Forty-seven years after Gordon published the first issue of Stereophile, his son, Charles Holt (above), joined John Atkinson, Gordon's long-time friend Bob O'Neill, veteran tube-amp designer Roger Modjeski, and fellow publishing icon Harry Pearson of…
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On Saturday evening, at show's close, Bea and Luke Manley of VTL, with the support of Nordost, hosted a Martini tribute to the recently departed founder of Stereophile, the inimitable J. Gordon Holt. Located outside Nordost's Humboldt Peak room on the Denver Marriott Tech Center's mezzanine, the tribute drew a huge crowd of industry icons.
I listened to Ducktails’ Landscapes once—once!—and was disappointed by its apparent simplicity. I set it aside while many other albums came into my life and piled atop its strange, hot pink cover art.
I listened to Ducktails’ Landscapes again just a few days ago. Somehow, between that first time and now, the album’s mellow charms and sweet melodies found their way into my chest and into my mind, planted themselves there, to reappear suddenly, without calling first, like old friends after months or even years apart, like memories stirred by nothing in particular,…
There was full program of seminars and workshops at RMAF, as well as my own "Squeezing the Music Till the Bits Squeak," the session featuring Harry Pearson, and Michael Fremer on "Turntable Setup," I moderated a panel session, "How to Get the Most Out of Computer-Based Audio," on Saturday afternoon. The A-List panel—(from left to right) Gus Skinas (SACD Center), John Stronczer (Bel Canto Design), J. Gordon Rankin (Wavelength Audio), Charlie Hansen (Ayre Acoustics), record producer Joe Harley, and Chris Connaker (www.computeraudiophile.com)—discussed the best way to use a computer as a…
One of my best sounds at RMAF was the room organized by Colorado dealer Audio Unlimited featuring the Emperor speakers from Canadian manufacturer Hansen Audio that had so impressed Jason Serinus at the 2008 RMAF. The three-way speakers were driven by Accuphase monoblocks sitting on Critical Mass Systems platforms, with the front end based on a Trans-Rotor turntable. I was drawn into the room by the full-range sound of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" and didn't leave for quite a while. Wes Phillips said it best in his CES 2009 coverage of the Emperor: "the music had me melting…
The sixth annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest had already closed when I finally had the time to stop by Reference Recordings’ booth to check out their latest mouth-watering HRx high-resolution master WAV file DVD-Rs. There I encountered Demian Martin, who, together with Ray Burnham, has produced the Auraliti (pronounced Aurality) disc player ($800).
“Right now,” Martin explained, “if you try to play hi-res files, you need to fool around with a computer. Nor does USB support hi-res 176.4- or 192kHz-sampling rate data in standardized format. Our alternative is the Auraliti, a computer…
As the sixth annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest draws to a close at the Denver Marriott Tech Center, what is now the largest annual audio show in the USA could boast an attendance of 3700, 200 more than last year. Prominent among attendees from 49 states and overseas was a notable increase in the number of under-40 attendees. No doubt they were drawn by the rise of audiophile computer-audio playback, the resurgence of vinyl, and the large exhibit hall populated by the Head-Fi headphone community. The younger attendees included an influx of students, who responded to RMAF’s concentrated…
As I was saying a few days ago, Bobby Bradford’s rare appearance at the Jazz Standard last Saturday was one of the most bracing sets I’ve seen in a long time. In the early-to-mid ‘90s, New Yorkers could go hear this sort of jazz—exuberant, free, but highly disciplined music—almost every night at the Knitting Factory. Just about everyone in Bradford’s band on Saturday was a regular at “the Knit” in its heyday—David Murray on tenor sax, Marty Ehrlich on alto, Mark Dresser on bass, Andrew Cyrille on drums: an extraordinary band.
Each of these players knows how to improvise on a theme in…
Cold Cave’s sound, look, and fixations on sex, love, violence, and death remind me of early Sonic Youth. The 12” single for “Love Comes Close” is due out on October 20, thanks to Matador. Buy it while supplies last.
I’m not going to get all flowery and poetic on this one. I’m just going to say: Buy this record.
Alright, I’ll also say that I tried to be strong. While everyone else was going cuckoo for Cold Cave, I tried to maintain my composure. What’s the big deal, I wondered. This is nothing new. It reminds me of so many late Nineties sounds from the Mute label. It reminds me of Erasure, and so many dark Eighties pop bands. Ah, but wait, it also sort of reminds me of Bad Moon Rising–era Sonic Youth. And, shit, it reminds of Serge Gainsbourg, too.
Who the hell is in…
Watching Bobby Bradford and David Murray on the bandstand together at the Jazz Standard Saturday night (see my last blog entry) inspired me to take another listen to the only CD that paired them together, Death of a Sideman, recorded in 1991 under Murray’s name but featuring nothing but Bradford compositions, eight tracks’ worth.
The band on the disc was even more amazing than the one at the Standard: Murray on tenor sax and Bradford on cornet, joined by Fred Hopkins on bass, Ed Blackwell on drums, and, on a few tracks, Dave Burrell on piano. Hopkins was one of the most agile bassists of…