Robert Baird

Tom Petty (1950-2017)
Robert Baird
Robert Baird  |  Oct 03, 2017
Another Rock Legend gone...
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Hefner, Hi-Fi, and Jazz
Robert Baird
Robert Baird  |  Sep 29, 2017
Hugh Hefner relentlessly promoted Hi-Fi gear in the pages of Playboy because it was hip and cool and part of living the good life.
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Life is Fine: Paul Kelly Goes Electric
Robert Baird
Robert Baird  |  Sep 23, 2017
An old hand from Down Under returns to rock . . .
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Fairport Convention at 50
Robert Baird
Robert Baird  |  Sep 16, 2017
A Completist's Dream
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Recording of October 2017: Never the Same Way Once: Live at the Boarding House May 1974
Recording of the Month
Robert Baird  |  Sep 12, 2017
Doc and Merle Watson: Bear's Sonic Journals, Never the Same Way Once: Live at the Boarding House May 1974
Owsley Stanley Foundation (7 CDs). 2017. Hawk, exec prod.; Starfinder Stanley, Jeffrey Norman, Pete Bell, project coordinators; Owsley Stanley, orig. eng.; Jeffrey Norman, CD mastering, tape archivist; John Chester, Jaime Howarth, digital transfers. ADD? TT: 5:33:17
Performance *****
Sonics *****

The late Owsley "Bear" Stanley spent his life raising consciousness. Whether it was mixing up jars of LSD, building his famous Wall of Sound PA system for the Grateful Dead, or supervising the creation of an incredible library of live recordings, Bear Stanley was after a certain purity, a higher level of quality, epiphanies.

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The Doctor Is In!
Robert Baird
Robert Baird  |  Sep 10, 2017
The Waiting Room
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Matthew Sweet
Robert Baird
Robert Baird  |  Sep 09, 2017
On his first solo record since 2011's Modern Art, Sweet again returns to what he knows best, short, sweet, guitar-pop originals.
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Walter Becker (1950–2017)
Robert Baird
Robert Baird  |  Sep 04, 2017
Few rock bands have ever inspired such a sharp cleavage in fan opinion.
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The Raspberries: Pop Art Live
Robert Baird
Robert Baird  |  Sep 01, 2017
In football there's a saying to describe an unexpected outcome: "That why they play the games." The recorded music equivalent might be "That's why you have to listen to the records."
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Listen to Them, Children of the Night
Music and Recording Features
Robert Baird  |  Aug 31, 2017
Long ago, I stopped associating Act II of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake with dancing. Now, every time I hear it, I immediately flash on broken battlements, a black cape, and Béla Lugosi's unmistakable Hungarian accent: "Listen to them—cheelllldreennn of dee night. What muuuusic they make!"

Then there were James Bernard's tense scores for the Hammer films—like Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), starring Christopher Lee—that my parents somehow let me see in a theater when I was seven, as part of an afternoon of bargain monster movies that included all the sourballs and unbuttered popcorn you could wolf down. Scared to death, my life was forever changed.

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