Sure, it’s great to get trashed on TKK “Christian-Zombie-Vamire,” but after a few hundred times commuting to work with that you’ve gotta detox. I’ve actually made a few stops at Best Buy and fye in town to find something new, to make a connection, and swear off of the trash. These big box record stores are no help! It’s like they want to keep good music a secret and it’s up to you to guess. There are tens of thousands of album covers to judge by, the inventory’s not ordered very well, and the records you want aren’t in stock anyway. There’s the old conventional marketing wisdom that customers will only buy what they see. Put the merchandise out to be noticed, and let voracious consumers like me hear ALL of the music so that they’ll buy the stuff they didn’t know they needed. Continue reading →

There was some day long ago when I became too busy to stop everything else, turn down the lights, and listen to music in the open air. If I plugged in cheap ear buds to listen to WinAmp or iTunes it was good enough as a background for Quake or reading online travel brochures for Asheron’s Call. Standing in front of the giant speakers at dance clubs screaming back at The Prodigy probably lost some subtlety. So now that I got some decent speakers and I unpacked my tuner I have rediscovered the qualities of my music collection. I had forgotten the mortified despair of listening to The Pink Opaque in the dark; the deep, hollow barrage of the synthetic percussion filling and haunting my walls. (Guess who’s goth). Electrafixion is kick ass, and Esthero should not legally be a red-headed Canuck with that kind of soul. That was just up to ‘E’. These records I’d half ignored scores of times sound completely different when I’m actively listening to them. Continue reading →