Art is the music we make from the bewildered cry of being alive. ~Maria Popova
04 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in General Posts, Video of the Week Tags: audio cassettes
04 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in General Posts, Toward Better Sounding Music Tags: audio, receivers
(via C/net)
by Steve Guttenberg
It’s a strange turn of events, but mainstream manufacturers long ago gave up on the idea of selling receivers on the basis of superior sound quality. I’m not claiming today’s receivers sound “bad,” but since almost no one ever listens to a receiver before they buy one, selling sound quality is next to impossible.
Back in the days when brick-and-mortar stores ruled the retail market, audio companies took pride in their engineering skills and designed entire receivers in-house. Right up through the 1980s most of what was “under the hood” was designed and built by the company selling the receiver. That’s no longer true; the majority of today’s gotta-have features–auto-setup, GUI menus, AirPlay, iPod/iPhone/iPad compatibility, home networking, HD Radio, Bluetooth, HDMI switching, digital-to-analog converters, Dolby and DTS surround processors–are sourced and manufactured by other companies. Industry insiders refer to the practice of cramming as many features as possible into the box as “checklist design.” Sure, there are rare glimpses of original thinking going on–Pioneer’s proprietary MCACC (Multi Channel Acoustic Calibration) auto-setup system is excellent–it’s just that there’s precious little unique technology in most receivers…
Read more: http://www.cnet.com/news/how-can-30-year-old-receivers-sound-better-than-new-ones/
02 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: muses, women who inspired songs
(via Purple Clover)
“Crazy Love,” Van Morrison
24 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: prog rock
by Jose Luis Carballo
As a Prog-rock kid in the early and mid-70’s, I got used to this kind of abuse. Rolling Stone, Cream and all the other big rock journalists at the time hated Prog rock that includes Yes, Genesis, ELP, King Crimson and all other practitioners. The complaints were the same: It ain’t rock&roll. Well, duh. Of course not. For starters, Prog has no sexual energy. It doesn’t build a “groove.” It doesn’t funk, it doesn’t make you wanna dance. It’s not the music of rebellion, the music of throwing out the old masters and starting from zero.
Prog had no “zeitgeist.” It wasn’t imbued with the spirit of it’s day. Prog was not the music of abandon. It’s rather cerebral. Prog is intricate, sculpted, fussy and frilly and a bit in love with itself. The composers of Selling England By The Pound, Close To the Edge, and Brain Salad Surgery knew that decades later, we’d still be discovering new melodies hidden in each Opus (they were right, we are). They knew they were writing music closer in spirit to Vivaldi than Bob Dylan, and they were OK with that.
Prog is the music created by the best musicians of their day (the early to late 1970’s), and the fact that you could name all worthwhile Prog bands on two hands – tells you how singular those players and composers were. Prog music lived in a kind of Alternate Universe, a bit disconnected with The Vietnam War and The Civil Rights Movement.
Prog is still a refuge for those of us who “get it”; we can carve out our own moment and still enjoy our brainy, pretentious music long after the 70’s had come and gone.
19 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: mixtapes
(via KQED Arts)
by Jennifer Maerz
I recently got the type of message that only arrives through social media: a guy named Matt in Seattle tracked me down on Facebook to let me know that he was getting rid of a car I’d sold him 10 years ago. He’d been cleaning out the silver Subaru for the last time before donating it to a women’s shelter, and he’d found nine of my old cassettes. He’d gotten in touch to send me a photo of my tapes, lined up in three rows against the blue fabric of the trunk.
Among those spooled cockroaches were mixtapes from two of my high school boyfriends, both named Greg. Just looking at their handwritten titles was like opening an old photo album I’d forgotten I’d owned. Was there ever a high school mash note as intimate as a mixtape? The Gregs and I, we’d spent hours selecting and recording music, writing out our liner notes, and drawing artwork for these pocket-sized containers of angst and lust. Now that digital playlists are easily swapped and text messages artlessly record our longings, mixtapes are the last 3-D time capsules of the love letters we awkward kids used to craft.
Every Moment Has A Song 