Support KCRW 89.9 fm Santa Monica

I love that radio station too much. Once again, Jason Bentley takes me to the moon with his Metropolis program, followed on by the equally dope Nocturna, hosted by Los Angeles native Raul Campos. Talk about shaping my musical perception: I've listened to KCRW regularly since 1985!

» Support KCRW «

{The scene: Syar Industries, Inc. Lake Herman Quarry, Vallejo, California. Rock products and asphaltic paving materials. The thought: man, I love this winter light. Taken on Sunday December 16, 2007, returning  to San Francisco from Sacramento.}

Technorati Tags: kcrw, quarry, vallejo

New tune: Cold To The Touch

I finally got around to laying down a favorite new track of mine, Cold To The Touch… listen to the MP3 at Junkalow.com.

Edirol R-1 review: portable digital recorder is best in class

For the past 12 months, I've been using the Edirol R-1 portable digital recorder for simple stereo recordings. Here's my review of Edirol's ground-breaking 24-bit digital WAV/MP3 recorder.

First of all, people who are looking at the Edirol R-1 are often checking out M-Audio's Microtrack 24/96, which I reviewed exactly a year ago [read my review of the M-Audio Microtrack 24/96]. That device suffered from a couple of catastrophic design flaws: the battery was built-in, so once it ran out, you were forced to switch to AC (plug-in) power; and the display was extremely difficult to use. Futhermore, the unit I had was malfunctioning, in that I could not dial the input down to zero — some signal always got in, no matter the input setting. These problems led me to abandon the device (sold it on eBay), and give the Edirol R-1 a try.

At first blush, the Edirol R-1 seemed crude. It displayed none of the slick design stylings of its electronic peers; here it is looking clumsy next to Apple's iPod Mini:

The Edirol felt like a tank rushed out to war by a military contractor who had been summoned by the Army to supply a new kind of device to the field; all expedience and function, and little panache.

The R-1 encompasses the best attributes of its class:

• hand-held portable — easily replaces cassette Walkman, DAT (Digital Audio Tape, a very expensive technology), and MiniDisc (good quality, but poor computer integration)
• highest quality recording — either 16 or 24-bit WAVE files (uncompressed audio; better than CD quality), or MP3 at rates from 64K to 320K (with MP3, few people can tell the difference between uncompressed CD audio and a MP3 at 160K or higher).
• USB connection so moving files to the computer is simple
• compact flash recording media, which is super cheap (e.g., 2 gigabytes for $45)
• AA batteries for easy switching out of batteries, allows you to use rechargables, but also includes AC power adapter

Below: the back of the Edirol R-1, showing the AA batteries in place, and the compact flash card door opened up.

The Edirol R-1 has two built-in microphones at the top corners which work well enough (I'm sure you can find recording samples on the web), but you'll do much better to patch in your best microphones. I use mine with a $200 Sony ECM-MS957 stereo microphone.

Here's a shot of the Edirol with its AC power in place, and the Sony mic (in its supplied stand) plugged into the R-1:

With this setup, I've recorded countless hours of acoustic performances (guitars, vocals, hand drums, harmonica, banjo, etc.), and garage rock jams (electric guitars and bass, amplified vocals, and people drinking and banging on drums!).

How well does the R-1 work? Great, but it could be slightly better. Going from startup to record takes about 6 seconds: you flick the power switch on, wait about 4 seconds, then press record once, then again. As long as you had all the settings set up as you'd want them, you're recording.

[CORRECTION Dec. 18, 2006] To see your levels once you're recording, press the Display button three times. You can also check levels when the unit in is in record-pause mode. Level is set for both channels simultaneously with a little rotary dial on the side (it feels like a 1972 transistor radio at this point!).

And recording eats batteries, so if you're planning on recording for more than an hour, be sure to bring extra batteries, or even better, use the AC power adapter.

One major function of the R-1 which was mostly omitted in the newer Edirol R-09 is the built-in effects processor. With the R-1, you can record with a number of effects: Easy EQ, speech de-esser, voice performance, noise reducer, hum noise cut, reverb, internal mic recording, external mic recording, mastering clarity, and center cancel. There's also a metronome, and a tuner.

The thing about all these effects, for me, is — do I care? I don't. In the year I've been using the R-1, I've bothered to engage them once or twice. The 2-line LCD interface make editing the effects a painful exercise.

For the most part, I use the R-1 for its simplicity. I wanted something quick and easy, to record jam sessions, or quickly sketch out a song idea, or capture a performance. In that sense, I just want to go “pure” and record things as they sound, without effects processing. In combination with the Sony mic, I've been very pleased with the R-1.

Technorati Tags: DigitalRecorder, Edirol, EdirolR1, Roland

Record companies have it wrong: Amazon is killing CD sales, not file sharing

It's funny how wrong the record companies and the RIAA have it. They think that it's file sharing — first Napster, then the flurry of almost-unstoppable peer-to-peer networks that followed, like Kazaa, Grokster, Bearshare, Limewire, and Gnuetella — which is killing off their precious CD sales. They've gone to great lengths to pursue individuals who share and collect music from p2p networks, and have spent vast sums of money in court going after Kazaa, which they blame for facilitating copyright violations.

But I think the elephant in the room is the role of Amazon.com in creating a near-perfect aftermarket in CDs. The internet, and Amazon's marketplace technology, has made the buying and selling of music incredibly easy. Where music was once a mostly one-way transaction — you bought a vinyl record, and you pretty much kept it forever — now a recorded piece of music is sold once by the record company, and sold over and over again by the end consumers.

Owning a CD, and then maybe later selling it, used to be fairly significant investment. Before the web came along, most of us went to a local store to buy CDs. If you, like me, were a listener of much music not from the top 40 (or the top 400), then you probably had to go to a specialty record store to get your stuff, first vinyl, maybe cassette, and then CDs. (In my days, I've found my music at Capitol Records in Hartford, Connecticut; Aaron's in Los Angeles; the little shops along St. Mark's Place in New York City; and Amoeba in Berkeley and San Francisco.) CDs have always been a pricey bit of entertainment, so when you ended up buying something you didn't like, you might prudently take it in to your local store to sell it back — usually getting only a $2 or $3 credit toward new CDs, often priced around $13-$16.

Now, of course, we can just flick open our iTunes store and download computer files of music. That method, gaining in popularity as consumers skip the step between having a physical CD, encoding it in iTunes, and then loading it onto their iPod, gives the record company their dues. But the other option is to go to Amazon and buy CDs used, from other regular Joes.

The ease with which consumer-to-consumer selling is enabled is the key point here: never before has it been so easy to find almost every CD available used, nor has it ever been so easy to put your unwanted CDs up for sale. Unrestricted by geographic locality or the problem of finding something uncommon (or a rare buyer), Amazon has enabled a vast marketplace, turning people who were once only buyers into buyer-sellers. No doubt that many physical CDs sold new on Amazon end up being resold again and again through Amazon's marketplace.

The other factor at play is the value proposition of buying a CD versus buying your music online from iTunes. Take, for example, the current Dandy Warhols' album, Odditorium or Warlords of Mars. You can buy entire album's worth of the files from iTunes music store for $9.99. You can buy the new CD from Amazon for $13.99. Or, at the moment, you can buy it used from Amazon for $8.44 + $2.49 shipping, for a total of $10.93. Chances are, the CD will be opened, but almost positively it will not be thrashed, and it will give you full CD quality sound, as opposed to the compromised audio of 128-bit AAC encoding you'll buy from iTunes.

But here's the where the reselling comes into place: once you own the CD, you can do with it as you wish. There's a good chance that you might opt to encode the CD to your iTunes digital music collection, and then, since you only listen to music from your iPod anyway, you'll sell the CD on Amazon again, recovering the majority of your original $10.93 investment. The final price of buying of an Amazon marketplace transaction — buying a used CD, encoding it at the audio quality of your choice, then selling the CD through Amazon — could easily end up being less than $2. Given the number of used CDs available on Amazon (for the few CMJ billboard CDs I checked, there were from 23 to over 50 used copies available), it seems that people are wise to the extraordinary value afforded by Amazon's used CD marketplace.

Even with transaction costs, the best value proposition for buying new music is to buy, then sell, your used CD on Amazon. Amazon takes a 99¢ cut on each transaction, but they give you a $2.49 shipping credit while most shipping for a standard jewel-boxed CD is less than that — often around $1.60. Even factoring in the time to post the CD listing on Amazon (under a minute), the price of a padded shipping envelope, and the time to process an order (writing out the address, slipping the CD in the envelope, stamping it and mailing it — maybe five minutes?), it's cheaper to buy/sell used CDs on Amazon than to buy new or buy from iTunes.

Coachella’s charms: Rock and Roll is my religion, Nature’s my church

Notes from Coachella 2006

BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT: Describing Coachella is like blind men describing an elephant; any single answer to the question “What was Coachella like this year” inevitably can only explain one person's perspective on a huge experience. With five stages, 70+ bands, and dozens of different places to chill out, buy food, get your drink on, socialize, meet up, and empty your bladder, I can only tell you about my trip, which probably won't sound much like anybody else's. Neither the New York Times nor Rolling Stone nor Le Blog Exuberance can possibly provide the definitive answer; any recounting is at best a personal memoir.

MADONNA AND THE MAINSTREAM: Yes, Madonna did kill Coachella, and that makes me realize something: it takes an awful lot of indie cred courage to stay away from her, even if you (like me) don't have any interest in her music. Madonna is just too much of a music and cultural icon to ignore if it turns out that she's performing in your midst.

First of all, it's worth noting that Madonna's presence amped up the babe quotient at the show; I don't remember seeing so many full-on hotties in MTV-ho gear during the previous two years. Madonna epitomizes the mainstream super-star schtick, so she brought out droves of wannabe material girls. For what it's worth, they probably weren't much like virgins.

This year's more mainstream audience is probably a result of mainstream Madonna (and also mainstream hip-hopper Kanye West, who played on Saturday), as well as the maturing of the festival itself. As word and publicity about the Coachella have grown, a few more kids in the grips of mass marketing have found their way to this desert outpost. Like San Francisco during the dot-com boom, the previously highly-refined alternative culture of Coachella was this year lightly sprinkled with goon culture — guys who come to a show to drink too much, oogle girls, and, given the right combination of too much beer and not enough attention from girls, get aggro and potentially start the kind of trouble that erupted at Woodstock '99. You could spot a small, but significant, number of young male clusters in suburban thug mode, contemplating the exercise of bad behavior.

NO MORONS WILL BE TOLERATED: Fortunately, the young male clusters actually never got out of hand. The overall good behavior of the crowd set the tone: no morons will be tolerated. Three years in a row, I've been impressed by the politeness of the crowd and the lack of obnoxious behavior. Every year, I end up chatting with a at least a dozen random folks, and every year I'm inspired to come back for more of the happy communal vibe which just about everyone is giving off.

Years ago I wrote this line for a song: “Rock and roll is my religion, Nature's my church.” That sentiment perfectly fits the experience: Coachella is when we are at our Sunday best, celebrating music and the joy of being outside together, conscious that we are blessed by our collective circumstance.

TRASHING OUR OWN YARD: Despite what I saw as good behavior overall, there was still too much of one inexcusable behavior: tossing one's trash any old place. Trash receptacles, while often full, were always nearby, yet still some people just dropped their empty water bottles on the ground. I wish the Coachella organizers did more to promote a culture of caring for the polo grounds (a beautifully manicured grass lawn) on which the festival is held. Burning Man does this very well, by insisting that you “never let it hit the ground.” A little bit of public service education could go a long way toward convincing the audience not to litter.

One thing that might help is to make recycling bins the standard blue. I recall that most of the recycling bins were artistically decorated, which made them a lot harder to recognize. It might help with the trash problem if the bins looked like something I could toss my empty into.

Below: Checking out Matisyahu.

THE GOOD STUFF: I don't mean to imply that Coachella wasn't wonderful; it was. It was amazing, it was beautiful, it was uplifting, it brought me to tears, it made me smile and shimmer and shout. And that's the thing: Coachella involves you, absorbs you, sweeps you along, surprises you and rewards you again and again.

There are so many good things about Coachella; here are a few that I can riff on:

• THE MUSIC, delivered with earnestness. These musicians all recognize how lucky they are to be part of such an inspiring event. They know they're playing to an audience that has worked hard to be there, in a sublime physical environment, and it inspires their performance. They are professionals, yes, but over and over you see them look in awe at their own good fortunes, or they confess at the microphone how humbled they are to be in front of it. And with bands this young and unexposed, you know they mean it. Their humility is endearing, and in its revealing we are all connected, knowing that we are all lovers of the art.
• THE DESERT SETTING, foreign to most of us, far removed from our every day life. The heat, at times challenging to endure, reminds us of our enduring connection to the physical environment. The visual beauty at times surpasses the sonic joy, especially at sunset when the light glows gold and the transformation of the event into night lighting begins.
• THE PEOPLE, who, like me, have often made extraordinary effort be out in this faraway place so that we could be together, hearing music in the company of like souls. It is a community of the highest order, a shared exhilaration, an experience as profound as any I've ever had. I'm the chatty type and every year I end up in conversation with a bunch of different folks throughout the day. It's a pleasure to stand in line for a beer, or sit down in a chillout tent, or wait for a band to play, and be surrounded by people who are so willing to talk about their excitement and inquire about yours. Courtesies are always exchanged, warm regards are extended. This is social behavior at its best and most worthy.
• THE ARTWORK, which usually took the form of sculpture and was often designed to be “interactive.” You didn't just stare at it — you cranked it, you banged on it, you climbed up it, you crawled through it, you rode in circles, you sat under it. Like the music, it brought people together in a shared experience.
• THE DOWNTIME AREAS, like the chillout domes (30 foot tall geodesic domes covered with a tuat white fabric), the beer gardens, the food picnic tents. I think the domes were new this year and they were my instant favorite feature, especially the one I dubbed “Autumn in New York,” which was decorated with a large branched tree trunk in the center, from which leaf rakes stuck out like branches and wooden wind chimes hung. Around the perimeter of the dome were cushioned seats in the form of tree stumps, and in the center were big furry cubes on which we could rest and strike up conversation with our peers. Completing the autumnal theme were actual dried fallen leaves scattered around the ground.
• THE FESTIVAL ORGANIZATION: bands start on time, almost like clockwork. You can actually count on the published schedule, which makes the whole thing go smoothly. Water is only $2, and you can refill your bottle at a public water fountain if you prefer. Parking is free and the traffic maintenance was smooth. Security was low-key. Restrooms were plentiful. Corporate intrusion is virtually non-existant (no Budwei*er banners hanging from stages). The commerce tents sell funky practical items like Chinese umbrellas, sunglasses, lightweight hippie clothing, and cool artist-designed t-shirts.
• SPECIAL MOMENTS, like this one: In one of the final shows of Sunday night, Art Brut's roadie was setting up one of the guitars when he accidentally unplugged the cable from the guitar without realizing it. A bunch of us guys up front watched as he tried to figure out why he wasn't getting any sound from his rig. I shouted out, “Your guitar's unplugged!!” but he couldn't hear me. He seemed to grow more frantic. “Plug in the guitar!” someone shouted, then another, “Plug in the GUITAR!” Pretty soon, a bunch of guys were shouting, trying to help the roadie out, but the roadie couldn't make out what we were saying and kept running back and forth between the amplifier and the pedal board, checking all his connections, getting no sound — rock and roll thwarted! Finally, another roadie figured out what we were saying and walked onto the stage to help. A cheer erupted from the audience. Art Brut would go on! Laughs all around.

Bye, Coachella, see you next year!

* * *

See also my photos of Coachella 2004, photos of Coachella 2005, photos of Coachella 2006, and my Coachella 2005 wrap-up.

Read this posting by Michael McGranahan who writes beautifully about the Coachella experience.

Technorati Tags: coachella, coachella2006

Fender Telecaster Deluxe Redux: The King of Cool Guitars

Seems all you guitar players out there Googling for “Fender Telecaster Deluxe” like to leave comments on my first Telecaster blog posting —  Fender Telecaster Deluxe: Coolest Guitar Ever?  — so here we go with a second round of 1977 Fender Telecaster Deluxe photos, including an appearance by Fender Twin Reverb (modern “1964” reissue, from 2003).

Here she is, tall and tan and young and lovely, and definitely a high point of 20th Century American industrial design:

{The Psychology of Modern Man} and {The Habits of Unusual People}

A couple of album titles for future reference:

Review of the M-Audio Microtrack 24/96

NEW October 2006: Review of the Edirol R-1 portable digital recorder

I was very disappointed to find that the mic supplied with the M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 digital recorder is not suitable for recording garage rock (my and my buddies jamming with electric guitars and a drum kit). Moderately loud rock music totally overloaded the signal. Even setting the input to zero would not cut the level enough (I'm using the current firmware, version 1.1.5).

And for some unknown reason, my $200 Sony ECM-MS957 microphone won't work with the Microtrack. The recording comes out “phased.” I don't know what's causing this, but the inability to use my professional stereo mic with the Microtrack is a big letdown.

The interface is bad: the blue LCD screen is hard to read under any conditions, with tiny black type in very low contrast against a blue background. The software seems incomplete, too. Unlike a Minidisc recorder, you can't have it automatically create track split points every x number of minutes. Nor can you split or join tracks. Nor can you monitor the input level before actually beginning recording; the only way to check the level is to press Record to start recording a new track.

Oh, and how's this for brilliant design feature: you can barely stand the thing on the end. So if you use the supplied T-microphone, good luck getting the thing to stand upright, with the mic on the top. The RCA line outs, S/PDIF and USB ports are on the bottom of the unit, and the thing won't stand up. That just seems like poor design.

Technorati Tags: Edirol, EdirolR1, M-Audio, Microtrack2496, Roland

Coachella: A demonstration of civility and primitivism

Check out my Coachella 2005 photos on Flickr.

If there's one thing that struck me as a returning visitor to Coachella, the weekend-long music festival in the Southern California desert, it was the civility of my peers. Given that 50,000 young people were gathered to hear 90 bands and deejays rock the crowd for two 12-hour days, the lack of raucousness was refreshing. In my many hours spent at Coachella, I didn't see one single instance of hooliganism, thuggery, or even merely young male testosterone punchiness.

Below: The Arcade Fire at Coachella, 2005.

On the contrary, a mere accidental brush against a shoulder while maneuvering to a good spot in the crowd elicited polite and forgiving smiles, cheerily whispered utterances of “Sorry!” and gentle partings for more space. At one point, driven by fervor to see a The Arcade Fire, I worked my way into the dense crowd. I inadvertently came to a halt in front of a guy wearing a straw hat who was my height (over six feet); he asked me not to stand there, and I apologized and moved on to a spot where I didn't block anyone.

After the band finished their set, the crowd went wild and we all shuffled off to another stage. On the way, the guy in the straw hat saw me and apologized for asking me to move! I countered with my own apology, and we laughed and agreed that we all just want to have a good time and enjoy the bands.

Everywhere I turned, people were polite, considerate and friendly. The great thing about civility is that it's catching. Be good, and others will be often follow. It sets the tone: be cool, people, don't be a jerk. On Saturday night, I gave my extra schedule to a couple who had arrived late, and they couldn't have been more grateful, and I'm sure that the good vibes got spread around further.

Primitivism
Rock festivals like Coachella fill the need for organized ritual. We gather in front of a band, removed from the cocoons in which we live much of our middle-class lives, and move our bodies in unison, sing along to lyrics we've memorized, mingle our sweat, and ride the waves of emotion that a good band elicits. It's sex, it's ritual, it's a coming together. Much better than organized religion. At Coachella, you have plenty of that with the bands and deejays playing tight 50-minute sets to appreciative crowds.

And then you have the thing I'm calling the organic jungle gym, which really tapped into the primitive instinct.

Below: getting my climb on.

At Coachella this year was a big sturdy sculpture of steel tubes (see above) which we were allowed to climb on. It was cool because it was irregular. It was fun to get up on that thing and work my way around it, 360 degrees, going in and out of the big holes, using all my limbs, and finally exiting backwards and head-first at the bottom in a nod to the birth experience. (LOL, folks.) But this kind of opportunity is rare, and the chance to do this in a beautiful setting with thousands of friendly people, basked in warm weather, surrounded by music for 12 hours -- good stuff.

I heart Coachella!

Coachella Photos, 2004

Below: the Thrills at Coachella, 2004:

Below: the Basement Jaxx at Coachella, 2004:

Coachella 2005 photoset on Flickr