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September 16, 1977

Me, in the middle of another intense stare-down with my computer screen. (The screen always wins.)

Hey, today is my birthday. And it's the blog's birthday, too. Yeah!

I am another year older and another year deeper in debt. In debt, that is, to all of the good friends I've made, people who've offered their encouragement and support, thoughtful advice, excellent musical recommendations, and love.

This blog means a lot to me. It drives my search for new and exciting music, and it connects me to readers and music lovers all over the world. Which is a pretty…

Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Mini

The Zeppelin Mini: It looks great anywhere&#151even in the kitchen&#151but you'll want to avoid potential early-morning accidents or you might end up buttering your iPhone.

"Small sounds beautiful," says Bowers & Wilkins. The heralded British loudspeaker manufacturer has announced a smaller, updated version of their striking Zeppelin iPod music system, simply named the Zeppelin Mini. It costs $399.95.

We had heard and enjoyed the original Zeppelin in the Stereophile room at CES 2008, The Year of the Music Server. We were impressed by the size of the sound…

CD Release Party! Tonight!

Looking for a good time tonight? Meet us after work at Otto's Shrunken Head to celebrate the release of Attention Screen's new CD.

Do it! There will be music and booze and I'll be working the merch' table, so you can buy me a belated birthday drink or two (dozen).

Otto's is a cheesily awesome Tiki Bar (is there any other kind?) at 538 East 14th Street between Avenues A and B in the East Village, so there are sure to be beautiful people in attendance. And memories waiting to be made. And who knows? You might meet the love of your life. The band will be performing…

Let's Just Say Shrunken Heads

Let's just say I had a little bit too much fun at last night's CD release party. Let's just say beer, tequila, and rum. Let's just say hot girls in summer dresses making out on the cushioned booth. Yeah, let's just say that. At one point, I turned away from the stage to see that the front room had been transformed into The Tequila Scene from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. It was like a dream, I tell you, and it may have been the most wonderful thing I've ever witnessed in my life.

Tequila!

Attention Screen played, too. Prior to the show, Bob Reina said he felt more…

Blue Eyes, Gray Hair

Show me a music writer who has no guilty pleasures and I’ll show you someone you don’t need to waste time reading. Anyone with passion for music, which is what drives you to try to put what you hear into words, has a brain studded with funny little weaknesses. Many is the music writer who has a Bobby Sherman record stashed somewhere. I have a friend, a blues nut extraordinaire, who one dark night admitted to me under the influence of single malt that he “had a few Beatles albums” hidden away under his bed like girly magazines. And then of course there’s always the issue of hipness overload.…

J. Gordon Holt and Richard Dyer-Bennet

Stereophile's founder, J. Gordon Holt, who passed away in July, was also a recording engineer. Here we see one of his projects, a rare 1958 LP of British-born American folk singer, Richard Dyer-Bennet, the "twentieth-century minstrel."

Paul Jenkins's biography on Dyer-Bennet tells us that JGH helped the singer start Dyer-Bennet Records in the comfort of Dyer-Bennet's Great Barrington, Massachusetts home.

JGH also lived in Great Barrington while an equipment reviewer for High Fidelity.

Jenkins's Richard Dyer-Bennet: The Last Minstrel argues that the singer…

Ornette at Lincoln Center

Ornette Coleman shuffled onto the stage of Jazz At Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater Saturday night, and that was remarkable enough. JALC, Wynton Marsalis’ house of jazz, is typed as a conservative institution—to some, the antithesis of the music’s inherently progressive nature—yet here was the quintessential avant-gardist, making his debut appearance in the lavish concert hall on the opening night of its 2009-10 season.

Ornette is in his 80th year, JALC is in its 23rd. Has Ornette become a part of the establishment, or has the establishment loosened its admission policies?

A bit of…

Ben Webster & Associates

Ben Webster and Associates is one of the loveliest albums put out in the past couple years by Speakers Corner Records, the German-based audiophile reissue house. (Its LPs are distributed in the U.S. by Chad Kassem’s Acoustic Sounds.) Recorded in 1959 on the Verve label, it features Webster, Coleman Hawkins, and Budd Johnson on tenor saxophones; Roy Eldridge, trumpet; Ray Brown, bass; Jimmy Jones, piano; Leslie Spann, guitar; Jo Jones, drums.

I’m tempted to leave it at that. Does anything more really need to be said?

The album’s highlights are the ballads: Ellington’s “In a Mellow…

Solid Gone

I haven't written lately because my right hand has been in a cast from my fingertips to my elbow—rendering me, as a writer, essentially mute. Writing, thinking, and feeling are, for a writer, inextricably linked. How do I know what I think if I haven't written about it?

Not being able to write about it, when I heard that Jim Thiel died on September 13, I could only weep.

It's not that Jim and I were friends. As John Atkinson has written elsewhere, reviewers and manufacturers can't be friends—that poisons the well of dispassionate criticism. Nonetheless, Jim Thiel was one of nature…

Be Still, My Beating Heart

Lady Gaga surrounded, appropriately, by paparazzi. Ha, paparazzi! Get it?

As soon as I take care of a billion other things, I'll tell you all about yesterday's delightful afternoon at the lavish New York Palace Hotel with Dr. Dre, Jimmy Iovine, Noel Lee, and LADY GAGA(!!!), I promise.