Indie Guitarist Turns United Airlines Blunder into YouTube Gold

Have you seen this story about an indie artist who turned his anger with United Airlines (they busted his guitar) into a YouTube phenomenon? He's got over 4 million hits, and United coughed up some dough!!

HERE's the link to my write-up in Bandsofthebay.com

he even got some new Taylor guitars,
from Taylor himself!!

Reference3A Dulcet Loudspeakers - ROCK! check these out

I was psyched to get a new pair of Reference3A, Dulcet two-way loudspeakers (for review in Positive Feedback Online) yesterday! I've been hearing and reading amazing things from Harry Pearson at The Absolute Sound about Reference3A and their Grand Veenas (bigger, floor-standing speakers than the Dulcet). So I was pleased to find the company made a two-way, smaller monitor style speaker!

Well before I started working around consoles and in studios (and ref-ing mixes on 2 channel systems in offices and such) I loved the sound of two-way monitors. I went nuts over these small speakers by System Audio (the 1005) that Hp and I discovered while I was working for The Absolute Sound. There was a continuousness, a fluidity to the sound that I barely experience from larger, more complex speaker systems. The speakers seemed to disappear easier, which was always my goal for Hi-fi in my room anyway. I wanted to be transported into the music; hear harmonics sound closer to the real thing. Two-ways just do that for me more often (and YES, much of the time I end up using a subwoofer to handle the sub-40hz region).

These are kinda blowing my mind thus far, and they have barely settled into my room and my system! All I'm going to say is that a few of my acid test records; Jason Mraz Live at Java Joe's, Radiohead's Kid A album, Donny Hathaway (the Donny Hathaway Collection, original producers Arif Mardin and Tom Dowd), some Tori (Amos), and some of the new CD's I recently received got from Phillip at On-A-Higher-Note ---

THESE SPEAKERS are SPECIAL.
Now, my reference has been the System Audio SA2Ks for years now, and they're very similar in design, so I'm pumped to put these side-by-side. I'm getting my speakers and Classe amp back this week! They've been in storage in New York for two years now!

Wow, we're slowly rebuilding our lives again.

Check back Soon
and I'll be waxin' on something else, or dropping the link to my review in Positive Feedback Online!!

Meandering Matrix Thoughts

(published previously on my personal blog Living in the Void - soon to be opened up to all the scary scrutiny as well))

Life can be so odd at times. Just when you think the important things are lined up for success they begin to meander like the racing thoughts in your head. Sometimes it seems necessary to un-plug from both cyber and real time and space for a while. We are constantly hit with this barrage of information from all angles, effecting all senses as the result.

I find this in my writing assignments. Since I work in and around music and the record business there is always something to listen to or write about. One of the greater skills I have to master is finding the music that is not only good (enough for me to listen to anyway) but good enough to write about. I write about things that move me; mentally, physically, and spiritually. So, when I am searching for stuff that appeals to me I am bombarded with endless information on everything having to with artists and new (and classic) tunes. This can get overwhelming at times.

I'm not trying to be a little bitch about it. I realized that I am blessed to be doing the things I do for a living (and I'm far from rich). But the truth is that this same situation affects alot of us. We end up plugging into this electro-infused gatework of telecommunications and entertainment. The sensory overload clouds the judgment, and therefore some of us end up making the wrong decisions. This is when it's time to unplug.

Remember; there was a time when we lived a life unplugged. When I was a kid (not to sound like an old man, because I'm not that, at age 33) we used to spend more time outside than anybody does today; including today's kids. The video games and movies were activities for the fall-out of playing outside all day. Our bodies were tired, but our brains kept moving in that super conductive-teenage way. The games, the virtual representations of the real world, were endeared because; either we couldn't get out, or go back to the real world for a little while. There was a sense of discovery, a love affair with the outside world which seems to be diminishing.

This concept; that mankind is moving away from the natural world, is both alarming and just Goddamn depressing. It is alarming because the line between the real and "virtual" (or computer generated) blurs frequently. This can be very dangerous, especially when we're talking about the influence of strictly, wholly, violent video games played by our kids. The games seem so real (I've played, and play now, some of them) that they sometimes (unfortunately) correlate with a particular kids situations. Translation: If the kid lives in the ghetto, is surrounded by drug dealers and wanna-be thugs, the game is an approximation of his real life!

You wonder how a kid can walk into a school and shoot other kids like he's playing a damn video game? Well, get behind the viewing angle of your childrens games for a minute and things will crystallize for you. The more a person engages himself or herself in the virtual world, the less interesting the real world becomes. This isn't the sole problem plaguing the youth, or us for that matter, but it is a component.

I've been making the outside a priority of late. I make small goals daily (go for a short drive to a local park, or a bike ride, etc.) and the notice in my attitude is apparent immediately. It's almost as if I have been re-calibrated. The feeling itself is addictive, which as great for me, and so I recommend it to anybody that spends their day staring into a computer screen.

This rant was inspired by my dear friend Mina - who once told me I needed to "defragment my mental hard-drive by doing nothing, or meditating for five minutes a day". She asked me to do ten minutes first, but soon realized that was impossible.

ROUGH THOUGHTS TO ADD LATER
----Computers have done miraculous things, and even I can not live without living plugged-in (as a journalist and a blogger, it's a necessity of course)

----I remember getting my first pager in high school (around 91'). The thing was a big blue plastic brick with a digital display that looked like a fuckin gold Casio calculator.

A Beloved Good-Bye to the O.G. "Stereophile"

The Hi-fi and audiophile communities lost a great man last week; J. Gordon Holt, founder of Stereophile magazine. Mr. Holt actually broke from the norm in the 60's (he started Stereophile in 1962) and created a new way to review Hi-fi equipment in the press. He actually listened to it! As opposed to just publishing lab results.
The critique stems from a sincere love and intimate knowledge of music (and recording technology). Harry Pearson, the man who coined the phrase "high end audio" began his own newsletter after reading Mr. Holt. The Absolute Sound magazine was born out of Mr. Holt's vision in a way.

I wrote about it for Positive Feedback Online. Please check out the piece HERE. and feel free to leave a comment! C'mon supporters, just participation. Ain't nobody askin' for nothin that folds or jingles.