Voltron

What's the idea? Phones for Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear?

Leonard Cohen -- Live in London

1990s -- Kicks

I'm sure he was using the iPoop app to record his stools and it kinda slipped out of his hand...

I thought something very similar to that.

Branford Marsalis Quartet -- Metamorphosen

A couple more shows to add. Nels Cline Singers with Jeff Gauthier's Goatette at Yoshi's in Oakland. First was the Goatette with Nels on guitar, Alex Cline on drums, Gauthier on electric violin and bass and keyboards by other guys. Not bad, not remarkable in any real way and electric violin is mostly annoying. Nels was cool and Alex was pretty boring. Then Nels played with his trio the Singers, with a different drummer and bass player. All three are great musicians but it was a little out there and too avant rock jazz. Most "songs" were untitled new pieces and for the most part I was disappointed. JP felt deceived because I told him I thought that it would be relatively song-based jazz not just noise. More noise than not, as it turned out. Last night, however, we saw the incredible Branford Marsalis Quartet at the Palace of Fine Arts in SF. We sat in the front row, on the drummer side because I love Jeff Tain Watts. First thing I noticed from the program was that Tain Watts was not playing drums. What?! The new album Metamorphosen is promoted as being recorded around the tenth anniversary of this quartet's existence without any personnel changes which is indeed rare longevity in jazz combos. Kinda reminds me of the interview from The Kids Are Alright where the interviewer points out that they had been together for a decade and had not yet decayed, and then Keith Moon gets up and says "I'm leaving!"... I don't know why Tain wasn't there, but they played a couple of his compositions and he got lots of applause every time. When the band came out, the drummer looked 12. Turns out he was 17. But damn, can this kid play. He is Justin Faulkner and he is known as a phenom apparently. YouTube is full of his solos and songs from even younger years. This kid kills. And not just fiery solos and showing off. He's got skills and the tools of a very accomplished player. JP pointed out that it would have really sucked to be sitting up front on the drummer side if he were terrible, but instead it was a thrill to watch the Keith Moon of jazz fly. They played two solid hours like they it was a walk in the park. Branford sounded fantastic on tenor and soprana sax and his tone is just amazing. Eric Revis is an amazing bass player and he was really in great form. Joey Calderazzo is always solid on the piano and JP suggested he was channeling Monk during Rhythm-A-Ning. The kid on drums integrated very well with the long-time members, and Branford gave all of them lots of room. Do not miss this quartet if you like jazz at all.

Sheesh, those slackers on HF have only managed 1.5 pages of hollow praise while we already have 4.5 pages of hollow criticism! Hooray!

I hope your birthday is totally Tubular! Cheers

LSO/Rostropovich -- Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 (SACD)

They suck, don't bother. Plus, Albert's probably are soaked with cheap tequila too.

I've never heard that album, but it looks great. Don't know much about Jenkins. What/who does he play like? McCoy Tyner is playing all over the place, except Ohio. You should get to MD, PA or someplace damn soon because this tour is great and he is playing much better than when I saw him a few years ago. He is turning 70 this year, which actually seems young to me. Sadly, it seems Horace Silver has Alzheimers and he is no longer available. I never saw him either.

'grats.

I have several times and I agree you would love it. I also saw his dad play in celebration of his 75th birthday. Clarke68 and I were in the front row and Dewey wailed. It was really great. Then he died within about 3-4 months. That sucked but I was glad to have caught him and on such a happy night.

I am Voltron, and I approve of this message. He is playing in Oakland this week with Hutchinson on drums and Matt Penman, not on the record but somebody who played with Joshua in the SF Jazz Collective. I wish I hadn't gone to the disappointing Nels Cline gig the other night and I wish Brian Blade was on drums, but I still might try to sneak in one set anyway.

John Coltrane -- Ascension (Vinyl)

Slackers and cheapskates! In 5 posts you guys haven't bought as many CDs as the Baguette puts up in a 1 single post!

indeed it is

Duke Ellington & John Coltrane (Vinyl) Charles Mingus -- Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (Vinyl)

wtf is Toole Audio anyway?

Daniel Weiss himself confirmed that the ADC2 FW can serve as a Firewire to AES/EBU interface so that answers my question pretty definitively. Of course, the DAC1 mk2 and ADC2 combination is a massive amount of overkill on what I want to accomplish -- especially on the A/D side -- but it could work with a Mac Mini or Macbook or whatever without a PCIe card being needed.

Well, just to keep it interesting, I have another iron in the fire[wire]. http://www.head-case.org/forums/uploads/emoticons/default_rolleyes.gif' alt=':rolleyes:'> I spoke to the maker of the Amarra music server. They are getting ready to release their hardware and software packages next week, and the hardware model would wrap up everything I am looking for in one slim single-rack-unit device. Their Model 4 is connected to the Mac by FireWire, has 24/192 A/D converters with adjustable gain on the analog input, has 24/192 D/A converters, and integrates with iTunes for all hi-rez input and output. The Amarra software can also be purchased separately, and will support some third party products like Lynx cards, Weiss dacs, and maybe some others. Amarra is working on a deal to be bundled with Weiss hardware products in a special custom configuration. I am going to try to visit Amarra next week, and the guy I spoke to from the company putting it out, Sonic Studio, was really great and happens to live down the street from my house in Mayberry.

Yeah, that ain't me.

Thom Yorke -- The Eraser

Thanks. How old is the newest one?