Stephen Mejias

And look who’s back: It’s Ariel Bitran! Ariel worked as our part-time editorial intern, enabling us to complete the 2008, 2009, and 2010 editions of the Stereophile Buyer’s Guide, before departing for a full-time gig with Mini-Circuits.

Well, I just got off the phone with Steve Daniels of The Sound Organisation, US importer for Rega, and while I don’t have a ton of information on Rega’s new RP-1 turntable, I do have some good news:

On Tuesday, September 14th&#151two days before my 33rd birthday&#151Anti">http://www.anti.com/artists/view/43/Grinderman">Anti- Records will release Grinderman 2, the second studio album from Nick Cave’s heathen child, Grinderman. And we are in for a treat. The review will appear in our October issue, but I’ll just let you know now: The album is violent, powerful, horrifying, and hilarious.

Photo: Melissa Horn

I received an interesting call today from a man named David Garrett in Atlanta, Georgia. David has 25 years of experience as an architect (in fact, he grew up in Highpoint, North Carolina—“Furniture Capital of the World”) and, for the last 13 years, has operated his own interior design company. He is aggressively and enthusiastically looking to change directions, however, and has recently started an LP rack business called Nomad Crates.

Two more recent articles on the cassette tape revival: The Los Angeles Times tells us “Cassette">http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/la-ca-cassette-revival-… tapes are back in the mix,” while Fact Mag offers “Cassette">http://www.factmag.com/2010/07/26/cassette-playa-in-praise-of-tapes/">C… Playa: in praise of tapes.”

August is here, which means it’s time for The">http://www.thecableco.com/">The Cable Company’s Annual “Summer Against Hunger” fundraiser. This marks the 15th year that The Cable Company collaborates with CAREhttp://www.care.org/index.asp">CARE;, a leading humanitarian effort battling global poverty, with a dollar for dollar donation on purchases of sponsored products in the month of August.