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Where the Tapes Is

I’ve received two packages in the mail today. Both were from Portland, Oregon, a hotbed for outstanding independent music, and both contained tapes.

Happy Holidays from Ye Olde Hometapes: A cassette tape sampler of some of what was good and right in the world in 2009: Megafaun, All Tiny Creatures, Cyne, Bear in Heaven, and Slaraffenland.

Thanks, Hometapes! I’ve got a feeling that 2010 is going to be a very merry (and very analog) year.

Now on Newsstands: Stereophile, Vol.33 No.1

The January 2010 issue of Stereophile is now on newsstands. Hooray! A new volume! A new year! Twelve more issues of Stereophile! Whee! We are pretty excited about starting the year off with a review of a PC soundcard. And at just $200, the ASUS Xonar Essence is the least expensive product to ever grace the cover of our magazine. Plus, it’s got that pretty golden tiger thing on it. What aroused John Atkinson’s interest, however, was the ASUS’s claimed signal/noise ratio of 124dB: “True high-end territory.”

But let’s forget about equipment reports for a second and turn the…

Charlie Parker's "White Christmas"

I’m a little late with this, but if you’re still in holiday spirits, can’t stand to hear Paul McCartney’s ditty or Mel Torme’s jingle one more time, and cringe, thoroughly bummed out, at Bob Dylan’s piss-brew of raspy cheer, take a listen to Charlie Parker’s take of “White Christmas.”

He played it spontaneously, at a customer’s request, on Christmas Day, 1948, at the Royal Roost in New York City—with Kenny Dorham on trumpet, Max Roach on drums, Al Haig on piano, Tommy Porter on bass—and it is nothing short of astonishing.

The band lays out the melody in the hippest syncopation…

Cassettes and Vinyl

Today I received my first package from Scotch Tapes! Inside the cardboard-reinforced padded envelope were five cassettes and three 7-inch EPs:

Terrorbird: We Were Monsters
Whore Business: Never Gave A Shit
Cavebears: Live at the Whiskey 1977
Tayside Mental Health/Great Slave Lake split cassette
Marlo Eggplant/My Cell Phone Is Better Than Your Cell Phone split cassette
Tayside Mental Health/Endometrium Cuntplow split 7-inch
Al Qaeda: Collaborative Works with Mike Watt, Gabe Serbian, Chris Carrico, Occasional Drift 7-inch (on yummy green vinyl!)
MCPIBTYCP…

Nevermind and Original Recordings Group

For Christmas, I received the new vinyl reissue of Nirvana’s seminal 1991 album, Nevermind. This beautiful thing, mastered by acclaimed engineer, Bernie Grundman, and pressed at RTI on extremely quiet 180gm vinyl, is brought to us by Original Recordings Group. Thank god for them.

Nevermind always sounded good, but never this good.

I haven’t done a side-by-side comparison with an old compact disc, but upon setting needle to groove, I was immediately struck by the awesome presence of Dave Grohl’s drums. They come from beyond my front wall and rush forth with a power that…

The Blues and the Abstract Truth at 45

With Analogue Productions’ new 45 rpm vinyl pressing of Oliver Nelson’s The Blue and the Abstract Truth, we finally have a reissue of this great album that’s worth buying.

It was recorded in 1961 by Rudy Van Gelder, for the Impulse! label, and featured a stellar cast of players: Nelson, alto sax; Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Eric Dolphy, reeds and flute; Bill Evans, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; and Roy Haynes, drums.

The highlight is the first track, “Stolen Moments,” as thrillingly cool as Miles Davis’ “So What” (the starter to Kind of Blue, released two years earlier) and similar in…

Ideas for 2010

I don’t think much about resolutions. One way or another, people do what they want to do, and all too often our desire conflicts with our resolve. But yesterday morning, as I was walking around downtown, waiting for everyone else to wake up, I stopped at Van Vorst Park to eat a banana and watch a father build a snowman for his son.

Why is the snow melting, dad?

Why do you think?

Huh?

Why do you think the snow’s melting? Do you have any ideas?

No.

Is it very cold right now?

Yeah.

Well, it’s cold, but it’s not really…

EL Tweets from CES!

From left: JA (with unidentified baby), Jon Iverson, and Erick Lichte, riding an elevator at the Venetian, site of the high-performance audio suites, on Day 1 of the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show.

The 2010 Consumer Electronics Show opens today. Follow new rapscallion contributor, Erick Lichte, as he Tweets from his first CES!

It’s sure to be a fragmented, delirious tale of sex, drugs, and hi-fi. And doughnuts. Mmm…doughnuts.

Erick, do what you gotta do, man; just don’t wake up with a tiger in your bathroom.

UPDATE: And our CES blog is up and…

Spontaneous Opera

Our copy editor, Richard Lehnert, sent this to me today. I love it.

TAD Electronics

Known for some of the best loudspeaker demos at CES, TAD is now branching out into electronics. In addition to a new amplifier (which Erick Lichte will be covering) on hand is the company's new D600 disc player, which will retail for $26,500 and appear next month in the US. In typical TAD fashion, this is a tour de force design sporting Burr-Brown PCM1794 DACs, an external power supply and the ability to play both CD and SACD (2 channel only).

Once again, the company was settled into one of the larger suites at the Venetian and their demoes of the new electronics coupled with the…