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During the Stereo Exchange's Spring Fever event, our own Michael Fremer demonstrated the odds and ends of turntable setup. Here he is, determining azimuth, or vertical something or other, or something.
Stereo Exchange's Dave Wasserman was delighted by the enthusiastic vibe at his Spring Fever event. Let's hope we can convince him to have more!
Wednesday's Spring Fever event at Stereo Exchange was outstanding, and exactly the kind of thing our little high end hi-fi hobby needs. To celebrate the Exchange's 25th anniversary, store owner Dave Wasserman opened his doors, somewhat timidly, to a large crowd of enthusiastic music lovers.
"I was nervous about it at first," Wasserman confessed, "but seeing how it's turned out, with all these people having a great time, I'm really happy about it."
"We're trying to convince him to have more of these things," Specialty Sound and Vision's Chris Chiarella told me. "He's shy…
There’s been much hand-wringing among the aficionadi over reports that George Wein may call off his JVC Jazz Festival this year, leaving New York City bereft of such an event for the first time in decades. I’m not so bothered.
Take this week. Last night, I went to see the Fred Hersch trio at Small’s, the convivial and, yes, quite small, jazz club in the West Village. Hersch, one of the most lyrical pianists around, was deathly ill for much of last year, and he still looks a bit tired, but he sounded strong: fresh, inventive, and buoyant, whether playing a knotty blues like Jaki Byard’s “…
Michael Fremer, Stereophile's senior contributing editor, has been everywhere lately. First he was Gizmodoed, then he got Boing-Boinged, and now he's boinging back.
Michael begins:
My wife handles our Cardigan Welsh Corgi in the show ring. I love the dog and though I'm not much into the "dog world," occasionally I go to a show to watch. The judge has to check each dog's confirmation to see how close it comes to the breed standard. If it's a male dog he's got to feel the dog's balls to be sure both have descended. That's part of his job.
And it only gets better…
At around eleven o'clock this morning, I was ready for a beer.
"Is it too early for a beer?" I had asked our production dude, Phil McRae. Of course, I'm here in New York City and Phil's out on the west coast, so it took him a couple of hours to respond. "It's only too early if you're drinking alone," he finally replied.
"Cheers!" I shouted.
We've been shipping our July issue to our pre-press people, wherever they are, (in California). First, I exchange e-mails and information with our graphic designers, Pillippa Tannenbaum (who works from home in Park Slope,…
It’s been several years since I saw Branford Marsalis play live, but if tonight’s late set at the Jazz Standard is anything to go by, let’s just say that his last few albums don’t begin to capture the peaks he’s scaling. He started the set with a slow pure-tone simmer of “Violets for Your Furs,” switched to a raucous original, and, at one point, lit into long, zigzag takes on Monk’s “Rhythm-a-ning,” treating it alternately as a funk fizz, a samba, a syncopated frenzy, and a straightforward Monk tune, each switch ripe with wit, adventure, and wry references reminiscent of Dexter Gordon’s (the…
Though he, like many others, moved to New York City as soon as he could, Mike Bones is from New Jersey. Bloomfield, or Belleville, or maybe Bayonne. Somewhere around there—somewhere not far from a good view of the Manhattan skyline. You can hear it in his lyrics. Only a boy from New Jersey could write and sing a song called "Today the World Is Worthy of My Loathing."
It's the first track from his recently released album, A Fool for Everyone, and it starts with a guitar solo. The solo is played well and doesn't last too long. We get to hear it again later in the song,…
While putting together yesterday's entry, I stumbled upon this video of Mike Bones performing a version of Grinderman's excellent "No Pussy Blues." This was back in the summer of 2007, during a music festival in New York City's East River Park. I wasn't there.
Bones does a good job, I think, and displays the fine guitar work that he's become known for. But, when compared to the original Grinderman track, Bones's rendition comes off as being a bit sappy, a bit wishy-washy, a bit emasculated. Perhaps it is unfair to compare Bones's version to the original.
…
I'm telling you: Matador's Buy Early Get Now plan is the gift that keeps on giving. First of all, I've been streaming The Eternal every day for the last couple of weeks. It's great. Then, with the pre-sale ticket offer, I scooped up four seats (Orchestra, Row C) for Sonic Youth's July 3 performance at the United Palace Theater in Manhattan. Now, I'm freaking out to this shredding, blazing train wreck of "Silver Rocket" from last year's Fourth of July River to River Festival held at Battery Park. I wasn't there.
I've listened to it three times in a row. It's the first…