Stephen Mejias

You can walk by 21 First Avenue on any given day to see some of our city's most beautiful and talented DJs spinning rare and wonderful vinyl. It's true! It's <a href="http://www.eastvillageradio.com/">East Village Radio</a>. There's a big glass window. Look in and you might see Queen Majesty or Melody Nelson or Mark Ronson or a few of the colorfully dressed peeps from The Fader, those taste-makers. In fact, East Village Radio provides more than 70 unique, and often excellent, two-hour shows, covering musical genres from rock and electronic to jazz and folk to roots and reggae. Lots of good stuff.

Here is the video that people are talking about:

The music industry is responding to our recent enthusiasm for vinyl, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/business/la-et-vinyl18-2008au… the Los Angeles Times</a>. Original Recordings Group, a small vinyl-only label, needed only 24 hours to sell 4000 copies of TV on the Radio's excellent <i>Return To Cookie Mountain</i>. The label is on the way to grossing their first million dollars, and expects to double its vinyl output in 2009. Meanwhile, Warner Bros. has increased their vinyl production from 2000 copies per title to up to 15,000 copies. Such increases, of course, have a dramatic impact on pressing plants. Record Technology Inc's average pressing per title has doubled to 3000 units over the last few years.

Uncle Isaac is building a new house. When he asked me how he might go about getting music to play throughout several different rooms of his home, the first thing that came to mind was <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/budgetcomponents/1006sonos/index.html">Sonos…;. (Of course, if it was <i>my</i> house, I'd have <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/the_rega_p3-24_iin_colouri/">a different-colored turntable</a> in each room: Colonel Mustard in the library, Professor Plum in the study, Mr. Green in the billiards room, Miss Scarlet in the kitchen (wink wink)….)

Today is/was/forever will be remembered as: <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11713/index.html">Vinyl Record Day</a>. August 12th, the day Thomas Edison blessed us with the phonograph.

AlexO's response to Leila's <i>Blood, Looms, and Blooms</i> made me chuckle. AlexO wrote:

Tighten the laces on your Vans and jump on your skateboard, strap on your helmet and hop on your scooter, pump some air into the tires of your cruiser, do whatever you have to do, dudes; Dash, sprint, leap, fly like Olympians to your nearest record shop and lay down the $19.99 for the new Leila Arab album.