Stephen Mejias

The Vivid G1Giya, designed by Laurence Dickie, incorporates the “tapered tube loading” concept originally developed for the B&W Nautilus. Inside the tapered transmission line are several strands of damping fiber.

The TEAC">http://www.teac.com/consumer_electronics/cassette_decks/w-600r/">TEAC W-600R double auto-reverse cassette deck plays tapes(!), offers all sorts of unnecessary conveniences (like Fast-Forward and Reverse), costs $149, and is available NOW.

Elizabeth is leaving us, and she doesn't care.

Other than the fact that they’re a bunch of cute girls with a suitably high level of cute-girl energy, Teen isn’t the sort of band I typically get into. They’re not rapping about sex and money; they’re not just turning knobs on analog synths or chopping up bits of field recordings; they’re not sampling obscure 78s; they’re not playing 24 saxophones at once; they’re not making their guitars sound like vacuum cleaners; they’re not really lo-fi, but they’re certainly not hi-fi; they’re neither terribly weird nor completely normal. They’re somewhere in between. And, if you know me, you know that I tend to run screaming from that sort of thing. But there’s something about Teen’s sound, despite the fairly straightforward instrumentation (guitars, drums, keys, voices, percussion) that keeps me coming back.

That, by itself, is probably reason enough to buy the record, but I remain conflicted.

I gotta say, if I had a summer to while away and found this">http://jobview.monster.com/getjob.asp?JobID=55707806">this job opportunity, I'd be all over it, too.

I received a voicemail from Eileen on Friday night, which said something like: "You missed my phone call again, and I’m here with Sean and Omar and Allison and Justin and Lauren and Scott and Cheryn, and we’re all waiting for you, and you’re lame."

Espers (from left): Meg Baird, Helena Espvall, Greg Weeks, Brooke Sietinsons. Photo: Daniel Coston.