When asked how to create a good recording, John Atkinson will tell you to use good musicians in a good room. The people behind <a href="http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/">Benchmark Media Systems</a>, makers of some of today’s most highly regarded digital audio converters, headphone amps, and mic preamps, agree.
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, <i>Everything Goes Wrong</i>, 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 <a href="http://www.freewebs.com/viviangirls/wildworld.htm">Wild World Records</a>. 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, <a href="http://forum.stereophile.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/2149/passwor… Bamboo Beach</a> <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/what_happened_in_puerto_rico/… Puerto Rico</a>.
Jon Iverson is going to love this.
Last night, on Later with Jools Holland, Joanna Newsom performed “81,” the lead single from her ambitious and inspired triple-LP, <i><a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/bewitching_rewarding/">Have One On Me</a></i>.
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 <i>Sweet Revenge</i>, 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>Photo: Sebastian Mlynarski</i>
I was directed to this video via the <a href="http://twitter.com/stereophilemag"><i>Stereophile</i> Twitter page</a>, in a tweet from <a href="http://blog.bowers-wilkins.com/sound/formats/to-have-and-to-hold-vinyl-… & Wilkins</a>, who’d seen it first at <a href="http://www.audiophilia.com/wp/?p=4383">Audiophilia</a>. Moments after I’d watched the video, <i>Stereophile</i> contributor Jim Austin also sent me the link.
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 <a href="http://forum.stereophile.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/2232/size/bi… Gallery</a>.
The Vivian Girls’<br>
perceptive Cassie Ramone<br>
reads <i>Stereophile</i>.
Exactly six months after we’d seen them perform in Puerto Rico, at that strange island bar, Bamboo Beach (see “Records to Die For,” February 2010, pages 71-72), the <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/when_im_gone/">Vivian Girls</a> performed on Saturday night, this time so much closer to home, at Maxwell’s in Hoboken. I bought tickets for the whole crew—Rizzo, Fritzy, Papi Chulo, Fuzzy, and Tigga—so that, together again for the first time since that memorable trip, we could <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/what_happened_in_puerto_rico/… the magic</a>. We ate well, drank too much, laughed, danced, and sang along as the Vivian Girls burned through their energetic set.