Stephen Mejias

Dudes! We're in Las Vegas. This town is bananas, all sex and smoke and blurry light, gambling and booze and deep fried foods.

My inbox is blowing up. Every other second, it's ding, ding, ding. New mail, new mail, new mail. Press conferences, product announcements, and party invitations from hundreds of companies who will be exhibiting during the four far too short days that make up the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show.

John Atkinson and I spent some time today admiring Tal">http://www.myspace.com/talwilkenfeld">Tal Wilkenfeld's bass playing. Sheesh. The girl is only 21 years old. Beyond her sheer skill, which is stunning, Wilkenfeld seems to just know how to play. I first caught her on PBS one night while flipping through channels. It was Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival, and she was performing with Jeff Beck. I was surprised to see such a young musician on stage with one of rock's living legends, but I soon discovered that Wilkenfeld was right where she belonged. Seems she always knew. Story goes that Wilkenfeld dropped out of her Sydney, Australia high school when she was only 16. Packed her bags and moved to Los Angeles to become a musician. She's only been playing bass for five years.

I've been telling you—I've been telling everyone, actually—that old-style New York City salsa is making a major comeback. Major.

I spent a part of this morning sitting in the warm lobby of 10 Exchange Place in downtown Jersey City, waiting for FedEx to open. I had some gear to return. While I waited, I decided to listen to music. I undid the two front latches on my black canvas bag. From one pocket, I pulled out the">http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/052407eliminate/">the Red Wine Audio iMod, from the other I removed the">http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/030107shure/">the Shure SE310 earphones.