Rows 15 Through 30
Written on the Sunday morning plane from LaGuardia to Las Vegas.
Running
Seriously: Will you show me around?
Rye y Su Son Sonete at Amor Cubano
Safe Sex of the Highest Order
And later in the">http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/things_are_so_bad/">the night, I listened to Archie Shepp's Three For A Quarter, One For A Dime, which I understand is the darker, angrier, wilder side of a performance held at San Francisco's old Both/And Club on February 19, 1966.
Sailing Invidious Multinational Germs
I remember — it must have been about five years ago — when Jonathan arrived in the office, fresh from a Home Entertainment Show and as happy as can be. He had finally discovered the secret for avoiding the show flu, despite the handshakes and late nights.
Salon Son & Image
Back in the winter of 1999, just a few months before I started working for Stereophile, I took a month-long train trip. One of my first stops was in Montreal. I could not have spent more than three or four days there, but they were a very fulfilling and memorable three or four days.
Salon Son et Image Revisited
While John Atkinson, Art Dudley, Bob Deutsch, and I were having a great time roaming the halls of the 2010 Salon Son et Image at the Hilton Bonaventure in beautiful Montreal, Francois Caron of The">http://thecanadianpublic.com/">The Canadian Public was lugging a Canon Vixia HF200 camcorder and Rode Stereo Videomic from exhibitor room to exhibitor room, capturing the action.
Salsa Means Soul
I've mentioned my insecurities and low self-esteem, told you of how I often feel so out of place and inferior. Whether in my personal relationships or professional duties, I can overwhelm myself into paralysis and depression with the idea that there is someone better suited for my life, that I do not belong where I am, that I am simply not good enough. It's a problem. But, considering that I was a red-headed white kid, growing up in the housing projects of Newark, within a large, Puerto Rican family who spoke a different language, and had an alcoholic father who cheated on my mom and often humiliated me, it's not too difficult to understand.
SALSA MEANS SOUL 1: The Mother-Effing Mega-Mix
The casual interest soon transformed into an addiction and an obsession. Does obsession come before addiction, or after? I'm not sure. Either way, the salsa didn't seem to mind. It started in early August with two albums: Siembra by Ruben Blades and La">http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/la_gran_fuga/">La Gran Fuga by Willie Colon. These two led me to several others which led me to more still. I read one pretty crappy Hector Lavoe biography, sent dozens of fiery e-mails to my family in Puerto Rico, devoured tons of liner notes, and watched a gazillion YouTube videos. I've now collected over 20 albums (all on CD), have lured one uncle into sending me rare and classic songs from his library of MP3s, coerced another into donating to my cause his entire LP collection (we'll see about that), and uncovered an entire world of really deep, incredibly hot tracks. The addiction is not fading.
Sandro Perri’s Impossible Spaces
On the surface, Sandro Perri’s Impossible Spaces is an ordinary pop album: We hear pleasant guitar, intelligent percussion, and a voice that, while lovely, is easily appreciated, palatable, unchallenging. But there’s a depth and darkness to this music that begs to be uncovered.
It’s the sweetness of the voice and the liquid tone of the guitar that draw me in, but the subtle shifts in key, the clever instrumentation, the aching cello and odd flute, the broken lines and strangely abbreviated melodies that make me listen again, confuse and enchant, charm and intoxicate.
Here’s the video for “Love and Light,” the second track from Impossible Spaces: