Best Music of 2006

I had fully intended to do this at some point. But here it is, 6 months into 2006. But what better way to get some distance and evaluate the best music of last year?

Besides, Bryan wouldn't stop bugging me.

So here it is. 2006 was an interesting year. Lots of solid stuff but little that was just absolutely amazingly spectacular, and it made the ordering of the albums tough. I did actually make the list at the end of last year, and it was tempting to rearrange, but I left the order intact. So, here we go.

Best Albums of 2006

1. The Hold Steady, Boys And Girls In America: I wavered on this one for a bit. I wondered about its longevity. But I still listen to it frequently. The Hold Steady, ladies and gentlemen, are America's best bar band, fronted by a great poet who takes those alcohol drenched nights and extracts their meaning, half-singing, half-reading them (if there's any justice in the world) from scrawlings on a cocktail napkin. This is a band that rocks, and a band that writes songs about the beauty within every drunken teen and twenty something. If they can combine the masterful craftsmanship of this album with their ability to construct a story arc like they did on their previous Separation Sunday, they may put out a truly phenomenal album one day. But you don't have to hit a home run every time if you can just get it to the outfield, and if the Hold Steady has a few more albums this good in 'em, they will have made more great music than most bands can hope for.
2. Band Of Horses, Everything All The Time: Stunningly beautiful, and an impressive combination of the big guitar sound of bands like Built to Spill with the country rock leanings of bands like My Morning Jacket. I haven't quite figured out what it means, but unlike Joanna Newsom's album, I'm not sure I have to. There's raw emotion here, and it's expertly projected through the music. It's an impressive album that grabs me quickly and still gives me goosebumps a year and a half later. It's the kind of album that you just have to turn on sometimes and let wash over you like a wave on a moonlit beach.
3. Joanna Newsom, Ys: This one has still has the potential for the kind of greatness that I like to see in a number one album. I almost considered it for the top spot. But that would have been a leap of faith, and I think it will be years before I know for sure how good this album is. Let's move beyond the fact that I once likened Newsom's vocals to a retarded chipmunk. Start with Van Dyke Parks' beautiful orchestration. Then on Joanna Newsom's beautiful harp playing. Then keep looking past the vocals to the carefully constructed lyrics of this five song cycle. Once you've done these things, you may find yourself starting to appreciate Newsom's strange vocal tics and inflections. That's what I did, anyway. Seeing her live helped too, and it's almost a shame that the sparse arrangements her band backed her with live aren't the ones that ended up on record. So my doubts about the album? I haven't cracked the subject matter yet. Newsom has said that this is very much a reflection of her personal life, and there are pangs of loss that pervade the album. But the whole thing's kind of obtuse, hidden behind the adornments of the lyrics. Time will tell, hopefully, what's there, and maybe one day I'll know what this album really holds.
4. Bound Stems, Appreciation Night: A beautiful jumbled mess. As the music flows by like a river, every bit different, don't worry about where it's been or where it's going, just appreciate what it is. To mix my metaphors, it's a great big cookie with a whole lot of little hooks spread throughout like so many nuts, chocolate chips, and dried cherries. As unstructured as it is, the hooks take some time to sink in, and you still may be lost as you jump from hook to hook, but the hooks are there, something to hang your hat on as you absorb the rest of the album. When "Excellent News Colonel" starts with it half sung/half spoken introduction, and a girl says "I've fallen for someone in New York. It's something that I hadn't expected, though I think it's so much better for us both. The timing was abysmal but we tried. I hope you still find the time to write, to tell me about how school ended, and if you've fallen in love. I hope we can keep it up...", I feel like it's me that's just been dumped, no opportunity to defend myself, just... dumped. It's amazingly affecting. And it's just one moment among many.
5. Beirut, Gulag Orkestar & the Lon Gisland EP: Beirut. This album is an accomplishment. For a kid from the American West to so perfectly make sounds that are so... foreign... is astounding. It's mariachis meets Eastern European folk meets the electronic stylings of the Magnetic Fields, and it's beautiful. But there's no emotional connection. It's nifty music but it doesn't connect to me. The musical accomplishments of this album put it this hi, but the lack of any lasting emotional impact keeps it from being even higher.
6. The Decemberists, The Crane Wife: The Decemberists do it again. These guys are on a role, but maybe they're starting to show signs of needing a break. The highs are still there, but the little moments, the ones that surprise you when you sit down and listen, they're not quite there. But that's nitpicking. The band has managed to deftly incorporate some of the prog and metal influences from their Tain EP, with such multi-part bits as "The Crane Wife" and "The Island". And any band that can make a song like "The Crane Wife pt. 3" so immediately captivating certainly shouldn't be calling it quits any time soon. So Decemberists, rest up and come back with something that ranks up there with your best work. And, while I've got your attention, please, please come back to Houston. What did we do to be the redheaded stepchild?
7. I'm From Barcelona, Let Me Introduce My Friends: Wow, this one came out of left field. Take the Polyphonic Spree's huge size, replace the vaguely scary cult-like optimism with wide-eyed child-like optimism, and make something less new age self help and more simple, infectious fun. Fill it with songs about collecting stamps and building treehouses. What a breath of fresh air this one was.
8. Tapes 'n Tapes, The Loon: Another out of left field, easy to enjoy, fun album. Darker in tone than Barcelona, but yet still breezy and fun. Just put it on and enjoy. Don't overanalyze.
9. Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere: Thank you, Danger Mouse, for making hip hop interesting enough to be palatable to me. Thank you Cee Lo for keeping it weird, yet soulful. And thank you both for putting out a song that everybody can love and that will never get old. And thanks for making the rest of the album a blast to listen to as well.
10. M. Ward, Post-War: Like The Decemberists and the Hold Steady, M. Ward keeps the hits coming. He does his gravelly voice old-time folk thing consistently and well. This one may be my favorite yet, although none of them really stick out. If it's not the best thing I've ever heard, it's certainly impressive enough that I'm proud to share a name with this man.
11. Beck, The Information: Beck's attempted return to Odelayishiciousness with Guero was forgettable, but this time he stops it with the quirky folk, stops trying to out-Prince Prince, and stops making the heart-breaking breakup album and writes a kick ass, fun album of the kind of quirky rock hop that made him famous in the first place. As good as some of his other material was, it's good to have the original Beck back.
12. Centro-Matic, Fort Recovery: Centro-matic slows down the metronome, turns up the volume, and slow jams it with lots of starkly beautiful songs set to Will Johnson's scratchy pack-a-day voice. Turn it on, hear the guitars soar and feel the deep foundation of the bass, and enjoy.
13. The Pipettes, Meet The Pipettes: Liquid crush in a bottle (and not like the orange soda). The girls are cute, the sassy british voices are cuter, and girl group pop makes a surprising return forty years later. Charming and beautiful. Suspend disbelief, forget they probably didn't write the songs, and give yourself over to the thinking man's Spice Girls. I can't put this on without getting a smile on my face. Bonus points for the harmony.
14. Lily Allen, Alright Still: Speaking of sassy British chicks, Lily Allen makes an album that also oozes personality, is consistently funny and entertaining if maybe a bit guilty of trying too hard in spots ("Oh my gosh you must be joking me if you think that you'll be poking me"). The music doesn't bore you but doesn't get in the way of the songs either. If only all rich girls that decided they wanted to make a pop album put this much hard work and talent into it, the world would be a better place.
15. Guster, Ganging Up On The Sun: Guster's back, and I'll forgive them if they don't reach the heights of Lost & Gone Forever and particularly Keep It Together. It's still consistently good and consistently Guster, and they can keep making albums like this for as long as they want.
16. Voxtrot, Raised By Wolves, Mothers Daughters Sisters & Wives, & Your Biggest Fan: I have Dan to thank for this one. I figure two EPs and one single count as one album, right? Take some good indie pop, add some competent Smiths-aping, and age it up a bit. Voxtrot put out fun, bouncy, extremely competent pop, and it's the sort of thing everybody should be enjoying.
17. Islands, Return to the Sea: Turns out that it's not so bad that the Unicorns broke up, because ex-Unicorn Nick Diamonds has surpassed them with this album. Extremely quirky, well-arranged and played, lots of hooks. But yet, I never really felt like it grabbed me the way it should have, hence the relatively low rating. Still, it's good; there's no denying that.
18. TV On The Radio, Return To Cookie MountainNow here's a band I only sort of get. I can tell that this is a good, solid album, but like the Islands disc, it doesn't quite grab me. Still, I know enough to tell you that these guys are doing neat, original stuff that nobody else can come close to, and that makes them worth a look.
19. Built To Spill, You In Reverse: Wow, it's been five years since Built To Spill put out an album? It has been a while. Spin the disc up, and as "Going Against Your Mind" stretches out to 8:42, it's entirely reasonable to be thinking that they're back and kicking ass. But that momentum doesn't keep up, and the rest of the album is pretty much forgettable, with the exception of the single-ready "Conventional Wisdom". So in "Going" you have a song that would fit perfectly on Perfect From Now On, and "Wisdom"'s bounce would sit well across from "Sidewalk" on Keep It Like A Secret. I'll cut Doug some slack, and he makes this list rather than the disappointments list on the strength of two songs that rank among his best work. But then I recall that Ancient Melodies of the Future had pretty similar problems. So Doug, bring it back full on hard core next time, OK?
20. Figurines, Skeleton: Nice competent indie rock that fits well alongside Modest Mouse and Built to Spill. So why did I never really go head over heels for this one? No accounting for tastes, I suppose. Could be that months from now I'll pick this up and not put it down for weeks.
21. The Magnolia Electric Co., Fading Trails: Another band who just keeps turning out good albums, but this one lacks the fire of their self-titled debut, and is too soft and depressed to have the emotionally devastating impact of, say, What Comes After The Blues. I can't complain too much, but I hope for more next time.
22. Beach House, Beach House: I get to here and wonder a bit why I didn't put this up higher. Maybe because it's a bit samey, but musically these dusty, rotting, sepia-toned memories are impressively, devastatingly beautiful. But maybe it's not something that I'll find myself listening to all that often.
23. Girl Talk, Night Ripper: Another one that, maybe, should have ended up higher, but maybe it just didn't have staying power. It's an impressive tour of pop music, and it's fun to play "spot the sample" as Girl Talk mixes rock and hip hop hits from the last couple decades. Technically very impressive, fun in its familiarity, but I haven't listened to it in over a year.
24. Camera Obscura, Let's Get Out Of This Country: Out-Belle-&-Sebastianing Belle & Sebastian with this nice disc of twee pop. Fun, consistent, but it didn't blow me away. Still, in a year when Belle & Sebastian disappoint, good to see someone pick up the baton and run.
25. The Beatles, Love: Stuck near the end of the list because, in some senses, it's nothing new. Still, it's fun to hear the Beatles in a different context. It feels fresher. It sounds fresher too, thanks to new mastering. Makes me thing I'll throw down a whole lot of money to grab the remastered Beatles discs when they show up next year, and, honestly, that's the best thing about listening to this disc. Except for one thing. One of Anthology's biggest selling points was its 3 juxtaposed demos of "Strawberry Fields Forever". Here they chronologically make up different sections of the song (along with the final version), and the end result is like time lapse photography. It's amazing, and does a great job of showing how the songs are great at their core, and how the incredible production that the Beatles were famous for in their later years makes them even better.
26. Ben Folds, Supersunnyspeedgraphic, The LP: Stuck on here for completion's sake, because all of this material has been put elsewhere. There are some nice moments here, though, and anyone who's a fan should have it if they don't have everything where it was originally published.
27. Hotel Lights, Hotel Lights: Pleasant, pretty, blippy, and totally not what I would have expected from former Ben Folds Fiver Darren Jesse. Not super memorable but likable. A bit samey, perhaps.

Disappointments & Other "Meh"s

• Belle & Sebastian, The Life Pursuit: This is not why I listen to Belle & Sebastian. This bores me. Sorry guys. This happy funky 70s stuff is just not the right direction.
• Junior Boys, So This Is Goodbye: Cindy said this was too "gay" for me, but I dunno. Cold and innorganic; just totally not my thing.
• Sufjan Stevens, The Avalanche: Sufjan, I love you, I made Illinois my #1 album of last year, but sir, you need an editor! As if Illinois wasn't overlong already, we don't need another 80 minutes of forgettable outtakes. There's some nice stuff on here, but I just don't feel like slogging through all this crap to get to it. Brevity, sir, Brevity.
• Summer Hymns, Backward Masks: These guys have gone from endearing, clever, quirky, memorable psychedelic indie rock to completely boring alt country. 2003's Clemency had me worried, and this one confirmed it. Whoever did the interesting shit needs to come back, and fast.
• Tenacious D, The Pick Of Destiny: There are two good songs on this album: "Kickapoo" and "The Metal" (which I'm looking forward to playing in Guitar Hero III). There are even a couple other decent tracks. But after six years, I expected better. The rest of this album is just lame. And if the music's this bad, the movie must be complete crap.
• The Flaming Lips, At War With The Mystics: Guys. I expect better. You've got your moments here, but man, this is just so mediocre. This is the band that brought me Soft Bullettin and so much other brilliance?
• The Walkmen, A Hundred Miles Off: "Louisiana" is great. The rest of this album, it's just boring. Sorry.
• The Raconteurs, Broken Boy Soldiers: Not bad, but just not all that great. If it hadn't been Jack White, these guys wouldn't have gotten much press. Except for "Intimate Secretary". That one's good. That one can stay. I was hoping seeing White outside of the Stripes would reveal new things, especially when before this year it seemed like the Stripes might have run out of ideas. But now I've heard the new Stripes album, it's decent, and it's certainly better than this.

Undecided & Underlistened

• Badly Drawn Boy, Born In The U.K.: If I'd gotten through this one more than once, I'm guessing it'd end up on the disappointments list. From brilliance to this.
• Neko Case, Fox Confessor Brings The Flood: Cindy loved this. I listened to it once and never picked it up again. Points for being super hot, though.
• Destroyer, Destroyer's Rubies: Tried listening to it once. Didn't go so well.
• Danielson, Ships: I was not impressed.
• Final Fantasy, He Poos Clouds: Owen's music just gets boring, I think. Did I even get through this one once? I'm not sure.
• Ben Kweller, Ben Kweller: Forgettable.
• Sean Lennon, Friendly Fire: Didn't get around to listening.
• Liars, Drum's Not Dead: When I tried to listen to it, it was too weird. Never got back to it.
• Malajube, Trompe-L'Oeil: Picked this one back up towards SxSW time. Pretty good. Would have ended up on the list, in the back third, if I'd gotten to it sooner.
• Mates Of State, Bring It Back: I saw them live. I don't remember much of it.
• Rock Plaza Central, Are We Not Horses: Picked this up on Jeff's urging. Seemed OK but only listened a couple of times.
• Jason Molina, Let Me Go Let Me Go Let Me Go: Didn't finish listening to this one in time, but since then I've decided it's a little flat. With so much more interesting work that the man's put out, I don't see listening to this one much. Not that it's bad...
• Ms. John Soda, Notes And The Like: Didn't grab me the way the last one did.
• Peter Bjorn And John, Writer's Block: Also picked this one up around SxSW time.
• Secret Machines, Ten Silver Drops: Never even listened.
• Sunset Rubdown, Shut Up I Am Dreaming: This one's probably pretty good but I never listened to it that consistently.
• The Divine Comedy, Victory For The Comic Muse: Decent but not all that great, certainly not as brilliant as the last one. Still deserves more listens.
• The Advantage, Elf-Titled: OK but not best-of material. Rock interpretations of video games music are not something I pull out often, but I guess I'll add this to my go-to albums for that genre.
• The Gothic Archies, The Tragic Treasury: Need to give this one more listens. Stephin Merrit's quiet indie goth project takes on Lemony Snicket's dark books. On paper it makes sense.
• Scott Walker, The Drift: Now this one has some potential. But it's so dark and so slow I'm never in the mood for it.
• …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, So Divided: Only made it through once or twice. Got bored. Maybe Pitchfork was right in calling their slow decline. I still think Worlds Apart was OK though.
• Youth Group, Casino Twilight Dogs: Picked it up this year. Good, but didn't capture my attention the way their last one did.
• Thom Yorke, The Eraser: Decent, but I'll just listen to Radiohead.
• Two Gallants, What The Toll Tells: Love these guys live but their albums never quite grab me. Not sure why; they're not all that different. Again, no accounting for taste.
• The Strokes, First Impressions Of Earth: Listened once. Wasn't impressed.

If those last two lists were too critical or too depressing for you, go back and reread the "Best Of" list. There, that's better, isn't it? 2006 was a great year for music; 2007 is shaping up quite well also. Last week I was feeling overwhelmed by the large amount of new music that I try to take in; going back it's nice to see so many gems that I pick up and can go back to whenever I want. Quite refreshing.

I'll also add that I discovered Art Brut's first album from 2005 and that it was phenomenal. Maybe something else from '05 got left out too; can't quite remember. Best single was probably "Crazy". Not sure I picked up any interesting mainstream singles beyond that. I'll end by noting that Okkervil River put out a solid EP, Overboard & Down, with a great single, "The President's Dead", and an absolutely, incredible, phenomenal song, "Love to a Monster".

See you next year. Preferably a whole lot earlier. Or maybe even late this year!

Oh, and Bryan wants me to turn my list into a mix. I'll probably still get around to that.

Music and memory

Pitchfork has a nice column on the influence of music on memory, and vice-versa. Worth a read.

The Bedroom Stereo

The Receiver

On the several occasions (most of which involved poker), I'd been over at Oliver's, I'd taken notice of the vintage receiver he had. I didn't remember it sounding very good. At first it was hooked up to some Bose speakers; they didn't sound good, which is not surprising since they're Bose. They might have been vintage, though, in which case they were probably pretty decent but maybe just getting old, or it might have been them not being set up properly. Later on he bought some active Sony speakers, which was almost assuredly even more of a step down.

Point being, the old thing had never really impressed me. So when he offered it to me because he was getting some sort of iPod speaker system...

Tangent: iPod speaker systems are rather silly things. Unless you're very space-challenged, or you're buying them to be portable, that is. Generally, they're bad speakers and bad electronics. With a few exceptions, you're better off with an iPod dock and a set of good computer speakers. But hell, people love 'em. Who am I to argue?

...I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with it, but hell, if he was getting rid of it anyway, I'd at least be interested in playing around with. Especially since he said it had vacuum tubes.

Which it really didn't, as I discovered when I got it home and popped the top of the case off. This after lugging the surprisingly heavy thing up the stairs. It looked to be in pretty good shape, actually.

Rather than set it up in my living room with the main system, which would have been difficult for several reasons (tons of gear hooked up to my home theater receiver, wouldn't have worked well with my subwoofer, etc.), I set it up in my bedroom with the speakers that I have in there. Normally, I run them as a "B" set of speakers off of the main amp in the living room, but that leaves me without the ability to do things like choose music and adjust volume, both of which are handy things.

The Speakers

These speakers started out being a pair of big Technics with 8" woofers. They were a fun speaker, but not really an audiophile-quality one, so at some point when someone posted to the NHT message board that he was selling a pair of their classic SuperOne speakers, I offered to buy them. And I was too late. But the seller noted that OneCall, one of NHT's few authorized internet retailers, had SuperZeroes on clearance for $130 per pair.

Sadly, they were the "Xu" version, in plastic cabinets instead of their standard piano black-painted fiberboard. But hey, the sound would still be there. The SuperZero is really a classic loudspeeker, giving unbelievably good sound for their original 1993 retail price of $230 (and Corey Greenberg's review in Stereophile of the SuperZeroes is really a classic bit of audiophile literature). Of course there has to be a catch; with their small 4" woofers and sealed cabinet design (I'll explain that one in another post), they don't put much bass out. Well, really, they don't put any bass out.

So after I got them and set them up and realized I couldn't exactly handle that (I like a realistic amount of bass), I posted again on NHT's board looking for an inexpensive (under $300) subwoofer, and, as luck would have it, "Chip" was selling an NHT SW1P and matching amplifier/crossover for $175 or so, which was designed to mate with the SuperZeroes.

So, take the full range speaker signal from the B outputs of my receiver, run it through the crossover and then run the outputs to the sub and the speakers, and I had an amazingly kickass bedroom set of speakers for $300.

Back to the Receiver

So anyway, I switched the speakers from running off the main system to running off the Pioneer receiver. I hooked up my iPod to the inputs on the back of the 30-year-old receiver (hah!) powered it up, and pulled up some Okkervil River (a favorite for audio testing).

Holy shit did it sound good! That old receiver was amazing. Everything was nice. I took a look at the model number on the front panel; it was a Pioneer SX-737. It was rated at 35 watts per channel, which must be a very honest rating because the SuperZeroes are a little power hungry and it drives them nicely.

So I decided to get a little work done on it. It's a beautiful piece of gear. Reminds me very much of a Kenwood that my parents owned when I was a kid, which I really wish they had kept. Anyway, I figured it was worth putting a little money into, and ultimately it was around $100. Couple that with my $300 in speakers and assorted gear, and I had an incredible system for a super cheap $400. There are crappy mini systems that cost that much! And this was something that I wouldn't be embarassed to have as my main stereo.

The Source

I suggested in my "Hi-Fi 101" post that you could toss the CD player, instead using the computer as a "transport" (something to supply the bits encoding the music on the CD) and read the music as files on a hard drive instead of tracks on a CD. There are advantages to this, such as taking multiple shots at getting an error-free stream of data off of the CD once rather than having to do it in real time, every time.

CD audio is large; a CD holds 800 MB. You can compress it to mp3 or another "lossy" format which removes data that you're not likely to hear (extreme frequencies and quiet things that get covered up by louder sounds, for example), but I find that best for non-critical listening, like in a car or in the background at home or work. For use on my hi-fi rig, I go with a lossless format (Apple Lossless), which simply removes redundancies in the music and, when it gets decoded to be played back, you get an exact copy of the original signal. You can cut out about 40% of the data that way, as opposed to 90% for an mp3. Sacrifices must be made.

Now, if you don't have your computer sitting next to your stereo, you can run a long cord (lame!) or, better, you can have something hooked up to your stereo that can wirelessly pull music off of your hard drive, decode any compression you've applied, and send the signal along to a DAC, or run it through its own DAC and send the analog signal on to your pre-amp.

Which is what I have. In the main system, it's accomplished by the Apple Airport Express. Basically, the AX is a wireless router which also acts as a wireless receiver for iTunes. iTunes does the heavy lifting, decoding mp3s and whatnot, but re-encoding in Apple Lossless to transmit over the air to the AX, which decodes this, and then outputs a digital or analog signal. It works well in that setting where I always have my laptop nearby.

I considered that option for my bedroom system. But I'd have to have a computer in my bedroom to choose songs and so forth, or would have to walk into the living room to do it. I could also just use an iPod, but that's lame, if for no other reason than that I have to dig it out of my bag and hook it up at bedtime when I want to listen to music.

Instead, there are things that do heavier lifting, such as the Roku Soundbridge and the Slim Devices Squeezebox. These also pull music over your wireless network, but give you an interface for browsing and choosing songs, and can also decode any compression you may have.

The Roku can act as a client for iTunes' built-in music sharing, which is a nice, simple solution. Plus it could read Apple Lossless natively—when the player can't read a format natively, the computer has to translate it into a format the player can read before sending it over the network, which introduces its own set of problems. Plus, it was $150 (on sale), half the price of the $300 Squeezebox.

So I ordered and bought the Roku, and while I like the product a lot, it relies on the older, slower 802.11b wireless networking. This has a maximum throughput of 12 megabits per second, much higher than the 600 or so kilobits per second that losslessly compressed audio requires, but the Roku just could hack it, and I got very frequent skips in the music when the player couldn't get the data fast enough. This is, frankly, unworkable and inexcusable. So back it went. Plus, Stereophile's review of the Roku found some major design flaws in things from an audio perspective.

And instead, I ponied up for the Squeezebox. The Squeezebox relies on its own server software run on the computer, which is open source and quite flexible. It adds a layer of complexity but also means there are a ton of things that I can configure to my perspective. For example, El Ten Eleven: do they get filed under "El" or under "Ten"? It's my choice.

The Squeezebox doesn't decode Apple Lossless natively, but the transcoding works quite well, only using 5% of my CPU time. Only thing is you can't fastforward and rewind within tracks, just skip from one to the next or previous. The Squeezebox also has a far better DAC built in (so says Stereophile), which is important when you use the analog outputs since your 30-year-old receiver was around before the days of digital audio.

There was one more issue. I can pick music via remote control, but the Pioneer has no remote control, so no volume control... on the receiver. The Squeezebox has a volume control, though. It's not ideal, as it's done digitally, which means that some low level musical detail can be lost, but if I'm in bed going to sleep, I can handle that to have the option of adjusting the volume from the comfort of my pillow.

Conclusion

So there you go. A wonderful stereo at $100 of work on a free receiver, $300 worth of speakers and associated electronics, and then a splurge of a $300 networked music player. I'm super proud of it. Now if only that backlight in the receiver had a dimmer...

Mazdaspeed 3

This video makes me warm and fuzzy inside.

Update: If any of you found the least bit interesting, here's a story on Autoblog with more info and more videos. Of particular note is that this was the driver's first time behind the wheel of the MS3 and first time around the 'ring.

Will's birthday; New toy; Seminars, drinking, cigars; Half Nelson

2/27

So. About six months prior Will's green iPod mini got swiped out of his lab (he thinks by a scruffy looking college student that had a temporary position). I decided that nobody who has lived with an iPod should have to go back to living without one, so for his birthday I endeavored to gather a group of people to buy Will a new iPod.

After some exploratory fundraising, aided by Char, I settled on a 4 GB nano, the same size as his previous iPod, again in green. Which is what I was doing at Best Buy the previous saturday.

So I got everyone that contributed and could join us together at Woodrow's, and somebody made sure to get Will there. While we were waiting we let everybody sign a card.

Leroy had picked up a miniature Spider-Man lunch box which we were going to present to Will as his "present" with the iPod hidden inside.

In the end we managed to genuinely surprise him, and he was appropriately thankful. I was glad to have organized such a fun favor for a friend, and was excited about getting back to giving Will good music.

2/28

Will needed to fill up his iPod, so I hitched a ride with him. We decided to make an evening of it and started by hitting the comic store, then grabbing dinner (the traditional Double Dave's), and then back to my place to get that iPod filled up.

3/1

Somebody had been working on putting together a med center-wide happy hour for the students, but whoever planned them must not have been a grad student, because they didn't realize that to get grad students to come to things, you need cheap drinks and free food. The happy hour was held at the overly fancy Trevisio's on the top floor of a med center building, and featured the usual in lame appetizers (crackers, cheese, fruit tray, vegetable tray), and $4 beers. An assortment of people from the lab went, and I decided to go too, using the opportunity to sneak out of lab early to also catch the early bus home so that I could retrieve my new networked digital music player that had been delivered (see previous post about my bedroom system).

I had just enough time to get it up and running before Cindy and I went to meet Shawn and Sabrina at Spaghetti Western, where I'd been once before with Lauren. Three of us started with a round of margaritas (decent, though I might opt for the additional amaretto floater next time), while Shawn had a beer. We ordered some cheese bread for an appetizer, which is hard to mess up, but that's not to say it wasn't enjoyable. For my entree I selected the tombstone chicken, a grilled chicken breast held vertically by being wedged between two pieces of eggplant parmesan, topped with greens and sauced with marinara and their chipotle alfredo. Clever plating, and tasty. I think I talked Cindy into the Italian enchiladas; always good.

3/2

Drunk early, dinner, cigars
Will and I headed over to Rice for a physics talk. It was some interesting culture shock; everything was, dare I say, much more scientific than the usual biology talk. Of course I couldn't really keep up with the theory, but it was still an educational experience.

Afterwards I went to the usual Friday seminar while Will hung out at Valhalla, and then we started drinking the free after-seminar beer and chatted with Jeff and some professors. Will gave me a ride home, but we stopped off at the village for a beer... which became two... which became a trip across the street to Baker Street for more beer. Will went to retrieve his car from the garage while I walked over to the Briar Shoppe to pick up some cigars.

I got home and started sobering up, Cindy came over with some Chinese takeout, and after dinner we met up with Char and Angela for cigars and beer. It was a nice night, and we sat alone out on the other patio whose existence I was completely unaware of. All very pleasant.

3/3

Cindy and I decided to rent (or maybe borrow) a movie to watch, and ended up with Half Nelson. I guess it was competent enough, but it didn't leave much of an impression.

Price/Performance Ratio

Price versus performance is often talked about, but considering that these two things obviously have the makings of a ratio, it's surprising nobody ever does so. So it's nice to see that the free online car Magazine Winding Road has a nice article proposing a measure of price/performance for cars.

It's far from complete, with performance only considering power (horse power, that is) to weight ratio, but it's a reasonably handy statistic and I'd like to see it referred to more often.

And guess who comes out on top? It's the Ariel Atom! Except we'll skip that one as it's basically a kit car, their motto is "No Door. No Screen. No Roof." and it's obviously not a daily driver.

Next up? The Mazdaspeed 3! Nicely done, Mazda, nicely done.

I guess motorcycles would totally dominate this category, in a way similar to that in which the Atom does. So when you look at the numbers, you obviously have to judge practicality on your own terms. But still, nifty.

Politics; Recruiting; Symphony; Museum; Laser Tag

2/19

Another night of Dan spinning at the Proletariat. Greg was there and Cindy and I talked with him about his... interesting political views. Fairly... conspiratorial ones, and very... theoretical. I can see people suggesting that 9/11 was perhaps allowed by our government. Tt being perpetrated by Americans; ideas of concentrations camps being built in America; that it doesn't matter which political party controls the government; a government with biological and nanotechnology years ahead of what academics knows about, it's all just too fantastic. It's hard for me to understand how someone can accept so many improbably things at once.

2/22

I was asked by our current admin Amy to perform a task which I'm always glad to take on, that of buying beer for the recruiting dinner. So I dropped that off at school in the morning, had lunch with our recruits, and had a nice free lunch with the recruits (none of whom really stand out), went about my normal work day, went to the on-site dinner... let's pause here. A lousy catered dinner in a fluorescently-lit classroom is not the way to wow recruits. I realize that it lets more faculty come, because faculty are flaky, but really, who cares? Schedule a mixer or something, and then let us take the recruits out for dinner somewhere nice. Please?

After that, we did get to take them out for drinks. Sensing an opportunity, I chose the Volcano, which, with their specialty drinks and general pricey-ness. It was, as was expected, a nice setting, and the drinks were good. Cindy never quite was persuaded that it was OK to take advantage of my program's budget, but I bought her a couple of drinks.

2/23

Galleria, Pappasito's, School, Home, Symphony, Hans'

The recruits had a free morning, and one of them wanted to go to Tiffany's to buy something for his wife. When it's recruiting time I'm in the business of a) getting free food and booze and b) keeping the recruits happy, so we headed off to the galleria, while I gave a running commentary on the city.

Afterwards we met up at Pappasito's, and, having learned my lesson about ordering pitchers of margaritas and thus not getting the premium ones, I instead made sure to order my own margarita this year. Or maybe two; I forget. I again chose to push for the grilled platter with its abundance of fajitas, sausage, quail, ribs, and shrimp.

And then of course I couldn't quite stay awake through Mike's thesis defense when we got back to BCM.

After that, I skipped seminar to go home and iron for our first date with the Houston Symphony, which was a pleasure (though I may have nodded off a couple of times there, too). Afterwards we met up with Char, Angela, etc. for some bier at Hans'. Sadly, no recruits wanted to go out, so no freebies.

2/24

After running a quick errand at Best Buy for Will (more on that later) on the way home from Susan and Jerry's. Afterward, I placed a quick call to Dan to see if he was going to that night's mixed media night at the MFAH. Dan was previously thought to have a date, and had set up his whole VIP thing, but by the time I called it had fallen through, so I picked him up, went home to change, and then we went to the museum, VIP access and all. As soon as we got there we started in on the free booze. I ran into Cindy's roommate Sarah and her boyfriend and hooked them up with some free drinks, because I could. Cindy herself was at a bachelorette party. Dan and I continued the drinking and socializing.

As the party was wrapping up, Dan asked if I could fit a bicycle in my car. This was a little confusing, as neither of us had come with a bicycle, but I answered the question in the affirmative. Turns out there were a couple of young ladies that wanted a ride to the after party. I had a great time the last time I went to an afterparty with Dan, so I figured, hell, why not?

Turns out the young ladies really were young. Nineteen young. After getting directions to the party from a confused friend of theirs via cell phone who kept wondering exactly who I was ("Dude, I'm the driver!"), we headed over to the warehouse district. Dan got us in free thanks to knowing the door guy, and we got in on the free keg action. Ironically labeled "drank" (probably just vodka and fruit juice) was also being served, for a price.

We all left to hang out with the girls and their friends while they "smoked out" as the kids say, which normally I would have been quite paranoid about being around in public, but I had been plied all evening with free booze, so I was decidedly easy-going.

Anyway, more free drinks, socializing, etc. and then it was time to call it a night.

2/25

I had a solid hangover the next day, so I was a bit late getting to Baker's birthday party out west near Char's place at the go kart track/laser tag arena. I got there in time to watch the guys do a few laps on the track, but there was a game of laser tag which I got in on, and that was pretty nifty.

By the time we got back to Char's for beer and cake, I had moved from a hangover to neck ache, so I went home for a nap. But hey, good times that weekend, so it was all worth it.

Little Children; Valentine's Day; Dan & Modest Mouse; Bowling; Chinese New Year

2/12

Will and I resumed our Angelika Mondays with the viewing of Little Children, a tale of suburban ennui, extramarital affairs, and child molesters. It was certainly an interesting exploration of its themes. It's been a while so not all of my impressions are still remembered, but I think I was a little iffy on its conclusions. I could go back and read up on it, but movie reviews aren't exactly an emphasis of mine.

One thing I will comment on is this: if you go into a nearly empty theater, do not sit directly in front of the other people in the theater, particularly if seating options are plentiful. Sometimes, people like to put their feet up, or not have to listen to your idiotic chattering. It's not a big deal, exactly, except that it doesn't hurt you to fucking sit somewhere else. It really doesn't. All things being equal, if you have a choice between inconveniencing someone you dont' know, and not doing it, just don't. It's that simple.

2/13

Cindy and I decided once again to cook our own Valentine's Day dinner, so I spent my time going to the grocery store, etc.

2/14

There was morning run to pick up flowers and some last minute items from Central Market.

And then I ironed a shirt, got dressed up fancy, and started on dinner.

I had decided to try out Alton Brown's take on meatballs. The recipe includes the use of beef, pork, and veal; parmesan cheese for flavor, bread crumbs for body (I used the Italian-seasoned variety because hey, you can't have too much flavor), spinach and egg to bind it, and some various herbs and seasonings. Cooking them in a miniature muffin tin helps heat them evenly.

With this we had some fettucini and (just a little) marinara sauce, a salad (Cindy), tomato and white bean bruschetta (the secret is slicing open a piece of garlic and rubbbing it on the freshly toasted bread) (again, Cindy), and creme brulée with real vanilla bean (again Cindy). And a bottle of wine.

It turned out really nice. The meatballs were great and I would enjoy them a lot over the next few days. I'd love to always have a batch in the refrigerator.

The entire evening was nice as well. It was probably the first meal eaten on my dining room table since, well, last Valentine's Day.

I think we ended up watching TV instead of renting a movie, but as good as TV was this spring, that worked well.

2/15

Cindy came over for TV and then left early because of a conference the next day, and then Char called and invited me out for a beer. Details escape me.

2/16

The receiver was fixed and I went to pick it up but the guy wasn't there. Whoops.

Went over to Rice for seminar, but Char and instead opted to hide out in Valhalla and drink cheap beer until seminar was over, when we could move on to the free beer.

Cindy was away at her thing, so I enjoyed a relaxing evening at home before catching up with Dan online and deciding to pick up some beer and go hang out over at his place. We listened to music (including the new Modest Mouse, which had leaked out in an event almost as big as the Arcade Fire album), had beer, chatted. It was a pretty nice evening.

2/17

Picked up the receiver in the morning and everything was in good working order. More on that shortly.

Char and I ended up going bowling with BT and her friend whose name I can never remember but was Helen Humphrey's roommate at Baylor. We opted to get some beer at the closest non-bowling alley bar to the bowling alley, Bellaire Little Woodrow's. It's a quaint little place, right next to the railroad tracks. I liked it, but drinking in the Bellaire/Southside/West U area scares the fuck out of me.

Bowling was OK. I bowled a decent game though I discovered that my Wii bowling skills didn't exactly transfer over. For the second game I decided I wanted to try to learn how to put spin on the ball.

That didn't go well.

2/18

Cindy got back from her conference and since she had decided not to go to her parents', we grabbed some brunch—I think we hit up La Mexicana again.

Later on, we went to Dacia's girlfriend Lorien's Chinese New Year party. They had put out some nice vegan springrolls and potstickers, and there was plenty of beer. Everyone was glad to see Cindy as she brough an air of legitimacy (as well as legitimate foods) to the proceedings, despite not actually being Chinese. Cindy ran into somebody she knew. We talked to Lorien's roommate who it turns out had done some PR work for Baylor and interviewed Cindy's boss. Kristin was there, as was Dan, which was a little awkward, but it didn't stop Dan from chatting up a German girl whom he seemed to get on pretty well with, although it turned out she eventually stood him up. I know how that one goes.

Anyway, great evening all in all. As I often say, I miss parties and don't get to go to enough of them.

An Ocean of Noise

There's a lot of new music that comes out. Some of it is even good. So how to deal with it all?

First, what to... obtain. I download before I buy these days; I've bought too many bad CDs to waste money on more. Plus if I wait, I can buy CDs when I see the artists in concert and they get more money that way.

So then since money isn't an issue, at least not in the short term, the limiting factor is time.

So, things I download: new releases by artists I like; things that Pitchfork recommends, if they sound appealing or if Pitchfork recommends them particularly vehemently; things that friends recommend; or old releases I've always meant to check out, back catalogs of artists I just got into, etc.

These things go on the list. The list started out on a post-it on my desk at work, where I get a lot of this listening done. Then it was several post-its, then I finally finished by moving to a Google spreadsheet, which I can handily access from whichever computer I happent to be close to. Which I admit is terrificly nerdy, but hell, this is all about being a music nerd.

The list used to be a fairly loose concept, and after I decided I'd become sufficiently familiar, I'd cross something off. A couple years back Lauren had suggested (not aware of my list) that five listens were sufficient to decide whether an album was your cup of tea or not.

Which is close to the truth. So I try to listen to each album 5 times. At that point, it gets cut loose. Either I come back to it and listen to it, or I forget about it. Maybe I'll pick it back up; maybe I won't.

If I listen to it frequently, I try to buy it. If not, well, wait and see.

As of now, there are 132 albums on the list. So it occurs to me that I probably won't listen to them all five times. That's OK. If something is so completely uncompelling that I can't even listen to it 5 times, I'll let it be and it can either wither or age on the vine. Maybe a couple of years from now I'll just throw it away. Maybe I'll come back to it.

This is why I have 10,590 songs in my main digital music library, 28 days worth of music, 50 GB. This is why I had to upgrade from an 80 GB hard drive to a 160 GB hard drive in my laptop, at great expense to... someone else.

It's far from a perfect system. I need to listen to more old stuff. But it can evolve freely, and does.

Emotiva, the $1000 Stereo, and the $500 stereo

I stumbled upon this a couple weeks ago, but needed to get my big "Hi-Fi 101" post written first or this wouldn't have made any sense.

So I was following up on a namedrop on one of my most frequent audiophile hangouts about an internet stereo electronics company, Emotiva.

Their stuff seems to be quite good. Quality components, realistic power ratings, nice looking, etc. Although sadly, recently when I was asked to recommend some stereo equipment to somebody looking to put together a $1000 system (a nice sweet spot), they didn't have a ~$400 integrated amplifier or receiver for me to recommend, they did have this neat little thing, the BPA-1.

Although I haven't heard it and can't comment definitively, this seems to be an absolutely wonderful project.

You see, the nice thing about stereo components is that, since they're reasonably modular, you can buy a system in bits and pieces, particularly if you start with used or just plain cheap gear to make your initial system, and then upgrade it a piece at a time.

The problem is that if you buy gear that's, say, cheap enough to put together a $500 system, you end up with crap that you're going to throw out, or if you put together a $1000 system and want to expand, you may end up wasting a decent thing.

Let's look at how this little guy, the BPA-1 (shame they didn't give it a cute little name to go with its appearance), avoids that problem.

You want a cheap system. We'll ignore the question of a source; everybody has an iPod, a DVD player, or a computer. Worst comes to worst, you go buy that $30 portable CD player from Wal-Mart; it'll get the job done. It's the least important part of the chain because it's the easiest to do passably.

You buy a cheap but good set of speakers, say, the PSB Alpha B1, carried by my wonderful dealer and recently glowingly reviewed in Stereophile.

They're $279; we'll round up to $300. That leaves us with $200 left in the budget. To get a decent stereo amp that will last you, you could get, say, an NAD C320BEE ($400) or a Cambridge Audio Azur 540A ($500). Either way you're over budget.

Or you could buy the Emotiva, for $180. It's a stereo integrated amp. So that plus speakers plus a source, and you have a system for $460. You're $40 underbudget, which is enough to cover tax, shipping, cables, something along that line.

Now you sacrifice a few things. There's no remote control. It only takes one source. In this age of mp3 players, for a stereo that exists purely to play music, you only need one source. And get up off the couch to change the volume; it'll do you good not to be so lazy. Or get a source with volume control (again, mp3 player, with a really long set of interconnects or a remote control).

Maybe you want more power. You can buy a new integrated amp or receiver, and this little amp could find a nice home in a second system, or biamp your speakers (sepparate amplifier channels for low and high frequency drivers). Or add a passive subwoofer and use this to drive it; it has a built-in low pass filter!

Or just buy a preamp, and use two of these things to drive your speakers. You can run them as monoblock amps (two mono amps), or use four channels of amplification to biamp your speakers.

So in summary, one tremendously flexible piece of gear that is a:

• Stereo integrated amp
• Stereo power amp (with adjustable gain)
• Monoblock power amp
• Subwoofer amp

So nifty. I want one and I don't have a use for it yet. It'd be perfect for my bedroom system, if I didn't already have the vintage receiver. Or it'd be great for an office system. Or a new subwoofer amp if my sub ever goes out. Or if I ever get around to getting a starter system for Cindy.

So. Cool.

Lab meeting and new toy; BBQ; Vinyl Edge and Jana Hunter

2/5

Did the lab meeting thing. I had new data which covered up any inadequacies in my presentation quite nicely.

Took off early to get home and grab my new toy, a Roku Soundbridge M1001. Of course, it ended up not really working. But more on that later.

Later: Cindy, TV, and Dan DJs at the Prole.

2/8

Once I had, new toy in hand, listened for a while to the receiver that Oliver had given to me, I noticed the right channel going in and out, and after confirming that the problem did not lie with my speakers or my subwoofer crossover/amp, I decided that I liked the receiver well enough to see about getting it cleaned, etc. At least I thought that was what it needed. Some of the switches made some noise when they were flipped, so I figured that was what it needed. And the backlighting seemed to be dim in one place.

So I first called up the one stereo store in town that I had any amount of faith in, Audio Concepts, who had previously been very nice about showing me some Magnepans and some Vandersteens (speakers). I asked if they did service or could refer me to someone. After telling them about the vintage Pioneer receiver, they referred me to somebody that did warranty work for Pioneer gear.

They were assholes. "Well, we don't have time to be wasting on old gear, so we'll do it when we can get to it, and it'll probabaly cost $400." Fuck you, you pretentious dicks.

So, on to polling through the "TV and radio repair" (how quaint!) section of Citysearch. I made about 20 calls. There was "no, we don't do that". There was "yes, we can do that; is it under warranty"—I said it was from 1974; your asking if it's under warranty clearly shows that you were not listening, or that you're an idiot, neither of which results in you getting my business. There was "yes, we can probably do that". And finally, there were two "Don't those old Pioneers sound great? We'll go over it with a fine tooth comb. All we do is service, so we want to earn your business." Bingo. One was west of the loop and the other was in Clearlake; and so I went with the one that was closer, Houston Audio Video.

Anyway, once I had found a place, I took Thursday morning and drove out and dropped it off to be, hopefully, well cared for.

Over Christmas, Dad, Becca and I had smoked some more ribs. We backed off on the rub too much, and they weren't quite as good, but that's nothing that heating them up slow in the oven drenched in BBQ sauce wouldn't fixed.

So to enjoy that, Cindy came over and she made potato salad and I made baked beans, and we had a nice little BBQ dinner together.

After that, a little trip up to Woodrow's to meet some people for some beer.

2/9

Got a ride with Char to seminar. At Rice, all visitor parking is paid, and fairly steep at that. However, there seems to be some sort of understanding that you can park along the interior streets, if you leave your emergency flashers on. I'd certainly done it before, and Char was in the habit of doing it for Keck.

Except he forgot to turn his flashers on. So when we got out, he had a ticket. Under the comments section, "no flashers". That's right. Flashers equals no ticket; no flashers equals ticket. There's some kind of internal logic there, but nothing that can really be considered logic in the strict sense of the word.

2/10

Detour to Vinyl Edge; Jana @ Rudz

Despite the fact that Susan and Jerry had warned me against going there after dark, I took the jaunt from their place over to Vinyl Edge not too far east of them, which Cindy insisted was perfectly safe. And, well, it was.

Anyway, the point to this excercise was to buy a few concert tickets without the service fee. But I checked out the shop while I was there. Small place, lots and lots of records, a lot of which weren't really... organized. If I was a real record collector, I could imagine the place being very exciting. Still, interesting to check out, and mission accomplished.

Afterwards, Cindy and I went up to Rudyard's to see Jana Hunter play. She seemed glad to see us there, but quite nervous: when onstage, "I like it when you guys are quiet. It makes it feel like I'm not performing for an audience". Anyway, good show.

"It was [40] years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play."

Stealing a page from Brina's book, today I bring you an entry titled with lyrics to a song. However, these aren't tangentially related to the subject at hand; they are the subject at hand.

Glorious noise takes note of the 40th anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Besides the obvious and traditional reasons, Sgt. Pepper's is an album close to my heart, and to which I owe a great debt.

My Beatles phase (and, not coincidentally, my entire musical journey) started with the Beatles Anthology TV documentary, and so the Anthology CDs were the first I bought and the first I knew.

I remember hearing, randomly, on some oldies or classic rock radio station the "Sgt. Pepper's Reprise" and "A Day In The Life" and being blown away. After that I started picking up the Beatles' real studio albums, and Sgt. Pepper's was the first and most influential, regardless of whether it was the best.

"A Day In The Life" is still one of my favorite Beatles tunes. Chock full of stuff yet goes down like greased butter.

Linked to in the GloNo article is a Time magazine article dating from the year of the album's release. It's a brilliant read for a number of reasons which I will append to this post when I have time to mark up my copy of the article and craft a proper response.