the old Rega when there are so many other similarly priced turntables out there?

A new Rega P3-24 turntable with RB301 tonearm and Elys 2 cartridge costs $1095. An audiophile looking to spend about a thousand bucks on a new turntable might also consider the Clearaudio Emotion ($1200); Funk Firm Funk ($1159); Music Hall MMF-7.1 ($1299); Nottingham Horizon ($1100); Pro-Ject Experience ($1000); or Sota Comet ($1050). There are, of course, many others. All are special in their own ways, and…

This Is Our Music

Fortunately, I didn't have to rob any banks or max out my credit cards this weekend. I didn't even have to travel to Africa. The crazy heat and humidity (Footnote for Jaclyn Gooding), however, made it feel like high noon in the Kalahari Desert. Simply sitting at my kitchen table, my laptop (Footnote for AlexO) open and our April 2008 issue turned to page 155, was a kind of dull, hot torture.

I looked up through the heat to find that the blades of my ceiling fan had turned into circling vultures. The ice in my tall glass of water quickly melted, and then the glass melted, too…

Elizabeth's Last Day

Friday, June 20th, was Elizabeth Donovan's last day at work. We left the office together, and walked across the street to Mulligan's Pub. Elizabeth carried a large backpack, a box of books, a lamp. The place was packed, but we found a little space by the door, beneath an air conditioning unit.

"What are you gonna drink?" she asked.

"I think I'll have a Bass," I replied.

"Okay, I'm buying," she said.

"But it's your last day. I should buy."

"No, I feel bad. I owe you."

"Don't feel bad. You don't owe me anything. Anyway, I'm taking…