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Released by True Panther, the first Representing NYC album is Da' Brats From Da' Ville and comes from a group of young…
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A couple of months ago, I heard an interesting segment on NPR about Sam Hillmer's Representing NYC project. Hillmer, a NYC school teacher, partners his students with indie-rock musicians to create hip-hop albums. The children are given an opportunity to express themselves and gain real experience in the art of commerce, while the musicians get to contribute to the working-class communities they've recently moved into.
Here in the office, I am (like most jerks in the corporate world) constantly juggling several tasks at once. Sometimes these tasks seem to have absolutely nothing to do with one another, and nothing to do with the making of a magazine. So it goes. To keep everything from crashing down at my nervous, trembling feet, I scribble little reminders on yellow Post-it notes and stick them to everything around me: Post-it notes on my computer screen, Post-it notes on my telephone, Post-it notes on my calendar, Post-it notes on my stapler, etc.
As time passes, I'm sure to revisit my notes…
There has been a lot of Leonard Cohen talk going around the office this week. You will find out why when you receive your September issue of Stereophile. You will enjoy it, too, I am certain.
For now, however, there is this:
There has been a lot of Leonard Cohen talk going around the office this week. You will find out why when you receive your September issue of Stereophile. You will enjoy it, too, I am certain.
For now, however, there is this:
Back in February 2008, senior contributing editor John Marks decided to hold a competition.
What this competition is about is finding five songs from what I will loosely call the Rock Era (written anywhere, but only since 1954) that, in craftsmanship, musicality, intelligence, and emotional impact, can give the lieder and chanson traditions a run for their money.
Fun, right? Several of our readers came up with excellent lists, but one winning list that I found especially impressive came from Sarah Witkowski.
My name is Sarah Witkowski. When I read about…
It’s a sure thing that Michael Jackson’s life was not going to end pretty. In fact, it can be argued that this mode of death is not the worst thing that could have happened. Seeing him waste away from cancer or die in prison, or collapse and die onstage would have all been worse. You could feel that how ever it was going to occur, Michael stood a good chance of going out in spectacularly tragic fashion. If the rumors are true, it was a shot of Demerol and he stopped breathing. At least it was mercifully fast. Can you imagine the mad scramble that’s now going to occur for his assets…
Acoustic Sounds, Chad Kassem’s Oz of analog wonders, has expanded its line of 45rpm jazz reissues to the Impulse! catalogue. Like the Blue Notes, which Kassem and Mike Hobson’s Classic Records have already covered (at 45, 33-1/3, 180g, 200g, black vinyl, clear vinyl, just about any format you might imagine), the great Impulse! albums were engineered by Rudy Van Gelder and featured the masters of their day—Coltrane, Mingus, Rollins, and, one of the most innovative big-band arrangers in modern jazz, Gil Evans.
Out of the Cool, recorded in 1962, stands as Evans’ grandest achievement, apart…
Looking for a small, manageable paperback to read on a commute to Great Neck and back, I picked up a vintage paperback of Ross Macdonald's The Drowning Pool, a novel I'd read 25 years ago. I didn't exactly remember the plot clearly, but my recollection of my fling with Macdonald was that most of his plots dealt with the sins of the grandfathers being visited upon the third generation after.
The Drowning Pool sort of meets that description, but I was startled by two elements I don't remember from my first reading: the intensely poetic description of the physical world and how hollow some…
Um, Vinyl Man's favorite colors are orange and green, obviously. This photo was taken by intrepid crime photographer, Michael Lavorgna, outside the old Justice League Europe Headquarters in Paris, France.
If Vinyl Man had a shield, it would look something like the Thorens TD 309 turntable. But it would be orange. Or green.