Interviews

The "Jay Jay French Connection Podcast" just published the Ken Kessler and Michael Fremer "Analog Wars Part 1" Interview." Ken alone is hilarious, and me alone? Pretty funny, but the two of us together can be cataclysmic. No doubt you know who Ken is, but in case you don't know, Jay Jay French is a founding member of the heavy metal band Twisted Sister and a contributor to Stereophile. He also worked at now closed Lyric Hi-Fi in New York City.

You never know what to expect when you call up someone to conduct an interview. In the case of Charles Lloyd, all I knew was what I heard on record over his 60 or so year vinyl and CD recorded output. That told me Lloyd was adventurous, eclectic, at one time idealistic, spiritual, and you might say over-optimistic, and someone willing and eager to mix it up within various musical genres. He's played with some of the world's greatest musicians both as a band member and as a leader. The latest release, the deluxe box 8 recorded two years ago, celebrated in concert his 80th birthday. Were it not for the Coronavirus outbreak he'd either now be on tour, or preparing to tour and too busy to talk, so getting this interview was kind of a lucky break.

I think this video wraps up Ken Micallef's interview with me. It covers more jazz LP favorites, Rudy Van Gelder's legacy and plugs my turntable set-up DVD. It includes anecdotes, humorous asides, etc.

In the second video interview Ken Micallef asked me to talk about the Transco/Apollo lacquer fire and that led to a discussion about Scientology's use of metal parts to store L.Ron Hubbard's speeches. Or at least as much about it as I know.

At the 2019 Rocky Mountain Audio Show, "Cynthia, the Audio Belle" asked if she could interview me. Of course I said "yes" and that turned into 47 minutes worth that she's edited and split into two parts. I'm posting before watching so I hope it's okay!

At AXPONA 2019 Western Electric's Charles Whitener introduced me to Russ Hamm, president of Sonic Presence, a company that manufactures the VR15-USB Spatial Microphone™ a headphone-like in-ear microphone system that turns your head into a virtual "dummy head", which for some of us is easy! While that was interesting, it was Mr. Hamm's earlier experience as president of Gotham Audio in New York that got my interest.

The day before he received the L.A. & Orange County Audio Society's Founder's Award in early December of 2018, AnalogPlanet Editor Michael Fremer sat down for a lengthy interview with film maker Ben Williams (who remained off-camera). Williams calls it a "guest monologue".