Category: Reviews

What: Sony’s latest portable Minidisc player
Where: Stores everywhere
How Much: $129.99 MSRP, I paid $62.83 at Ubid.com

For years, Americans as a whole have been avoiding the minidisc. Minidiscs look something like one of those small 3″ CDs encased in a floppy disc shell. Revered by audiophiles as the only real way for the average person to listen to music digitally, the American hoi polloi have avoided them like the plague, and with good reason. For starters, there’s the whole format issue. Minidiscs came out not too long after CDs began to be the accepted music medium; this was also the same time that DAT and DCC came out, so it’s easy to see how the average person would stick with the more accepted CD. Also, since minidisc is a proprietary format, only Sony makes the players. This means that there is little (OK, no) competition to force prices down like there was for VHS or CD players. Lastly, minidiscs have also traditionally required realtime transfers. This means that copying 70 minutes of music to a minidisc required, well, 70 minutes. So even after Sony started lowering prices on MD equipment – which happened well after CD-R drives started invading American homes – people were loath to waste the time making MDs when even the slowest CD-R drive can do the same in about half the time.

Continue reading “REVIEW: Sony’s NetMD Minidisc Player”

What: A play. A comedy (sort of)
Where: Dad’s Garage, 280 Elizabeth Street
When: 12 April – 11 May 2002
Website: http://www.dadsgarage.com

Dita and I were heading north on Buford Highway when she stumbled across the ad in the Creative Loafing:

“Look, here’s something for you – the Madonna Obsessive Support Group…”
“Gee, thanks. I know I’m a bit obsessed and all, but…”
“No, it’s a play… at Dad’s Garage.”

I completely forgot about it by the time I got home, but Dita emailed me a reminder shortly thereafter. I hadn’t been to Dad’s Garage since I was in college. Back then it was called “Actors’ Express”. How would Dad’s fare given the somewhat recent gentrification of Little Five Points? I went to the website and checked it out. And then I thought “what the hell – why not”? Was there ever a play more tailor-made for me?

Continue reading “REVIEW: Madonna Obsessive Support Group”

What: A review of the British band Keane in concert
Where: The Roxy Theatre, Atlanta, GA January 28th 2005
How Much: $20, plus TicketBastard’s “convenience charges”

Don’t you just love falling in love? I think everyone has the same kind of moment… you’re in the car listening to the radio… at a friend’s house listening to CDs… or hangin’ out at a club… and then it happens! Some song comes on and makes all the hairs on your arms stick up. It grabs your attention and holds it completely, just like a beautiful woman. And the next thing you know, you’re at a record store buying every CD from the artist you can find. You’re surfing the Internet looking for fan sites. You’re bidding outrageous sums of money for the artists’ memorabilia on eBay. You even spend the few extra bucks to order their CD directly from the UK, just so you can have it before any of your friends. The next thing you know, you’re even considering naming your first child after them!

Continue reading “REVIEW: Keane live!”

What: The new album from the Icelandic chanteuse
Where: Currently available in the UK only
How Much: £8.50 at Amazon UK

You know what I hate? Have you ever bought a great CD from an artist, only to never hear from them again? I suppose in a way it’s better than really bad follow-up albums. After all, was there any need for A Flock of Seagulls’ 1995 stinker The Light At The End Of The World or The Fixx’s unheard-by-anyone 1991 album Ink? At least when an artist disappears you don’t have some godawful claptrap ruining your memory of the band. But still, a collapse into nothingness is sad. There are a slew of abandoned websites out there that promise “a new album coming out soon!” yet haven’t been updated since 1999. I thought that one artist in particular was going to fall into this trap, but thankfully she hasn’t.

I don’t remember the exact moment I first heard Emiliana Torrini. I do know that it was while working for Pathfire, where one of my co-workers – good ol’ Joe Klingler – had a massive music-sharing file server set up. It’s kind of funny – he was told to spend the rest of his department’s budget for the year, so he went out and bought a massive server with a RAID-10 disk configuration and gigabit Ethernet in it and… Well, it’s not that important, really. It suffices to say that he commandeered a massive amount of company hardware that held well over 200GB for music on it at the time. So anyway, one day he turned me on to this mellow Icelandic chick whose voice sounded a lot like Bjork but who’s smooth, mostly downtempo electronic music was much more soothing and consistent than her fellow countrywoman. I mean, I’ve got nothing against Bjork, but the girl can sometimes just be all over the damn place. And while I can appreciate her wanting to develop a new sound for each album… well, sometimes it’s just a bit too much. Emiliana Torrini has a much more… controlled sound. When you listen to her, you can rest assured that she’s not going to go off on some loud, jazzy “It’s Oh So Quiet” rant just when you’re falling asleep. No, Emiliana is far more smooth and atmospheric, some would say in the Massive Attack vein. I think that that comparison is a bit off, but there *is* certainly some truth to it. While Emiliana is mostly softer electronica, that doesn’t mean that all of her songs have less of a beat than most Zamphir tunes. No, no… far from it. The girl can rock when she wants to!

Continue reading “REVIEW: Emiliana Torrini’s Fisherman’s Woman”

What: A review of New Order’s newest album
Where: Stores everywhere, April or May 2005
How Much: Around $15

I wish more of the members of my musical generation would die early. Seriously! Think about those tired, old 60s “heroes”… Would Jim Morrison still be revered as an “American Poet” if he was playing in Branson, Missouri today? Would Jimi Hendrix still be granted God-like status if he were pimpin’ his new albums via late night infomercial? Would people still get all misty-eyed about Janis Joplin if she was telling us to “get more” from T-Mobile?

Instead of our rock gods dying early, it seems that far too many of them are pumping out album after album of dreck that ends up in the $1.99 bin faster than William Hung’s newest crapbomb. Lord knows I loved The Cure back in the day, but to see Robert Smith still trying to fly his freak flag at age 45 is saddening. Watching Sting trying to remain “cool” while putting out disc after disc of elevator music is saddening. Even though Motley Crue and Guns and Roses are not my type of music, watching Vince Neil and Axl Rose still trying to be relevant is saddening. Even though Duran Duran’s new album is pretty damn good, it easily could have been a train wreck of the first order. It’s all depressing and it’s senseless, and that’s where this New Order disc comes in.

Continue reading “REVIEW: New Order’s Waiting For The Siren’s Call”