Analog Corner

Analog Corner #54 In Heavy Rotation

1) Wood: Songs From Stamford Hill (Columbia CD)
2) The Beatles: Yellow Submarine Songtrack (Apple/EMI yellow vinyl import LP)
3) XTC: Homespun-Apple Venus Home Demos (Cooking Vinyl import LP)
4) Captain Beefheart: Grow Fins Volume 2 (Xeric, 2 LPs)
5) Jason Falkner: Can You Still Feel? (Lovitt LP)
6) Him: Sworn Eyes (Bubblecore 2LPs)
7) Gomez: Liquid Skin (Virgin 2LP import)
8) Patricia Barber: Companion (Blue Note/Premonition CD)
9) Paquito D'Rivera: Tropicana Nights (Chesky CD)
10) Esquivel: See it in Sound (7N CD)
ARTICLE CONTENTS

COMMENTS
PAR's picture
Submitted by PAR on Sun, 2017-09-10 07:18

Whatever happened to those small brands like Sivernote or Loth-X since? Looking at old reports such as this or thumbing through old audio yearbooks just demonstrates the plethora of brands that tried and failed. The attrition rate in this area is almost as bad as in the restaurant business.

Of course the Hi-Fi News Show itself ceased to be shortly afterwards only to be revived a few years ago. However it has now moved to a location out at Runnymead near Windsor which is impossible to get to by public transport. Still, keeps it exclusive.

Saddest of all was the demise of Beanos which closed around 2017 due to lack of custom. The owner tried re-purpose it as a craft market but that lasted only a handful of months. What a pity that they didn't manage to hang on for another couple of years and reap the benefit of the vinyl revival in full flow.

PAR's picture
Submitted by PAR on Sun, 2017-09-10 07:21

Sorry.

Neward Thelman's picture
Submitted by Neward Thelman on Wed, 2017-09-13 21:16

Hobbies:

whittling
stamp collecting
doll collecting
bird watching
Pokemon
lace making
crossword puzzles
sewing
etc.

The pursuit of music by any means necessary is NOT a hobby.

But - probably for those like M. Fremer - music really is nothing more than a ------- hobby. No different than Pokemon.

Hobby on.

isaacrivera's picture
Submitted by isaacrivera on Thu, 2017-09-14 09:10

hob·by
ˈhäbē
noun
1. an activity done regularly in one's leisure time for pleasure.
"her hobbies are reading and gardening"

It being a hobby does not mean it is unimportant, but rather, it is not pursued for practical purposes like financial gain. It is purely optional, one does it for the love of it. This is in my view, a bigger praise, to pursue something when there is no logical argument for it other than how it contributes, in intangible ways, to ones sense of well-being.

Clearly for you "hobby" has negative connotations not supported by the dictionary, but those are semantics, if it's not professional, and done during leisure time, how would you describe it?

Also, you are implying that the activities you mention are somehow lesser in quality to music-listening. If they provide the hobbyist with much needed pleasure and well-being, who are we to judge? To each their own. Importance is on the mind of the beholder and not an intrinsic quality of things or activities.

Neward Thelman's picture
Submitted by Neward Thelman on Thu, 2017-09-14 20:56

>>you are implying that the activities you mention are somehow lesser in quality to music-listening<<

Yep.

Sure enough. Absolutely totally totally totally totally. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.

And - not "somehow". EMPHATICALLY. Whittling? Rock collecting? Yep - those would be the opposite of music [and yes, I urinate on any relativistic view of the world - sue me].

>>not pursued for practical purposes like financial gain<<

Nope. Wrong. WRONG. Here's something someone who knew a thing or two about music said about it:

"Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy".
--- Ludwig van Beethoven

Zat sound like some wimp-ass hobby you're talking about? Some pleasant, mundane little time-filling/time-wasting activity that you shoehorn into your life to waste the days/weeks/years until you die? Until you die?

That'd be a goodly description of your activities that you call hobbies.

Music - and audio as an adjunct - is implicitly something more than that. Something greater - "a higher revelation". Indeed – an INFINATELY higher revelation.

Matter-o-fac, for some it's like touching God.

Zat sound like some effing "hobby"? Not for me.

BUT - for folks like you and M. Fremer here - here's the sad sad sad tragic horrible doomed part. Ready? Here we go:

For you people - and I do mean YOU people - music and audio really actually truly nothing more than ---- hobbies. It's nothing more, nothing higher, nothing better than whittling, gardening, stamp collecting, rock collecting, or whatever. Trivial.

Why? Hwhy? Cause - and here's the tragic part - cause YOU AREN'T CAPABLE OF EXPERIENCING music on any deeper, more profound level than that of a stinking hobby.

In fact - if I have to even offer a syllable of explanation as I have had to do here - than you're already part of the musically untalented/low music IQ/musically mentally challenged sheeple.

If I have to 'splain it - then you don't get it.

Even worse:
If I have to 'splain it - then you can't get it.

And - tragically for you - you'll never get it. For the rest of your misbegotten lives - music will only ever be a ---- hobby for you.

It's like trying to explain astrophysics to a cat. Just not going to happen.

Same thing with you and music. YOU LACK THE CAPACITY to truly experience music.

That's OK. Hobby on.

Michael Fremer's picture
Submitted by Michael Fremer on Fri, 2017-09-15 10:53
You are not! But a drunk you must be.
Neward Thelman's picture
Submitted by Neward Thelman on Fri, 2017-09-15 23:16

No I'm not.

Not drunk, either.

But - I am hobbying. My hobby is tracking down and destroying those who try to tag music as a "hobby".

It's a hobby quest.

You know - the same as what music is to you people.

Michael Fremer's picture
Submitted by Michael Fremer on Fri, 2017-09-15 10:54
INFINATELY
Neward Thelman's picture
Submitted by Neward Thelman on Fri, 2017-09-15 23:14

Typo.

Going too fast - no editing. But, thanks. Spelling counts - as our president needs to learn.

isaacrivera's picture
Submitted by isaacrivera on Fri, 2017-09-15 11:26

Your self indulgent condescending babble makes no sense. To "urinate on any relativistic view of the world" you would have to first prove that the view you are putting forth is not relative. Since all you provide is your opinion, no more or less than anybody else's, and, by definition a relative view, you are basically urinating on your own open mouth.

You lack any logic-thought capacity, command of English semantics, any sensibility or manners. I very much doubt you can actually even begin to understand what I am writing, much less get close to an aesthetic experience of music--or any art form, hobby or craft for that matter. Pity.

I have an extensive Classical LP collection. Beethoven is, of course, a favorite, as is Haydn, Brahms, Mahler, Shostakovich, Boulez, Part... Though none of them surpassed J. S. Bach, in my very relative view. Beethoven, like all great artists, was completely immersed in his art, so he wrote about it in no-ambiguous terms. That does not preclude that humans are capable of deriving intense experiences from a infinite variety of activities. The experience comes from your brain, not from the circumstance of the world. Pretty much all neuroscience research of the last 2 decades proves so. Sorry, you are wrong.

Keep reading Beethoven's letters, you will eventually get to:

"I wish you music to help with the burdens of life ,and to help you release your happiness to others."

Eventually you will understand.

Neward Thelman's picture
Submitted by Neward Thelman on Fri, 2017-09-15 23:41

>>Your self indulgent condescending babble makes no sense<<

Funny - neither does Descartes. You have read it over several times.

>>prove that the view you are putting forth is not relative<<

Wrong. Various social observers and educators have put forth the theory that literacy dropped off with the introduction of television, and then fell even more precipitously with the spread of the internet. Your comment adds proof to that theory. The literature [that means books and articles [both in scholarly journals and before the general public] on the ascendance of relativism in society is extensive - you don't seem to be aware of any of it. Without going on at length, it entails the adoption of the view that there are no absolutes in life - neither in morality nor in any other aspect of human behavior. It sprang from the academic left of the early 1960s. Curiously, it's suffused thru American society so thoroughly that even the most right wing adherents expose some piece of it.

>>basically urinating on your own<<

No - but I would be pissing into yours.

>>much less get close to an aesthetic experience of music--or any art form<<

Duh. Uhhh. Uhhhhhh. Izzat why you think music's a hobby?

>>I have an extensive Classical LP collection<<

Another hobby.

>>Pretty much all neuroscience research of the last 2 decades proves so. Sorry, you are wrong.<<

'Bout what? Zakly. What?

>>Keep reading Beethoven's letters...Eventually you will understand"

What? That it's all just a hobby?

Think I'll start collecting rocks. No different than music or audio - and a whole lot cheaper.

Neward Thelman's picture
Submitted by Neward Thelman on Fri, 2017-09-15 23:57

newthel1@yahoo.com

if you wish to receive my reply to your philatelist views.

Michael Fremer's picture
Submitted by Michael Fremer on Fri, 2017-09-15 10:48
Neward's hobby according to his sign up is "breathing". That Is obviously wrong. His real hobby is masturbating in public.
Neward Thelman's picture
Submitted by Neward Thelman on Fri, 2017-09-15 23:12

No matter the piece of equipment under "review", their reaction is always the same: the same masturbatory, wildly ecstatic response, with the same tiresome litany of mostly rock recordings [always different - wouldn't want to control for even that one variable] that always "make" the reviewer so "engaged" that he/she/it can literally smell the musician's fetid breath and feel the musician's spittle spray across his/her/its face.

Every month - always the same. Any piece of gear - same predictable ecstatic reaction.

THAT - that's what I can Onanism in extremis [look it up].

Neward Thelman's picture
Submitted by Neward Thelman on Fri, 2017-09-15 23:46

I fart a lot. Benjamin Franklin wrote a lengthy treatise on the topic, titled "Fart Proudly".

I do that.

It's a hobby - no different than music or audio - and just as good.

Farting - audio - music - same thing. It's awl good.

Rock on.

God's picture
Submitted by God on Thu, 2019-04-18 00:45

Yo you can't come up to heaven dude sorry, were jammin' some stones up here and sipping margaritas, we just don't want you killing our vibe. Sorry bro, I hear Satan writes some good classical and has a circle-jerk every Wednesday for self-proclaimed music experts. Peace, and Rock On.

TT POTTERY's picture
Submitted by TT POTTERY on Thu, 2024-02-15 07:19

Music and audio are not just hobbies; they're a higher revelation, akin to touching God for some. But sadly, for some, it's merely a pastime, trivial and insignificant.

Enhance your gardening experience with our exquisite clay pottery planters. Crafted with precision and care, our planters not only provide a functional home for your plants but also add a touch of elegance to your outdoor space.

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