You could accuse Herbie Mann (Herbert James Solomon) of “selling out” his serious jazz career for pop music stardom but that wouldn’t be fair.

Back in 1980 or so, in Los Angeles, I had a disastrous try-out to be one of the original MTV VJs. I had no idea what the content was going to be, but having been on the radio and having done stand-up, I figured why not try out? By the time I wrote the article below, which appeared in Los Angeles music magazine "Music Connection" the week of April 12th-25th 1984 (25 years ago!), MTV had gone from pretty bad to much worse. So I wrote this arbor of sour grapes that I thought you might find amusing now that MTV is no longer about music.-Ed.

Can DVD number 2 match the first? Video being shot at RTI last August

An anxiety-reducing DVD that takes the mystery out of vinyl playback

Ed. note: In light of Bob Dylan's recent Rolling Stone interview in which he championed vinyl and complained both about CDs and modern recorded sound, we thought it appropriate to bring this to the home page yet again:

Back in 1994, ten years into the "digital revolution," the editor of Tower Records's "Pulse" magazine, bravely commissioned me to write an article expressing my feelings about digital sound, ten years after the introduction of the compact disc. It was published in "Pulse!" much to my delight. I thought you might find it interesting in 2005--MF

Outsiders examining this ten disc (Blu-ray or DVD), 128 track, sumptuously packaged, excruciatingly detailed, image-laden, minutia packed, monolith of a box set, whose complex menu navigation system more closely resembles a video game than a movie, can be forgiven for mistaking Neil Young for a raving egomaniac.

By Armegeddon (however the Evangelical wet-dream is spelled) this article will be TOTALLY updated!

157 In-Print LPs You Should Own! Soon to be Updated.....Yea, sure. That's what you've been saying for more than a year....(sorry but soon, really!)

Okay, that's a ridiculous headline. It's the kind of cynical ploy you see on magazine covers to attract attention. These are really 157 LPs I do own, some of which you probably will enjoy and should own, and some of which you will probably hate. No doubt you already own some.

In five different formats!