These are the things I sometimes wonder while listening to cassettes and vinyl records. This never happens while listening to compact discs; CDs just don’t inspire me in the same way, I guess. Tapes and records remind me of my mortality,…
search
Strange thing about cassettes and vinyl records: Every now and then, while listening to them, I find myself wondering what’ll happen to them when I’m dead and gone. These beautiful things will outlive me and someday someone else will “own” them. What will that person think of me? Will that person think of me? What do my records say about me?
We’ve been shipping the August issue to pre-press. There, you can see it on my desk. It involves a lot of paper, coffee, oatmeal, procrastination, juggling, John Prine, Pontiak, Bushman’s Revenge, and ass-kicking. A whole lot of ass-kicking.
“What does it mean to love your father?” the therapist asked.
I had no idea. I wondered if it might be better to hate him.
My uncles tell me that my parents had an old-fashioned sort of love. Childhood sweethearts, my mother and father were equally quiet, shy, and sensitive, and were only truly at ease when they were together. So you can imagine the heartache, fear, and pain felt when my father’s parents separated the young couple, moving the family from the housing projects of Newark back to the green hills of Puerto Rico.
My uncles tell me that this is when…
As I’ve mused before (though only twice), what’s the point of having a blog if you can’t indulge in a little self-promotion?
So let me announce that my book, 1959: The Year Everything Changed, is now out in paperback from Wiley & Sons.
As the subtitle suggests, the book covers everything about the era’s transformations—in politics, society, culture, science, and sex. But readers of this space may be especially interested in the chapters on music: the origins of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, the rise of Ornette Coleman, the globalization of Dave Brubeck, the roots of Motown.
…
I did not find what I was looking for at the Jersey City Record Riot, but I did find two reasonably priced Tom Waits albums (Blue Valentine and Rain Dogs) and Peter Lang’s debut, The Thing at the Nursery Room Window, on John Fahey’s Takoma label. I had forced myself to be extremely selective, and, though the many kind and interesting vendors were making it difficult for me to hold back from buying more, I did in fact hold back.
But just as we were on our way out, I caught a glimpse of this collection of hits by Conway Twitty. I pulled the record from its bright red sleeve and:…
At this moment in time, there’s honestly no way I can justify spending more money on sweet, wonderful, soul-stirring vinyl records. I just can’t do it. I have bills to pay. I have records at home that I haven’t listened to yet. I have laundry to do and groceries to buy. But, damn, am I tempted to go to the First Annual Collect-i-Bowl Record Show at Brooklyn Bowl this Sunday.
Beer, bowling, and records—all in one place?! And I’m sure there will be plenty of interesting and beautiful people to meet. And have you looked at that menu? Wow! Brooklyn Brewery beers and…
Back in October 1989, former publisher Larry Archibald told us to just have fun and buy cheap speakers.
Readers could do much worse than set up the best front end and electronics they can afford and just drop into this welcoming nest whatever small, cheap speaker is all the rage.
Read the complete article here.
A few suggestions:
Audioengine 2 ($199/pair)
PSB Alpha B1 ($279/pair)
Polk RTi A1 ($339/pair)
Browse our Budget Components for more fun.
Good news for jazz and vinyl lovers: The world’s greatest record store (at least in New Jersey), the Princeton Record Exchange, just received a collection of over 2000 carefully maintained jazz titles, and they are now on sale, most priced between $1 and $4.99.
The previous owner had worked for a jazz institute, and the collection reflects his eclectic taste, with Dixie, swing, bop, and traditional styles all well represented.
Whoa, I am dizzy. Go get them.
Underwood, the new vinyl-only record label, which takes its name from the typewriter invented by Frank Wagner in 1896, was founded by writer Nathan Dunne. Dunne’s goal is to publish short stories on vinyl records. Underwood urges us to slow down, focus, listen, and enjoy.
The Underwood discs, scheduled to appear twice a year, represent part of the growing resistance to the dematerialisation of art. By emphasising tactility, scarcity (each issue is limited to 1,000 copies), and physical beauty, it offers something that can’t be digitally replicated.
I like it. To learn…
A trend of sorts has taken hold the past few years: albums (in most cases, multi-disc boxed sets) capturing not just the highlights of a jazz concert but the whole concert—or a whole week’s worth of concerts, the entire run of a gig at a nightclub—every note of it.
High points in this trend include the Gillespie-Parker Quintet’s June 1945 concert at Town Hall, Monk and Coltrane’s ’57 concert at Carnegie Hall, Mingus’ ’64 concert at Cornell, Bill Evans’ final 1980 sets at the Keystone Korner, Miles Davis’ mid-‘60s quintet at the Plugged Nickel (to say nothing of the gargantuan 20-disc…