Stephen Mejias

Last night, on Later with Jools Holland, Joanna Newsom performed “81,” the lead single from her ambitious and inspired triple-LP, Have">http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/bewitching_rewarding/">Have One On Me.

Jon Iverson is going to love this.

My love for the Vivian Girls only grows and grows: I love them more today than I did yesterday, but not as much as I’ll love them tomorrow. Their 2009 album, Everything Goes Wrong, continues to sound fresh and exciting with each play on my turntable. And they’ve got a new 7-inch single available from their own Wild">http://www.freewebs.com/viviangirls/wildworld.htm">Wild World Records. Perfect for a sunny Cinco de Mayo like this one, the A-side has Cassie confessing, “I can hardly wait until the summer comes,” while Katy and Ali echo the feeling with handclaps and angelic backing vocals. The B-side is a cover of the Chantels’ “He’s Gone,” which I had the great and unforgettable pleasure of hearing performed live, a cappella, at">http://forum.stereophile.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/2149/passwor… Bamboo Beach in">http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/what_happened_in_puerto_rico/… Puerto Rico.

Whenever I’m at Tunes in Hoboken, getting my fingers all dirty on the vinyl LPs, I stop and stare at this one album, John Prine’s Sweet Revenge, and I wonder what it’s all about. Prine looks pretty bad-ass there in his convertible, decked out in so much blue denim, dark aviators over his eyes, a cigarette at his lips, the wind in his hair, legs crossed and flung out over the passenger side window like he’s seriously satisfied, like he really doesn’t care.

I was directed to this video via the Stereophilehttp://twitter.com/stereophilemag">Stereophile; Twitter page, in a tweet from Bowers">http://blog.bowers-wilkins.com/sound/formats/to-have-and-to-hold-vinyl-… & Wilkins, who’d seen it first at Audiophiliahttp://www.audiophilia.com/wp/?p=4383">Audiophilia;. Moments after I’d watched the video, Stereophile contributor Jim Austin also sent me the link.

The Vivian Girls’


perceptive Cassie Ramone


reads Stereophile.

And on Saturday, April 24th, Attention Screen performed at Yamaha’s Artist Services concert hall. The performance was recorded by John Atkinson for a future Stereophile CD, the band’s third, scheduled to be released at the 2010 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in October. It was an excellent night of music. Check out the images in our">http://forum.stereophile.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/2232/size/bi… Gallery.