LATEST ADDITIONS

Analog Corner
Analog Corner #32
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 22, 2013  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  2 comments
I don't know whether it was Mrs. Nachman or Mr. Nachman, but back in the late '80s one of them took a dump on Joe Grado's head, and it wasn't pretty. But it was expected, for the Nachmans were my pet birds, and that's what birds do when they perch on shiny domes.

The Nachmans have since gone to that great birdcage in the sky, and I bet if I'd asked Joe Grado back then where he thought the cartridge business would be in 1998, he'd have said in the same general neighborhood—along with Betamax (still better, and I still use it), Elcaset, RCA Selectavision, and the rest.

But I didn't ask Joe Grado about the future back then because the present was about his $200 8MZ cartridge, which I'd reviewed and found to have a lump in the midbass. Joe came over to convince me it didn't, and that what I'd heard was due to my setup. After moving speakers and subwoofers around, and after Joe had been anointed by one of the Nachbirds, the lump remained. We called it a (messy) day.

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Album Reviews
Jimi Hendrix Mono Mixes Focus The Action
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 21, 2013  |  37 comments
Phil "back to mono" Spector would be happy. Not about his upcoming HBO biopic starring Al Pacino but about the mono craze sweeping the record business if not the country. True its a single bristle sweep, but it's better than no brush at all.
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News
Rhino Announces Record Store Day Limited Edition Releases (Revised With New Information)
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 21, 2013  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  19 comments
Record Store Day is April 20th and Rhino will be ready with its biggest limited edition release yet. Included are The Band's 3 LP set The Last Waltz, a limited to 5000 copies $49.98 edition and the rare mono edition of Van Dyke Parks' epic Song Cycle that mostly went to radio stations for some odd reason
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Album Reviews
Cassandra Wilson's "Belly of the Sun" Finally Issued on AAA Double Vinyl
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 19, 2013  |  3 comments
Back in 2002 the adventurous, eclectic jazz singer Cassandra Wilson returned to her home state of Mississippi to record this album in the Clarksdale train depot as well as in a boxcar not far from the now immortalized "crossroads" where, as legend has it, Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil.
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Album Reviews
"Heartworn Highways" May Be Out of Print But Copies Are Still Stocked Somewhere (Or Other)
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 19, 2013  |  4 comments
The documentary "Heartworn Highways" produced and directed in the mid-1970s by James Szalapski but not released until 1981 documented the rise of a generation of singer-songwriters that included Steve Earle, the late Townes Van Zandt, David Allan Coe, Rodney Crowell, Guy Clark, Steve Young and Charlie Daniels.
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Analog Corner
Analog Corner #31
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 19, 2013  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  0 comments
Ever have one of those days from hell that starts before the sun comes up and doesn't end until you fall into bed exhausted and stressed, hours after your normal snooze time?

I had one a few weeks ago. I'll spare you the 6am phone call that started it, but by noon I'd learned that my furnace was cracked and a new one would cost me $3000. Three grand? What a waste. That almost buys a state-of-the-art phono cartridge or some good cables these days, and I have to divert it to heat?

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News
Classical Pianist and YouTube Phenom To Issue New Liszt Recording in Digital and Pure Analog
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 19, 2013  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  8 comments
The Ukranian pianist Valentina Lisitsa, who has more than 30 million YouTube channel views (and you thought classical music was 'dead'?) and is currently signed to Decca Records, will soon issue a collection of Liszt pieces recorded two different ways: digitally and all-analog with no edits, recorded from the same set of microphones.
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News
Howard Stern Crapped All Over Me Today. I'm Still Smiling
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 18, 2013  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  41 comments
Howard Stern crapped all over me today on his radio show. The opening salvo came just after he admitted that he really doesn't listen to music anymore, couldn't care less and couldn't bring himself to play David Bowie's new album.
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News
I Messed Up! I was on "For What It's Worth" Last Night...Not Next Week (online link to show in comments)
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 15, 2013  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  15 comments
Oh well. My segment on Gary Dell'Abbate's and Jon Hein's VH-1 Classic TV show "For What It's Worth" aired last night. I thought it was next Thursday evening.
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Analog Corner
Analog Corner #30
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 15, 2013  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  1 comments
Lyra Arion moving-coil step-up transformer

"The killer cycles, the killer Hertz, / the passage of my life is measured out in shirts," as Brian Eno once sang. In 1997 I measure out the vitality of the analog revival by how long it takes my Dick to fill with new vinyl. It doesn't take more than a few weeks, and a Dick holds about 75 records. Dick, by the way, is a sturdy, inexpensive, attractively finished, LP-sized, wooden slatted crate sold at Ikea, the Swedish home furnishing giant. As at Linn, everything at Ikea has a weird, consonant-heavy name.

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