curmudgeon

Take a look/listen ...

http://kottke.org/12/03/what-the-spa...le-booster-saw

Probably like many of you, in the past several days I have been revisiting a lot of music by Levon Helm and The Band, ever since his recent passing. Today I came upon a tribute to Levon from comic Rob Delaney's tumblr that I would like to share:

http://robdelaney.tumblr.com/post/21...lm-and-america

(edited after a previous mis-post ... whoops)

Catching up during my convalescence means reading a backlog of news, watching some TV I never get around to, taking on the ever-expanding wish list of book reads, and a lot more.

Just last night I noticed that a Peabody Award has recently been issued to Portlandia. In case you don’t know, Portlandia is a spot-on comedy sketch series, now in (or maybe concluding) its second season, spoofing some aspects of modern culture and that of Portland, Oregon in particular (with a notable guest ...

A hospital stay for heart surgery can have its bright side.

Initially delighted to learn that wi-fi would be available, I was to be deflated upon learning that the same IT restrictions for hospital employees would also apply to inpatients. That meant that sites like Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, Pandora, Spotify, MOG, etc. would be blocked, leaving me and my MacBook with little more than email and a few sites that might relate to my usual work. So I turned to my stack of long-overdue ...

Today, I went searching for Philip Glass' Concerto for Saxophone Quartet, which I wanted to gift to my woodwind-playing daughter. (Btw, I did find that hi-res downloads, including DSD, are available at Cybele Records -- http://www.cybele.de/the-invitation-saxophonquartette-des-20-jahrhunderts -- but I was actually looking for the Rascher Quartet performance; I may end up downloading these as well.)

In the course of my search, I came upon the Glass Engine. This is a novel and enjoyable ...

User crisnee (whose Album of the Evening postings I appreciate and watch for) has suggested a review-centric version of the Album of The Evening thread:

Original: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Album-Evening

Crisnee: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Album-Eve-Reviews

Also I notice that crisnee has been a catalyst for the CA Scrobble thread:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Introducing-CA-Scrobbles
...

Awareness of a need for better sound may be filtering into the mainstream, as evidenced by this article in USA Today's Tech blog:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-02-04/nashville-sound-quality/52963362/1

It's the music, of course. At least for me.

CA regular wgscott, an interesting fellow whose input has been useful, stimulating and entertaining to me from time to time, poses a forum question asking us to assign a value on a 1 - 10 scale on (interest? experience? not sure what ...) a computer-to-audiophile continuum:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Computer-vs-Audiophile

I figured I had to be around a two (given my 30+ year computer professional ...

Seems that one Bartholomaus Traubeck has devised a turntable that will play the rings of trees, rather than conventional vinyl, as reported by HuffPo in this report:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/01/huffpost-arts-interviews-_n_1247581.html?ref=arts



Years - 'scratching' from Bartholomäus Traubeck on Vimeo

Neil Young is speaking out again, contending that Apple's interest in providing high-resolution music has diminished since the loss of Steve Jobs. More here: http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/31/tech/web/neil-young-apple-high-def-music/index.html

The Guardian is now streaming Leonard Cohen's forthcoming album, entitled Old Ideas:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/jan/23/leonard-cohen-old-ideas-stream?intcmp=239

As a long-time Cohen fan, I will almost certainly be springing for the properly-rippable CD release when it arrives in a few days, but this preview stream may be useful and entertaining in the meantime.

Legendary blues singer Etta James has passed on. Read more here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/arts/music/etta-james-singer-dies-at-73.html

Particularly remembered for her terrific "At Last", one of my personal favorites was "I'd Rather Go Blind".

Here are YouTube links for some of these performances:

...

Some people regard the appearance of a "computer" in an audio system setting as inappropriate and ugly. My wife does. I don't end up seeming to care that much, particularly as I am frequently swapping the things around, but I can surely appreciate the fine touch of someone like Jeffrey Stephenson. See some of his stunning work in wood at http://slipperyskip.com.

Sometimes, to combat my tinnitus, I just listen to white noise for background. I have found an intriguing substitute with LIDO (Listening to the Deep Ocean environment). LIDO is a website that presents realtime and archived seafloor acoustic observations around the globe in a scientific effort to evaluate bioacoustic factors and identify geo-hazards that affect marine life and the ocean environment. And you can listen ...

This was my Album of the Evening last night.

http://www.amazon.com/Lioness-Hidden-Treasures-Amy-Winehouse/dp/B0061JPYX2/

Guess this one is a bit controversial (was it a posthumous exploitative cash grab or the real deal treasure trove?). For me, as a big Amy fan, I knew I had to have it -- and it came to me as a Christmas gift -- but I'm still digesting the thing in terms of both music-ness and sonic pleasures. My Foobar2000's Dynamic Range Meter shows only one track ...