A-well-a...Everybody's heard about the bird. B-b-bird, bird, bird. Bird is the word…
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"Where did you say this photo was taken, JA?"
"At our 25th Anniversary Party, held at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, in January 1987. I wore a white silk suit with a black shirt and a white bowtie. I looked like a photographic negative."
Among the treasures discovered this morning, we have the very first issue of Stereophile, punk rock-style buttons, several outstanding hi-fi cartoons drawn by JGH, and some absolutely shocking show photos.
Illustrator Jeff Wong is working on a portrait of Stereophile founder, J. Gordon Holt, to appear in our October issue. Since Jeff will need some reference material, John Atkinson and I have been having a whole lot of fun sorting through great, old Stereophile memorabilia, trinkets, photos.
Here is Vol.1 No.1. Wow. The thing nearly turned to dust when I took it into my hands. Inside, the Contents page informs us that the issue's main articles include:
—Amplifier Power; How Much Is Enough?
—Antennas for Fringe-Area Multiplex
—How to Write…
The Pharcyde's "Otha Fish," from their crazily good 1993 album, Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde.
About a month ago, we met 17-year old audiophile, Sarah Witkowski, whose exceptional knowledge and appreciation of classic rock left many of us feeling happy and encouraged. (And left me feeling like I had a lot of catching up to do.)
However, I suspect there are many more young people like Sarah, people who love music and sound, and who can remind us of the elements of our enthusiasm. Take, for instance, 16-year old David MacRunnel.
"I am always striving for better sound, as I am obsessed with music and reproducing it accurately," says David.
In…
The Yardbirds' version of "Train Kept A-Rollin'" has been sharing space in my mind with Outkast's "Ms. Jackson." Makes no sense. It's like the train keeps rolling right into Ms. Jackson. Only my subconscious knows why.
When John Atkinson reviewed Sonos's original ZP80 Bundle, he fell in love with the company's CR100 controller which uses a full-color, 3.5" LCD screen to provide easy navigation of music files on up to 16 network devices and displays all the metadata associated with each track, including album art. JA wrote:
This controller is one of the neatest consumer-electronics products I have encountered: it is sealed to prevent damage from liquid splashes; it has modes for both deep and shallow sleep, from which it can roused by being picked up; and as well as a motion sensor, it…
George Russell died today, at the age of 86, after a long bout with Alzheimer’s, and if you’ve never heard of him, all the deeper pity.
Russell was one of the great unsung heroes of modern jazz. In this summer when many are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, it is worth noting that there would have been no such album—the art of jazz might have languished in post-Parker malaise for a few years longer—had there been no George Russell.
Born in Cincinnati, a prodigy on piano and drums, he moved to New York in the late 1940s, wrote “Cubano Be, Cubano Bop” (…
On the train this morning, a pretty girl sitting directly in front of me, with a large purse in her lap, and connected to it, an iPod. Earbuds to her pretty, little ears letting loose the music, the most appalling of all songs ever to hit the Top 40: The Beach Boys' "Kokomo."
We'll get there fast and then we'll take it slow. That's where we wanna go. Way down to Kokomo.
Over and over again, she played it. Was I going insane, or was this really happening to me? I searched the expressions of nearby passengers to see if they were in on this. The woman sitting directly…