Issue 197

As common as it is to read statements from rock and roll musicians that “when I saw The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show, I knew I wanted to be a rock musician,” so the following statement goes with just about any guitar player over 45:

“When I heard Eric Clapton play the blues on the John Mayall and the Blues Breakers album, I knew that I wanted to play like that!”

So, to be clear, as much as Mike Bloomfield lit the fire and Keith Richards and Chuck Berry set the direction, it wasn’t until I heard the searing blues playing of Eric Clapton on the Blues Breakers album that it all came together.

All of this happened pretty quickly, as I heard Mike Bloomfield, then Keith and Chuck, all around 1966.

By the time I started to digest it all, my neighbor Mike played Fresh Cream for me. This was also in 1966, December to be exact. When I heard the opening track “I Feel Free” and the unreal-sounding guitar solo (which sounded like a combination of a vocal and a violin) Clapton’s guitar tone (famously called “woman tone” because of its sound like a crying woman, I guess) was electrifying and mesmerizing.

I knew that I wanted to get that tone but it didn’t register as to how and why a guitar could sound like that. It certainly was not a Fender guitar.

The guitar in fact was a Gibson Les Paul.

The amp Clapton used wasn’t a Fender either, it was a British amp I had never heard of called Marshall.

This guitar tone was alien to US musicians who really only knew pretty clean (read: non-distorting) guitar sounds.

I can’t remember exactly the next step but somehow I read about the band Clapton quit to start Cream.

The band he walked out on (a Clapton trait that has followed him all his life, much to the chagrin of the dozens of musicians that he left behind) was the album by John Mayall with Eric Clapton, the Blues Breakers LP. I bought what is now famously known as the “Beano” album because Clapton is holding a copy of a comic book called Beano on the front cover.

I put on the first track, “All Your Love” and bam, it was all over. The guitar solos were just perfect in ways that I never heard before and… the guitar tone?

The picture on the back showed Eric with the Les Paul.

I thought that Les Paul was a guitar brand, not a model of Gibson guitars.

The amp, a Marshall looked different then any other amp I had ever seen.

As the album progressed, Clapton’s playing just got better and more intense. Clapton played with the amp on 10 and all that overdrive distortion coupled with Clapton's superior finger vibrato gave me the road map for the tone that I, with one more added ingredient coming in Part Four, built my sound on.

Clapton’s performance on the instrumental “Steppin’ Out” and his solo on “Have You Heard” make me shudder to this very day.

In December of 1967 Cream’s Disraeli Gears, followed by the Cream’s album Wheels of Fire cemented Clapton’s legend.

To many of us, his playing has never surpassed this era.

I listen to the song and the solo on “Strange Brew” daily.

Clapton has of course gone on to have an amazing career. His two other contemporaries also had amazing careers: Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck. To compare these three, it goes something like this:

Jeff Beck is by far the most creative and innovative of the three. I saw Beck a few years ago and he just seems to get better with age. He can do anything Clapton can do, plus voice his guitar tones like few others on this Earth can.

Jimmy Page (by far the most financially successful because of the titanic record sales of Led Zeppelin) has suffered as drugs and alcohol really took away his talent.

Always the sloppiest of the three, he at least was a better songwriter and also a very good producer. I have seen Page many times starting in 1969, front row at Zep’s first ever NYC appearance. He was really good then (1969 – 1972) but sadly, he is no longer among the top tier of players.

Where does that leave Clapton?

Clapton truly is a one-trick pony and can, in concert, either be inspired to play blues with a feeling that can take your breath away, or sleepwalk through a very boring set. I’ve seen him in every way including Cream in 1967 and the Cream reunion in 2005.

That reunion was about as sad as could be. It wasn’t Cream, it was skimmed milk.

They looked like three old men at the betting window at the dog track in Hialeah, Florida.

I realized that it was the youthful aggression that made the original Cream so absolutely transcendent, which was based on the fact that they hated each other. That plus the extreme volume created by the mega Marshall amps they were using at the time, created the sonic tour-de-force audio palette that launched a thousand guitar players.

Read Clapton’s autobiography. It is as sad as it is illuminating. I couldn’t put it down.

So: as you can see, I still hold Mr. C in very high regard.

But, back to 1967, there was one ingredient left that I didn’t know existed until I read a review of the artist and album.

It was only when I heard my next influence that everything came together in one neat package, a package that very much involved Eric’s style, and it all made total sense.

This article was first published in Issue 59 and appears here in slightly updated form.

In Issue 196, Harris Fogel attended meetings of the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society (LAOCAS), which included visits to AudioQuest in Irvine, California, and area dealers The Source Audio Video Design Group (Torrance) and Sunny Components (Covina). He took lots of photos – well, he is a photographer after all, and likes to take pictures of the people who make the audio industry happen. Here are more from his visits.

AudioQuest

Larry Stimac, LAOCAS executive vice president of programming and events addresses the crowd. This photo gives an idea of how many folks came to the AudioQuest visit.

Equipment used for conditioning capacitors.

AudioQuest founder Bill Low gives a brief history of the company.

Part of the inside of an AudioQuest power conditioner.

High-quality AC outlets awaiting assembly.

Kristen Haughley of AudioQuest hosting yet another raffle that the author won't win.

Some of the various parts used in cable manufacturing.

LAOCAS members Brian and Maritte Green enjoying the tour.

LAOCAS founder Bob Levi knows he has a better chance to win than the author!

The Source Audio Video Design Group

Larry Stimac and George Counas of Zesto Audio enjoy the event.

Thomas Fogel of Mac Edition Radio holds the largest and most expensive Sony Walkman we’ve ever seen. Well, OK, it's note really a Walkman: the Sony ES-DMP-Z1 digital music player sells for $8,499 and weighs in at about 5-1/2 pounds.

Wayne Strickland and Jason Lord of The Source AV Design Group.

Sunny Components

Maritte Green with the gents from Gordos catering. This is seriously good Mexican food, and Taco Bell does not compare, any more then you'd confuse a Crosley portable record player with a VPI turntable.

Garth Powell, senior director of engineering for AudioQuest.

Bryan Long (AudioQuest) and Walter Schofield of distributor Nexus Audio Technologies take a quick break.

Header image: Young Bun of Novawear demonstrating the MonAcoustic  SuperMon Mini and PlatiMon Virtual Coaxial One speakers at Source Audio Design Group.

All images by Harris Fogel.

 Here's a Panasonic full line catalog circa late 1960s or early 1970s. No big deal, except...

The RE-7670 system, "The Barrington," was my first stereo. My father bought it for me when I was a kid, along with "The Phono Mate" RD-7673 turntable. I still have the speakers and the catalog.

The thing is, they might have been right. 1960s McIntosh ad, author's collection, given to him by Audio Classics decades ago.

Maybe not a piece of hi-fi equipment per se, but you saw these everywhere in the 1960s and 1970s. How many high school A/V squads had that turntable?

 This circa 1960s Philips portable radio was a safe bet for beach listening!

This cartoon was first published in Issue 125.

Part One of our Michael Franks series (Issue 191) covered his first four albums. With this installment, we’ll continue with the next batch of albums.

Released in 1979, Tiger in the Rain dispensed with the production team of his last three albums and employed the talents of producer John Simon. The results are no less lush than some of his earlier recordings, yet quieter and more romantic. It is a low-key album mood-wise and features some pleasing highlights throughout. “Hideaway” and the title track both signal the mood of the album.

The album’s title refers to the painting on the album cover by Henri Rousseau entitled “Tiger in a Tropical Storm.” The only “storm” on this album is of the quiet type, as witnessed in the title track featured here.

Franks’ 1980 album One Bad Habit was something of a commercial breakthrough. The title track “One Bad Habit” received a lot of airplay where I lived. The lyrics are typically playful in this relationship song that Franks has made his trademark.

A concert favorite, “Baseball” is perhaps one of his most blatant, and clever, double-entendre songs. Tongue firmly in cheek, one can’t help but smirk at some of the wordplay here. One wonders what Franks may have done with a song about hockey, although hockey would probably be just a little too violent of a sport to work into double-entendres suitable for most audiences.

While sounding a little dated in the arrangement, the beautiful track “Lotus Blossom” highlights his penchant for a love song filled with longing and mystery.

The 1982 album Objects of Desire revisits a similar mood to Franks’ Tiger in the Rain, similarly featuring a painting on the album cover (Two Tahitian Women by Paul Gauguin). As we’ll see in an upcoming installment in this series, art will play a larger part in Michael Franks’ music. His song “Tahitian Moon” visits a topic Franks would return to many times – going to a tropical paradise in search of romance.

A local radio station picked up on “Love Duet,” featuring the familiar alto sax of David Sanborn, and Sherlyn Renee Diggs as his vocal duet partner on the song.

The Brazilian influence had appeared in earlier Michael Franks albums to an extent, but the 1983 album Passion Fruit layers that influence on thick. If the 1980s needed a make out album, this would have been high on the list (or at least mine, anyway). While the album starts out with two songs that mislead us into thinking this is another typical Michael Franks record, the third track, “Amazon,” launches us head first into the rain forest. So much so, that Brazilian legend Astrud Gilberto accompanies Franks through parts of the song.

Somewhat out of place is the mechanical-sounding “Now That Your Joystick’s Broke” which, as you have probably guessed, is one of his double-entendre pieces using video game imagery as its topic. Less out of place is the lighter funk piece “When Sly Calls,” which is a lyric built around a phone call you simultaneously look forward to…and dread picking up, with Sly being that character who has “…some baaad news for ya, bro.” Don’t touch that phone!

In a similar dreamy style as “Amazon,” “Sunday Morning Here with You” is a playful song about a Sunday morning with Franks’ loved one (explained below). It unfolds slowly, like a tone poem carefully revealing itself verse after verse. The song itself is apparently in no rush on a lazy Sunday morning.

One of the songs that has defined Michael Franks since its release is “Rainy Night in Tokyo,” an autobiographical account of his wedding day. “Seventh of September, remember when…” The backdrop of the story of his marriage to his wife Claudia is a beautiful, shimmering arrangement awash in tropical colors.

Part Three of this series will document a shift in Franks’ musical style. Will it lead to more success? Check back to find out!

Header image: Reprise Records promotional photo/Kip Lott.

I’m no stranger to the optometrist. I’ve been nearsighted since I was in elementary school. My father thought I was a lousy athlete – well, I am – because I couldn’t hit a baseball. But when I started walking up to the blackboard to read what the teacher had written, that’s when my parents took me to the eye doctor, who quickly assessed I was massively myopic. As in, 20/750 vision. Legally blind.

This never bothered me, except from my late teens through my late 20s when I wanted to be a rock star and thought wearing glasses wouldn’t fit the image, John Lennon and Jerry Garcia notwithstanding. Over the decades I’d go to the optometrist once every year or so and get a new prescription. And with glasses I was fine. Regarding my chosen profession, I could set up phono cartridges with precision, and I could notice if something was even less than a hundredth of an inch off square and parallel. Typically, I’d level something by eye, and when I’d check with an actual level, the bubble would almost always be in between the lines. Reading was no problem.

A few years ago, my ophthalmologist told me I was developing cataracts in both eyes. Well, being in my 60s, I wasn’t exactly shocked. He told me I wasn’t ready for cataract surgery yet, which made me happy, as I could procrastinate. However, I learned that the surgery can’t be done too soon, or too late, so it would only be a matter of time.

Over the next few years my vision got gradually worse. Driving at night started to become more difficult. And it was becoming harder and harder for me to focus on text, especially on a computer screen, to the point where I couldn’t see text clearly at all. Not great when you’re a writer and editor, but I could get by. Driving was another story. I got to the point where I couldn’t clearly distinguish between the road and the grass, and the glare from incoming headlights was severe, as were the haloes around traffic lights. I started to avoid driving on certain roads, and soon gave up on driving at night altogether except on well-lit roads that I knew, for short distances.

So, it was no surprise when at the end of last year my ophthalmologist told me the time had come. The surgery was scheduled for February 14, 2023, Valentine’s Day. (Well, they say love is blind…) I had the option of choosing lenses that corrected for near vision, far vision, or both. I chose to correct for nearsightedness, at the advice of my surgeon and optician. (Each type of lens has its advantages and disadvantages and may not be for everybody.)

I’m the kind of person who is squeamish about anything medical, especially when it’s done to me. So, as the day of the surgery drew closer my apprehension grew, even though dozens of people had told me it would be the best thing I’d ever do, and that the procedure was “nothing.”

Yeah, nothing…all they do is blast apart the lenses you were born with and throw them into some medical waste disposal unit, and replace them with pieces of plastic or whatever these things were made of. But perhaps most reassuring was the fact that my father had told me it was nothing. He was a self-styled tough guy with an Achilles heel: he was a complete wimp when it came to medical stuff. He would have to take Valium to go to the dentist. He wound up getting colon cancer because he procrastinated on getting a colonoscopy. (They fixed it, but the fix wasn’t fun, and could have been avoided.) So, when he told me it would be no big deal, it held weight.

(Note: ordinarily this would be the place in the article where I'd put in an illustration of a cataract surgery procedure. But I don't want to look at pictures like that!)

At the 2022 New York Audio Show, my friend, Stereophile’s Herb Reichert, was effusive in singing the praises of cataract surgery. “You have to get it! You won’t believe how much better you’ll see! Look at that corner of the room over there. What do you see?” I told him I saw the sign welcoming visitors to the show, but that it was kind of blurry. “I see everything in that corner in amazing 3D! 

Still, I was really nervous in the days before the procedure. Each eye would be done one week apart. (Talk about hedging your bets.) I had been putting drops in my eyes, which somehow brought home the reality of what was about to happen. On top of that, I got hit with a twinge of gout two days before the procedure – which turned into agonizingly painful, almost-can’t-walk gout the day before. I actually called the surgeon the day I was scheduled to have the surgery to make sure he could do it. He said he could if I was up to it. I decided to go ahead.

There's no way I would have remembered to take all those drops without this.

A friend drove me to the Island Eye Surgicenter. It was a very impressive, clean, professional outfit, which was reassuring. After a short wait I was ushered into the pre-op room, where about four other patients were waiting. None of them looked like they wanted to make conversation. I was feeling really tense now – though I’ve had four stents at four different times, rotator cuff surgery, three hernia operations, a prostate procedure, more than one colonoscopy, more than one endoscopy, and some other fun stuff done, this was my eye! They must have seen the look on my face, and gave me half a Xanax. About a half of a much-less-tense hour later, they gave me an IV in preparation for getting anesthesia. I would not be put out – they wanted me to be aware “in case we have to talk to you during the procedure.” Nyaah-aah-aah!

A half-hour later it was showtime. They put me on a stretcher and wheeled me into a room labeled “Femto Laser 2.” I was told to lie down and they put my head into a device that looked like a shoe measuring thing, except head-sized. Well, I guess keeping my head clamped would be a good thing under these circumstances.

The doctor lowered a black cone to my right eye. Then, I saw a completely unexpected bizarre psychedelic light show! At first, three neon-red cauliflower-shaped clusters appeared in a triangular formation against a black background. I was actually starting to enjoy the light show. Then, blue lightning started to encroach upon the black. Finally, my entire field of vision was filled with this anime-looking blue lightning! The whole process seemed to take a few minutes and was completely painless.

This is what I saw during the laser procedure, as best as I can draw it.

They wheeled me out. “That’s it?,” I said? “Oh no, that was the laser part,” one of the techs told me. “Next comes the surgery part!”

About an hour later they wheeled me into another room and had me lie down. They started the IV anesthesia and put sheets around my head except for my right eye. I don’t know what was in that anesthesia but I was totally calm. Then came another light show, this time with three triangular lights which the doc seemed to be aligning with three dark spots. At one point I could also see what looked like lightish-gray “veins,” and I felt a very slight pulling. The doc was clearly manipulating…my eye. I had no sense of time but it seemed like about 10 minutes had gone by.

They moved me into the recovery room and all I could see out of my right eye were what looked like horizontal black tiger stripes on a field of red. “Is that normal?” I asked. “Yes.” After a few minutes the red went away and they soon told me I could go home. By the time I got there I could see out of my eye, but things were really blurry. I then proceeded to pass out for about four hours. When I woke up my vision was much clearer…I could read the headlines on the TV news.

A day later my vision was greatly improved. Interestingly, I could literally do an A/B comparison between my eyes by blinking them one at a time. My right eye now had astoundingly better color vision…blues were far bluer, and whites were this pure bright, white, without a grayish-greenish-yellowish cast. Incredible! I’d never noticed how my color vision had gotten worse over the years. Hopeless audio geek that I am, all I could think of is the way vacuum tubes gradually deteriorate until your system doesn’t sound as good as it used to.

Each day my vision in my right eye got better. I could now see more clearly out of my one “good” eye than the left eye. Although it was weird to not be able to see anything extremely close-up, something I’d been able to do my whole life. I could work at my computer, though the text was blurry. I had to use drugstore readers for about a month and a half until my eyes settled to the point where I could get a new prescription.

The second eye? Other than checking in and waiting to be rolled into the laser room, I don’t remember a thing about the actual procedure. The staff told me I’d be in a twilight state for the surgeries. If I was in The Twilight Zone for the first one, I entered The Outer Limits for round two.

The saga isn’t over yet. There has been some swelling of my retinas, which is being treated with eye drops. There’s some kind of membrane something or other thing happening on one retina, the name of which escapes me, and I don’t know how this will be resolved, but my retinologist doesn’t seem too concerned. I also developed a not-uncommon complication called posterior capsule opacity (PCO), where cells grow on the new membrane that holds your new lens in place. It’s a quick and easy fix that involves a laser and can be done in the doctor’s office. But my vision isn't 100 percent super-sharp yet.

So, how does this all relate to my life as a musician and audio reviewer? Well, I’ve gone from 20/750 vision to 20/30, and can see just fine without glasses up until about two feet away and closer. For those distances, I have a pair of what are called “computer progressive” glasses, which have progressive lenses that work beautifully from up close to around a screen length away. I spend something like 10 hours a workday in front of a computer, and text is now really sharp and clear, for the first time in maybe decades. The reduction in eyestrain is significant. I used to rub and blink my eyes at the end of the day, and would get to the point where I simply could not look at a screen anymore, or string two sentences together. Now, I feel like a mental weight has been lifted off me. I’m not just seeing better; my whole mental state has, well, sharpened. 

They say you hear with your eyes. Well, even though I’ve had hearing loss (see my article, "Frankie Goes to the Audiologist" in Issue 196), I somehow feel like I can hear better, now that I can see better. For the first time since my days at Forest Brook Elementary School, I have peripheral vision. So, this is what it’s like! And I feel like my awareness of the outside world has increased, in general. (My wife hasn’t yelled “Hello! McFly!” at me in a while.)

I’m wondering if there’s an increased element of synesthesia going on. Or, some kind of cross-communication between the senses that I can’t put a name on. Wait, I just looked it up – according to Wikipedia, multisensory integration is the study of how input from the different senses may be integrated by the nervous system. A ha! There is something going on here! I did a little more quick research, and read that looking at what you are listening to helps you hear it better – the brain expects us to be looking at what we are listening to. Now I’m wondering if the link between visual acuity and aural perception is literally stronger than I’d realized – or experienced before. And if you really want to get wigged out, check out the McGurk effect.

My world is different now, and I’m still getting used to it. I’ve been given a new window into reality. I knew that getting new eyes and ears (hearing aids) would be life-changing, but nothing can prepare you for it actually happening. My appreciation for music, sound, art, conversation, 4K TV, album covers, the sheen of the grooves of an LP, the glow of the lights on my pedalboard, the sound of an acoustic guitar, life itself, has been uplifted in ways that I could never imagined. And I'm well aware that others have not been so fortunate in their struggles with aging.

Perhaps the biggest lesson I've learned as I've gotten older is: don't long for what you've lost. (Well, of course you're allowed to gripe about it once in a while.) Be thankful for what you've got.

******

 Here’s a playlist for the next time you’re in your opthalmologist's waiting room.

Harvester of Eyes – Blue Öyster Cult
I Can See Clearly Now – Johnny Nash
Eyes of the World – Grateful Dead
I Only Have Eyes for You – the Flamingos
I Saw the Light – Todd Rundgren
Visions of Angels – Genesis
The Look of Love – Dusty Springfield
The Look of Love – ABC
Did You See Her Eyes – the Illusion
In Your Eyes – Peter Gabriel
Pale Blue Eyes – Velvet Underground
These Eyes – the Guess Who
Behind Blue Eyes – the Who
Open Your Eyes – the Nazz
Turn Around, Look at Me – the Vogues
Just One Look – Doris Troy

Bonus tracks:

The Waiting Room – Genesis
Too Late to Turn Back Now – Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose

Header image courtesy of Pixabay/422737/Hebi B.

Different time periods in history are associated with particular architectural trends, building techniques and construction materials, different stages of technological development, as well as different styles and forms of musical composition.

Architectural trends had a significant influence on the spaces intended for the performance of music during different time periods and together with the techniques and materials employed, shaped the acoustics of these spaces. As such, each time period and geographic location had a particular acoustic signature, whether intentionally shaped or accidentally occurring as a result of the materials, methods, or ideas of the time.

When a musical composition is performed, the result is ultimately affected by the interpretation of the work by the performers, the sound produced by their instruments, and the interaction of that sound with the acoustics of the performance space. Performers adjust the nuances of their playing during a performance, based on what they hear, as a form of closed-loop auditory feedback control process. This is a near-instantaneous process which happens almost instinctively. Composers, on the other hand, adjust and refine their compositions over a long period of time, usually based on their auditory experience of performances. The logical extension of these relationships is that the different composition styles and forms of different time periods were influenced by the performance space acoustics of the time.

Up until the late 19th century, music could only be heard in the form of a live performance. The invention of sound recording changed everything. It introduced an entirely new possibility for experiencing music, by reproducing a recording of a performance, which happened in a different place, at a different time.  

In sound recording, the medium and process can be thought of as an equally influential factor, as the performance space is to a live performance. Each recording medium, with its strengths, weaknesses, and limitations, affects the way in which the listener will perceive a certain composition and performance. It will therefore also affect the nuances of the performer, who will try to adjust their performance to the medium and its particularities. Over time, sound recording technology has influenced composition styles, arrangements, and performances.

The recording process actually starts with the composition. In a moment of inspiration (and/or years of refining), someone needs to compose the music. An outstanding composition can still be ruined in subsequent stages, but a mediocre composition cannot be made less mediocre by the rest of the process. It can only go downhill from there.

Once we have an outstanding composition, we need an outstanding arrangement, done by an arranger with experience of the record production process, to ensure the original intentions of the composer are properly represented in recorded form.

Then, of course, we need some excellent musicians who can perform the arranged composition with skill and virtuosity. In turn, they will need outstanding musical instruments to perform on, built by highly skilled craftsmen to sound stunningly good, based on centuries of tradition and pride in one’s craft, using the finest materials and tools available.

The actual performance must then take place in a space with acoustics suitable for the composition, but also for the recording process, adequately protected from external disturbances through soundproofing, while still maintaining the required acoustic signature within.

It is all of the aforementioned factors that will ultimately define the sound of the recording, if everything is done right. The aim of the engineers involved in the rest of the process is (or should be) to ensure that all of the collective excellence achieved thus far is properly represented and preserved up until the final product. If any of this excellence is missing, no amount of “engineering” or technical gadgetry could ever truly make up for it. Recording technology allows us to capture what is there, if we are skilled enough at using it to its full potential, but will not make the source sound better than it is, nor will it improve the composition, arrangement, or performance. Under certain circumstances, it can be used to mask some flaws or edit out mistakes, but there will always be serious side-effects. In other words, sound recording technology is not a substitute for skill, effort, quality, and intelligence. But it is a tool, that, when used in combination with skill, effort, quality, and intelligence, may allow us to preserve all this in recorded form.

This is done by means of microphones, strategically placed in the performance space of the recording facility. These convert the sound into electrical signals. The accuracy of this conversion depends on the quality of the microphones and their careful positioning in the space. The electrical signal produced by a microphone is rather weak, so a microphone preamplifier is used to amplify it, as accurately as the overall design and build quality of the preamplifier will allow.

Technically, all we need for an outstanding stereophonic recording is two microphones, one for the left and one for the right channel, two microphone preamplifiers, and the stereophonic recording device. A recording setup can range from being as simple as that to as complicated as hundreds of microphones, microphone preamplifiers, signal processing units, huge multi-channel mixing consoles, multitrack recording devices, effect units, artificial reverberation, multiple stages of re-recording, editing, adjusting, and so on. But less is usually more in this field. Even the finest audio equipment will introduce some signal deterioration, which may be insignificant on a high quality specimen. However, these “insignificant” deteriorations are accumulative and quickly become significant when a large number of devices are being used.

In practice, we also need a source of power for our equipment. This point is frequently overlooked, but electronic amplification actually works by modulating the power supply DC in proportion to the audio signal. The power supply is therefore of major importance to the overall accuracy of all audio electronics, but it also needs a clean and stable source of electricity, usually in the form of AC, which it would then convert to DC. Especially in these murky times of distributed generation and tons of cheap digital gadgets, electricity supplied through the grid contains all kinds of muck you certainly wouldn’t want anywhere near your audio equipment. The more serious professional audio facilities go to great lengths to ensure their equipment is powered from a clean supply. At Magnetic Fidelity, an analog recording and mastering studio I designed in 2014, I installed an elaborate microgeneration system, isolated from the grid, to power all the audio equipment. It runs on a massive battery bank, offering several hours of autonomy in case of electrical faults upstream, to ensure critical sessions will not be interrupted.

The analog audio electronics get a dedicated supply. The tape machine, turntable, and disk recording lathe motors, with their control electronics, get their own supply, isolated from the audio electronics. The lights, air conditioning, ventilation, fridge, and office equipment are powered by electrically isolated lines, going so far as to make sure that “dirty” power lines are not even physically located near the mastering room. Multiple stages of EMI/RFI filtering are in place and the grounding was given special attention to prevent ground loops. The “audio power” is distributed in a balanced fashion, where instead of “line” and “neutral”, there are “positive” and “negative” conductors, carrying identical voltage but in opposite polarity, running as twisted pairs.

In domestic listening rooms, the situation is much easier to cope with, as the power requirements are usually more modest, there are fewer pieces of audio equipment, shorter distances (all equipment is usually located in one room) and plenty of suitably sized power conditioners/filters/resynthesizers available to choose from.

Last but not least, the recording device itself also introduces side-effects, be it mechanical (disk recording lathe), magnetic (tape machine), or digital (Analog to Digital Converter). There are a lot of claims and outright lies regarding the “accuracy” of different sound recording technologies, but this is a topic for an entire book.

Having extensively used a large number of the world’s finest professional recording devices and doing A/B comparisons between the source signal and the recorded/reproduced signal, on exceptionally accurate full-range monitors, I can confidently state that there is no such thing as a truly transparent recording technology or device.

They all affect the signal, audibly and measurably. The better sounding ones affect it in ways which are less perceptible to our auditory system.

As such, I prefer to only use one recording device and avoid re-recording or mixdowns. But, this can only be achieved if the (excellent) musicians can (excellently) perform the (excellently arranged) composition, all together, like they used to do in the good old days. This makes any deficiencies in the recording equipment more blatantly obvious, so excellent equipment must be used, controlled by an engineer who absolutely must “play along” with the musicians and get everything right, on the spot, to succeed in really capturing the magic of the moment.

The development of sound recording technology past the 1930s was not always in the interest of more accurately preserving the magic of a performance.

For instance, it was customary to use two copies (on disk) of a recorded political speech on two turntables, with a mixer (pretty much what the DJ culture rediscovered much later) in between. One record was playing while the other was “cued” (stopped with the needle still on it at a particular spot), so the operator could skip a few words or sentences by switching in the cued record at the right moment and switching out the first one, thereby changing the message conveyed, to serve political propaganda requirements.

During the second world war, Germany invented plastic tape with a magnetic coating and combined it with AC bias recording, creating a high fidelity sound recording system which allowed far more elaborate editing. The tape could be cut with a razor blade and another piece of tape could be spliced in, anywhere needed, perfecting the art of political propaganda by making it possible to piece together a speech, word by word, using the recorded voice of any politician.

Obviously, elaborate editing possibilities were not exactly needed to fix an outstanding performance. Likewise, multitrack recording was not invented to enable a well coordinated group of musicians to perform each instrument individually, artificial reverberation was not invented to “spice up” the sound of a hall with great natural reverberant acoustics, and autotune was not invented to electronically tune the voice of Montserrat Caballé! It is well-tuned enough as it is, thank you!

As the dividing lines between composer, arranger, performer and engineer are becoming increasingly blurred, as traditional instruments are being replaced by synthesizers, software, and even recording/reproducing devices (not a new development, have a listen to Joe Meek and the Blue Men– I Hear a New World) and as our modern technology allows anyone to edit, tune, reverberate, loop, overdub, and layer sounds for a nominal investment, it is easy to forget that the basic principles and rules outlined earlier, still apply, regardless of style of music, choice of instruments, and type of recording technology used.

The sound of a recording is still defined by the composition, arrangement, performance, instruments, and acoustics of the space, which the recording equipment and engineer can either succeed in adequately capturing, or not.

This applies equally to all styles of music and anything one may decide to use as an instrument.

Here are two beautiful examples of two rock bands, performing all together, recorded on a stereophonic 1/4″ tape recorder, using a very minimal setup:

Lunar MGC –  “Planemo”

Naxatras – “Machine”

Amidst promises of making space colonization viable within the next five years, I personally feel there is a lot of untapped potential right here on our modest planet; musical treasures yet to be discovered and preserved, if only we could remain a bit more “down-to-earth” about the whole thing.

Header image: Naxatras recording session at Agnew Analog Reference Instruments, courtesy of Elina Verykiou.

This article first appeared in Issue 91.

In the days before streaming; in the days before CDs, cassettes and LPs; back in the days of dance parties and portable phonographs there were 45s – little black records with short playing times and large holes that had an A-side and a B-side. The recording on side A was what listeners wanted to hear. Side B usually had music that was good enough but not as appealing as the music on side A…kind of like a double bill in your local movie theater where the feature was coupled with a film of lesser quality. Collecting some recordings today isn’t very different: LPs and CDs are often purchased for one particular selection that receives all the attention.

Songbird/Somewhere Over the Rainbow/Eva Cassidy, guitar and vocals (Blix Street LP)

I first heard Cassidy’s interpretation of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” on ABC’s Nightline in 2001 and had to own a copy. This is not the standard version: it’s an especially touching arrangement and performance, and extremely poignant since Cassidy died at the age of 33 in 1996 – the same year her first solo album (Live at Blues Alley) was released. At that time Cassidy wasn’t well known outside her native Washington, D.C. although she did achieve worldwide recognition after the Nightline broadcast and when her other albums were issued posthumously.

Songbird is a compilation album. While the entire record is appealing, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is exceptional.

Postcards/Geographical Fugue/The Turtle Creek Chorale (Reference Recordings CD)

Ernst Toch wrote compositions including symphonies, concertos, chamber music, operas and film music. But the piece he’s probably best known for is his inventive “Geographical Fugue.” This spoken chorus, a style invented by Toch, is written in strict fugal form for four voices saying the names of various cities, countries and other geographical landmarks. It became a sensation when it was first presented in 1930 and  is now the composer’s most performed choral work.[1]

I was never able to find a recording of the “Fugue” until Reference Recordings issued a series of CDs with compositions sung by the excellent all-male Turtle Creek Chorus. This ensemble performs the piece the way I first heard it: clearly spoken in a tempo that, to borrow a phrase from Goldilocks, is just right.

There are a variety of other interpretations on YouTube employing faster or slower tempos, a larger or smaller number of voices, experimental techniques that work and some that don’t. After listening to the Turtle Creek Chorus, check out the Italian Copernicoro choir, where sounds become more important than words…an approach that obscures the important text but creates a nice noise.[2]

The Turtle Creek Chorale:

The Copernicoro Choir:

Bernstein/The Making of West Side Story (Deutsche Grammophon CD and DVD)

Bernstein had never conducted a complete West Side Story on LP. When he finally did record it in 1984 the result wasn’t what fans and reviewers expected. The recording starred opera singers Jose Carreras, Kiri Te Kanawa and Tatiana Troyanos instead of the usual Broadway suspects. It was criticized by many critics for being a Broadway show that was too operatic.

According to Bernstein, “It’s not an opera… It’s a work on its way towards being one….The main thing I have omitted to do in my compositional life is opera. Except for ‘Trouble in Tahiti,’ which is a one‐acter and many years old now, I have never written a real, full length opera. The reason is that I was convinced the true American opera would grow out of the Broadway musical. ‘West Side Story’ is not an opera, though it has strong operatic elements, but I thought of it as a step in the direction of what American opera would finally be. I expected others to take the next step, that’s why I left Broadway and went to the [New York] Philharmonic.” (The New York Times, Dec. 11, 1977)

An LP box set and CD were issued, as well as a DVD documentary that showed backstage glimpses of what went on during rehearsals. After listening and watching, I don’t think bridging the gap between opera and musical theater is successful here and agree with the critical critics. West Side Story is a sensational, exhilarating Broadway show that doesn’t need any help. While the orchestral selections are exciting, the vocal style is all wrong and slows things down. The edges are too soft, the sound too round and smooth, the timing not sharp enough. There’s too much attention paid to making beautiful sounds than sustaining an edgy musical experience.

There’s one exception to the “but it’s not an opera” conclusion: Carreras and Te Kanawa rehearsing “One Hand, One Heart.” These few minutes succeed because of the opera singers. It’s a stunning duet: beautiful voices and a superb performance. In a brief voice-over, Bernstein says that one of his daughters, who was at the rehearsal and never flatters  when it isn’t called for, came to the podium and broke into tears. Bernstein thought it had been a wonderful presentation, too.

Puccini/Chrysanthemums/ Riccardo Chailly, cond. (Decca CD)

Need a Puccini fix? Can’t go out to the opera because your gown or tuxedo is at the cleaners? Don’t have enough time to listen to a complete score at home? Try some Chrysanthemums.

Puccini is famous for his 10 operas but composed chamber music as well. The most well-known of these lesser-known compositions is an early piece originally written for string quartet but almost always heard in its arrangement for string orchestra. It’s as lyrical as music from any Puccini opera and if it sounds familiar, it’s because some of the music was subsequently incorporated into his third opera Manon Lescaut.

In addition to the rare and beautiful Chrysanthemums, the Chailly disc includes other lesser-known pieces plus selections from his earliest operas including the aforementioned Manon.

Vaughan Williams/Serenade to Music/Matthew Best, cond. (Hyperion CD)

There are two versions of the “Serenade to Music”: the original score for orchestra with 16 soloists (or soloists with chorus and orchestra) and an arrangement that’s purely instrumental. With a text adapted from Act V of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, the “Serenade” was premiered in 1938 as a tribute to Sir Henry Wood, who conducted London’s annual promenade concerts (aka "The Proms") for about 50 years. The sixteen vocalists who sang at the premiere made the performance unique: The composition was written with the talents of those specific artists in mind, and the soloists’ names or initials were actually inscribed over their parts in the score.

The beauty of the lyrics, where lovers revel in the magic of the night, are reflected in Vaughan Williams’ sensuous sounds…a celebration of music so captivating that Rachmaninoff, who performed at the same concert, was visibly moved. He later wrote to Wood that he had never been affected so much by a piece of music. Perhaps the best description of the Serenade is found in the text’s final words: “…Soft stillness and the night become the touches of sweet harmony.”

The original version with voices is the one to hear but harder to find. Some years ago the Hyperion label made a recording available: I bought the CD at Tower Records as soon as I could afford it. Unfortunately it isn’t available on YouTube, but the 2019 BBC Proms concert conducted by Martyn Brabbins is just as engaging, and was performed as part of the same series of concerts in the same hall where the work was premiered.

***

[1]  Originally written in German, the “Geographical Fugue” is from the three part suite Gesprochene Musik (Spoken Music). When Toch moved from Germany to the United States in 1935 the suite was translated into English with the support of composers including John Cage.

[2] The composition wasn’t originally intended to be performed by live singers. It was designed to be recorded on shellac discs (78s) then “performed” in concert by playing the discs at a faster speed. As Toch wrote in his original program notes: “increasing the tempo, and the resulting pitch level…created a type of instrumental music, which leads the listener to forget that it originated from speaking.” Caines, C. “Preface to Gesprochene Musik, 1. ‘O-a’ and 2. ‘Ta-tam.’” Current Musicology (97), 2014.

This article first appeared in Issue 141.

This cartoon was first published in Issue 112.

“Would you like to see the car?”

Leland and I looked at each other in bewilderment.

“Sure,” we said.

Parties at hi fi shows are fun.

They are a way of letting off steam after a day dealing with annoying customers. (If only we didn’t have to deal with customers at all, life would be good.) They are also a great way to network. I have met many manufacturers at parties and have developed quite a few new products over a glass or two of wine or beer.

Scene One

I am often invited to parties but, surprisingly, sometimes I’m not. I was definitely not invited to the Monster Cable party a few years ago at CES in Las Vegas. I have little interest in Monster Cable. But that year Ray Charles was performing and I really wanted to see him. I had met him a few years prior in a soul food restaurant in New York called Chez Josephine. He was sitting at the table next to my wife and me. Although New Yorkers make a point of studiously ignoring celebrities, we couldn’t resist. He was very gracious and not at all bothered by our intrusion.

So how to get invited to the party? We asked everyone we knew. No one had a spare ticket. We even approached people who worked for Monster but with no luck. This was the hottest ticket in town. We decided to go to the event and try to get in. There was tight security and people were lining up to enter. We asked everyone. Nothing. We even approached the VIP line to see if our names were on the list. The guy in charge was not amused.

We gave up. Before leaving, I went to the men’s room. When I emerged, I saw people coming out of a side door of the auditorium to go into the toilet. I couldn’t believe it. Could it be this easy? I did reconnaissance. There was a guard but he seemed disinterested in the comings and goings. I got hold of Leland and we approached the door. The guard ignored us as we confidently walked in.

The place was mobbed. People were starting to sit down at tables when we saw some friends sitting at a table in the front and they invited us to join them. We were fed a pretty good meal and then had to suffer as Noel Lee (president of Monster) gave presentations to the salespeople who had sold the most cable. He droned on, but that’s the price you pay for gatecrashing.

Finally Ray Charles came on stage, and he was wonderful. He played most of his hits and his singing of “Georgia on My Mind” brought me to tears. It was a great evening.

Scene Two

Stereophile magazine used to give the best parties. This is when Larry Archibald was the publisher. He was very generous and made a big point of choosing the wine. Everyone in the industry would attend, as the vibe and wine were great. It really was the high point of the show, and I sorely miss these events because they engendered a strong sense of camaraderie in the industry.

One party was in Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas and was particularly good. On leaving, I passed another party down the hall. There was a band playing Dixieland, and that caught my attention. I entered and walked around. I thought Stereophile parties were lavish, but this one was insane. There were piles of food everywhere, three bars, beautiful cocktail waitresses, and a very high-tone crowd.

I ordered a drink and sat down to eat. At some point I started conversing with a man sitting nearby. He was very chatty, and told me that the party was celebrating the launch of a new magazine. We had a few drinks together and I told him about my business and why I was in Vegas. I then told him that I had gatecrashed the party because the music was so good. We were getting rather drunk and started talking about the meaning of life etc. when I asked him what he did for the magazine.

“I’m the publisher, and it’s my party.”

Scene Three

A few years ago, my wife, Rita and I visited Heinz and Jozefina Lichtenegger in Vienna. Heinz is an old friend and his company makes turntables for Music Hall. They live in a converted farmhouse about 30 minutes north of Vienna. Jozefina has amazing taste and the house looks like it came out of an Italian design magazine.

They are very generous hosts and one evening they gave us tickets to hear the Vienna Philharmonic perform in the Wiener Konzerthaus in the center of the city. Sitting in front of us was Fran Drescher, of The Nanny fame. We didn’t want to impose on her but at some point her husband started chatting to us and she joined in the conversation. She was in town at the behest of former president Bill Clinton and had spoken at the Life Ball, an event that raised awareness and money for AIDS research.

Rita asked Drescher, “What is Bill Clinton like?”

“He is wonderful,” she replied.

“And what do you think of (then-recently inaugurated) Barack Obama?”

“Oh I really love him.”

Rita (in agreement, referring to the new president) followed with, “I’m such a fan.”

Elke Winkens, Fran Drescher and Bill Clinton at Life Ball 2009. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Manfred Werner - Tsui.

Drescher, in her distinctive nasal Queens, New York twang gratefully came back with, “thank you so much; I love meeting my fans.”

At the intermission, we decided to go find a bar. We were sitting in the center of the hall and exited through a middle door. The hallway was crowded and we went along with the flow. The crowd led us into a large room where waiters hovered serving champagne and hors d’oeuvres. We were mystified by this but had a few drinks and snacks and waited to see what was going on.

A hush settled on the room and a man started to address the crowd. We discovered that we had stumbled into a party for high-rolling underwriters of the orchestra and according to my wife (who speaks fluent German) the speaker couldn’t thank us enough for our continuing support. No one asked us to leave and so we had a few more drinks and returned to the concert hall.

The Vienna Philharmonic is the best orchestra I have ever heard.

Scene Four

Some years ago, Leland Leard and I exhibited at a Stereophile-sponsored show in the New York Hilton. One evening we went out to dinner with a few clients and on our return, we passed the Hilton Ballroom. There was a long line of people waiting to go in. Everyone was dressed up; black tie and gowns. Although we were very casually dressed, curiosity drove us to the entrance.

I was about to ask the security guard about the event when a beautiful woman in an evening gown beckoned us inside.There was a band playing, and mountains of food everywhere. A waiter offered us glasses of champagne. We were shown around and introduced to all sorts of people. More champagne arrived. As we had been drinking for most of the day, we were quite happy to continue.

At one point our hostess asked us if we would like to meet the cast. “Absolutely,” I said as the mystery deepened. Leland started dancing with a cast member who seemed to be all over him and I sat down with another hostess who appeared to be most interested in my every word. More champagne arrived and at one point our beautiful hostess asked if we would like to see the car.

“Sure”, we said. We were led onstage and had our photos taken in front of a very long, silver vintage car. Above the car was a sign, “Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang.” We had gatecrashed the opening night party for the Broadway musical.

We have often wondered about the enthusiastic welcome. Did our casual dress imply that we were big shots in the theater world? We never figured out why they let us in.

The main car used in the filming of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Martin Pettitt.

Header image courtesy of Pexels.com/Harrison Haines.

This article was first published in Issue 47 and has been updated with new photos.

Some of the lads looked disappointed, others seemed disgusted. You’d think I had just recommended Jack Daniels over Woodford Reserve. The ambience in the room went flat like Sunday morning champagne. Maybe I should have kept quiet.

“Really Montana, you prefer your stereo system over a live symphony orchestra?” Lepovski blustered; “Do you actually believe your system sounds that good? You can’t be serious!”

Actually, I didn’t say that my system sounded better. What I said was that I get more immersed in the music at home than in the concert hall. That’s not the same thing. I’m aware the experiences are different. So is watching a ball game in the stadium versus on TV. But you have to admit, you see more of the action on TV. 

There are too many distractions in the concert hall. How many times have we been disturbed by nearby attendees kicking, coughing, sneezing, snickering, whispering, or unwrapping candies clad in 12 layers of cellophane? It takes 10 minutes because she’s trying so hard to do it quietly. Once it’s finally extricated, he asks for one too and the cycle repeats itself. A few minutes later, someone needs to squeeze by to get another bag. None of that happens in my listening room.

At home, I always get the best seat in the house. It’s a comfortable recliner where I can stretch my legs and enjoy a Scotch. That’s better than a bolt-upright theater seat with no tumbler holders, no leg room, and no armrests unless I wish to take on two defensive ends.

To make matters worse, our conductor feels that it’s his didactic duty to expose us to “new talent” at every concert, so before we get to hear what we paid for, we must endure the “World Premiere!” of some discordant cacophony created by a college professor who became famous citywide as a result of his cocaine bust. The fact that it was written in prison and “reflects life’s injustices” doesn’t mitigate the malfeasance of making us endure it. During the intermission, most everyone said they hoped it would be the world’s terminal performance as well. 

At home, I can choose the music, conductor, and symphony orchestra I want to hear, and avoid those performances that seek to “break new ground.” I have a shovel for that sort of thing.

Furthermore, I can choose the music that best suits – or modifies – my mood. And it can be heard immediately, not days or weeks later. Gratification delayed is gratification denied.

I appreciate the ability to pause my audio system between movements long enough for me to decant another shot. Conductors aren’t nearly as considerate.

My listening room doesn’t care how I dress or comport myself, and it’s accessible without fighting downtown traffic or sparring for a parking spot.

To add insult to injury, I learned during a recent backstage tour of symphony hall that several sections of the orchestra are reinforced by a concealed PA system! Not a high-end system as befits the venue, but schlocky PA speakers and amps!

No wonder I enjoy a more immersive sound experience at home.

Header image: rendering of the Jacobs Music Center, San Diego, California. courtesy of HGA. The Jacobs Music Center will be opening in 2024.

This article was first published in Issue 25 and has been updated.

Thanksgiving came and Ellen and I walked into the Fillmore East’s main entrance on Second Avenue. Ellen introduced me to Bill Graham and he briefly shook my hand. I got the sense that Bill was a gruff guy. He had a reputation for being volatile and explosive. Anyone who has been to any Bill Graham concert has likely seen Bill out front denying access and threatening undesirables, potential gatecrashers, or dealers. When annoyed, he used a tactic of standing a bit too close, leaning in with the apparent threat of violence (a threat only) while cursing in a loud and intimidating manner. He also had an opinion of certain creative aspects of the music business and the people involved and history did not always prove him right. However, I think we could assume his motives were not vindictive. An example would be his first entertainment job in 1965 as manager of the San Francisco Mime Troupe.

 

When the San Francisco Mime Troupe was denied permits by the city, Graham and Haight Ashbury promoter Chet Helms, who founded Family Dog Productions, came up with the idea for a benefit concert at the Winterland Ballroom. “When somebody said, ‘Let’s put some talent together,’” as Bill told to journalist Ralph J. Gleason, “I started calling around. But the most significant thing about the beginning was that I really did not know about the scene. I heard about these groups and I called everybody. One of the acts that is listed on my first handbill is the Family Dog. Somebody said, ‘You should call them.” Great! I wanted a dog act!  When they came, I said, ‘What do you do?’ They said, ‘We hold dances, man!’” They were rival promoters.

A short time later Graham and the Mime Troupe were in conflict about the act’s performance. The troupe felt that the business manager should have no say in the creative process. In protest, Bill resigned, but before leaving he held another benefit for the Troupe, and that was the start of his career as a concert promoter.

Frank Barsalona of Premiere Talent Agency (sold to William Morris Agency in 2002) called him “painfully honest” – but not many had found him consistently pleasant to deal with. On one occasion, a famous Hollywood actor called him the Rod Steiger of concert promoters.

Years later when Alice Cooper played the Fillmore West on their first tour (this is a story shared by an insider) Bill’s “goons” ripped them off the stage. It seems he was horrified; he thought he had booked a girl band. Bill’s management company struggled to keep acts on his management roster because he was a buttinsky about creative aspects, performance, personal schedules, and even details like the group’s wake up times.

We walked into the Thanksgiving dinner and down the right aisle toward the stage. It was a low key affair with a long catering-type table set up onstage with plenty of food. Carved turkey, potatoes, cranberry sauce and all the other Thanksgiving holiday foods and desserts were spread out. It was self-service with folding chairs sprinkled about the stage, though many of us took our food into the audience seats. There were about 130 people milling around with paper plates in their hands.

A mixture of musicians, (anyone who was touring and happened to be in town was invited) office staff and stagehands came. Everyone was friendly and after I ate, I wandered around the theater. Theaters, bars, and night clubs do not look the same in the daytime and they smell different too. I was walking backstage, and ran into Janis Joplin. She knew me (by sight) and we said hello. We chatted mostly about California and made other small talk for a minute or two, and then she said she wanted to go to Bill’s office.

 

One of the people I met at the party was the box office manager. She told me the box office was usually open seven days a week and for 10 hours a day, but was closed Thanksgiving day. We talked for a bit and then I asked her if I could buy some tickets. Sure, she said, and we walked out front to the box office. She unlocked the door and we went inside. Seeing the upcoming concert schedule, I picked out two concerts I wanted to see: the Byrds and the Doors. I think my total expense for both tickets was $7.50. Back in the day tickets were accessible and people could afford them. Yes, shows often sold out but usually if you wanted to go to a concert you had a chance to buy tickets. Then I hooked back up with Ellen and we left. It was an understated event, but I thought it was gracious of Bill Graham to hold a Thanksgiving dinner for industry people.

A week later was the Doors concert. My seat was in the orchestra, probably Row G and sightly off center toward stage right. Jim Morrison came out dressed in black leather. He looked great and the girls went crazy. He wrapped himself around the microphone stand like he was making love to it. A commanding figure, totally into the show, and Jim and the Doors – Ray Manzarek on keyboards, John Densmore playing drums and Robby Krieger on guitar – kicked butt. Great presence and powerful vocals, tight band. I would say I was seventy feet from him, so I had a good view, and the sound system was on point.

 The Doors in Copenhagen, 1968. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Polfoto/Jan Persson.

On a side note, Bill Graham was possibly the first rock concert promoter to understand the need for and use of quality sound and lights. At the time most other promoters felt this was an area where they could save money, so they skimped on the sound and lighting systems. Another great thing about concerts back then was that everyone stayed in their seats, which really enhanced the whole experience. You could really get a sense of the band and the music by watching and listening. If you want to dance then go to a festival.

The Doors really brought it, they were really on their game. It had to be one of their best shows, exceptional. Jim Morrison was dark, dangerous, and powerful. The girls found him hot.

A few weeks later I went to see the Byrds, and I was sitting a little further back, maybe Row R, and more stage left. The Byrds were good, seasoned with hints of country music twang combined with the smoothness of the West Coast sound. Great guitar and vocals with flowing harmonies. It gives me a pause just to think of the great musicians that passed through that band over the years – Roger McGuinn and people like Gene Clark, David Crosby, Clarence White, Gram Parsons, Chris Hillman and other incredible singers and players.

When I got home to my apartment the place had been robbed. I had metal gates on the window. They were accordion-like metal gates and the bottoms were like Vs extending to an inch above the inside window ledge. Being New York City, the six-story building had a fire escape. One of the bottom windowpanes was smashed in and behind the small window one of the Vs on the bottom part of the gate behind the window was bent back and up into the apartment. The space that it made was about nine inches by nine inches. How could anyone get through that? Maybe the robber had a small kid with them, and the kid wiggled in and then unlocked the door. Or maybe a trained monkey; I know that sounds ridiculous, but really, I could not see any adult, even a small one, squeezing through that little opening. They took the TV and the cash I had in the apartment, about $80, and some other things. I had a locksmith fix the gates and replace the broken windowpane with a bar across the bottom of the gate, so that avenue of entrance was then sealed.

The year was coming to an end and I ran into Michael Foster in the subway. Michael was a friend from California who had previously owned a head shop on Las Palmas Avenue in Hollywood. He invited me to join him and a group of his friends for a New Year’s celebration at the historical Luchow’s restaurant (est. 1882) on East Fourteenth Street and the corner of Irving Place, located in the almost farthest northwestern part of the East Village. Just a few doors west of the (former) Academy of Music. Luchow’s stretched from Fourteenth Street through the block all the way to Thirteenth Street. We were in a medium-size room seated at a table for eight. There were five such tables in the room so doing the math there were 40 people there. This was one of many rooms and banquet halls in Luchow’s – it was a big building. Seated at the next table was Judy Collins with her friends. New York being New York, nobody bothered her or went over to her table and tried to talk to her.

A year and a half later I was working for Elektra Records and the record company had an occasion to hold a big party for Jim Morrison. It was at the Hilton on 54th Street and the Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue] in the penthouse ballroom on the top floor of the hotel. Big room and easily 300 attendees. There was an open bar, finger food and music. It seemed like a happy party, but Jim Morrison, who had gained some weight, stayed in the corners of the ballroom. The crowd was having fun and people were on the dance floor. Suddenly, I saw a chubby bald guy, maybe 45 years old, get punched in the face so hard that it sent him sprawling flat on his back, landing with a loud thump. He got up, standing not far from the dude that punched him, and started dancing again like nothing happened. I looked at my watch and it was almost 11 pm, time to leave.

As I am walking out of the ballroom toward the banks of elevators, I pass by Jim Morrison all alone, sitting there with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.

Header image: site of the Fillmore East, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Grye.

This article was first published in Issue 134.

Wouldn’t you hate it if you went to the theatre and had purchased your higher-tier seats with guaranteed optimal views of everyone on stage, the sets and even a glimpse of the musicians in the pit below, only to find that your seat had been taken, or worse still, there were no seats in the house! When you pay for a good seat, you don’t want to be left hanging with standing room only.

Similarly, when you invest in high-quality musical equipment for your home, the last thing you want is a compromise in seating. Not because your listening chair or couch is uncomfortable, but because you have discovered that you can hear a better sound somewhere in the room other than in your main seating position. It can be frustrating to say the least. You could liken it to the awkwardness of asking that person who took your seat to move, in a polite yet firm way; “I’m sorry, I think you are sitting in my seat.” But what you’re really thinking is, “Just what do you think you are doing there? Get out of the way!”

Likewise, a sonic imposter is likely invading your listening room right now, except that this one is not brazen enough to impede your listening experience by making itself visibly known. Oh no, this interloper is invisible, but nonetheless is discernibly detracting from the enjoyment of your musical performance. We are talking about the presence of a standing wave (or waves).

Just what is a standing wave, what does it do to our sound, is it really that bad, and more important, what should you do about it?

In physics, a standing wave is one that varies in amplitude over time, but its peak amplitude profile doesn’t move in space. Standing waves are formed by the combination of two waves of the same amplitude and frequency moving in opposite directions.

Why does this matter in acoustics, and in our listening rooms? Standing waves may create areas of undesirable resonances within a room and so produce some notes that will be louder than others in those areas, especially in the bass. (Conversely, there may be areas of cancellation, where certain frequencies may be attenuated in specific locations in the room. We touched on this in “Subliminal or Sublime Bass?” in Issue 138.)

Standing waves happen because the dimensions of a room are the same or multiples of the wavelength of the sound at a particular frequency. The room dimensions, speaker position and listening position are what determine the amplitude of a sound waveform at a given frequency. Rather than decaying quickly, that sound wave is emphasised, and you hear it as an unwanted resonance or volume peak. Other frequencies are less prominent from where the same sound wave reflects back on itself over time, leaving a null or a part of the frequency response where there is little sound pressure, and a volume “suck out.”

What is the overall result? You have sound wave energy which is emphasized in some frequencies and nulled in others, which causes an in-room frequency response that is uneven and measurably imbalanced. If you think of a butterfly, the body part where there is no change in movement is the null sound, and the wings represent the sweep of the amplitude of the sound wave, where there are changes in movement – and peaks in the standing wave.

If you are a bass guitar player like me, you may have heard such resonances when trying out different-sized speaker cabinets. Depending on the note you play (the sound waveform) and the size of the cabinet (the “room dimensions”), you may notice that at certain frequencies the sound is no longer even and smooth, but instead, uneven in volume. I have even seen some smaller bass cabinets (a 1 x 10-inch model, for example) actually move around the floor because the cabinet wasn’t sturdy enough to compete with the standing waves created by the cabinet and floor and the note being played.

Standing waves can really mess with the low-frequency response in our music. This is part of the reason why, as you move around your room, some areas sound fuller and richer in bass, while others are lacking. The practical problem is that for most of us with “smaller” rooms (i.e., up to hundreds of square feet and not concert halls or stadiums), the bass, which comprises about 30 percent of what people like in an audio system, sets the context for our midrange and treble – and that in most home listening rooms, the bass is adversely affected up to and including about 150 Hz – right where our low end “lives.” The range of frequencies which are impacted decrease as the room size increases. Bigger rooms are affected up to about 90 Hz, and much bigger rooms are affected up until about 60 Hz.

If there is any compensation in this, some of us can take consolation in the fact that we have listening rooms that are less than ideal in their shape and lack of symmetry. However, those “flawed” room shapes, like an “L”-shaped room, or a room which is open on one side or is asymmetrical, can help break up standing waves rather than reinforce them.

Standing waves are a fact of life. You can’t eliminate them, unless you plan to listen to music in an anechoic chamber, or outside, where there are no room boundaries that would create standing waves. (One interesting solution would be a listening room that opens out to the great outdoors on one side.) The bigger issue is how much control you have over them. In fact, to complain that you have standing waves is a bit like complaining that you have walls.

OK, rooms may not be perfect or even close, but the very fact that the room has such a massive influence over your sound means that you can do more to change your room’s behaviour, by addressing standing waves and correctly aligning your low frequencies, than swapping out your equipment or loudspeakers.

In a following article we will look into how we can tailor our room to taste by addressing standing waves, in our hunt for that sound – the sonic ideal we all strive for.

Header illustration of a standing wave courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Vegar Ottesen.

This article was first published in Issue 139.

No artist springs fully formed into the world. Being creative is a kinetic state, shifting constantly, and not always in linear development. Few singer-songwriters reveal this inner prism more clearly than Pura Fé.

Describing herself as an “heir to the Tuscarora Indian Nation,” Fé has long looked to her ancestors’ music to color her compositional palette. After all, she claims eight generations of Tuscarora singers on her mother’s side. You could say her songs can be understood partly by how much each one is influenced by Native American traditions.

The key here is “how much.” A host of other types of sound shape Fé’s output, in changing ratios at any given time. Expect to hear shades of Appalachian folk, traditional blues, jazz, soul, and even a touch of rock and roll. But that Native American heart is never completely hidden.

The track “Borders,” from the 2009 album Full Moon Rising is a good starting point for getting to know the complexities of Pura Fé. It’s interesting to consider the interplay of style and content in this song. The lyrics are a plea for unity among Native American groups. The song’s musical style is flat-out funk.

A folkier sound carries the song “Let Heaven Show” from 2007 album Hold the Rain. And while acoustic six-string guitars have been in pretty much everybody’s music for a long time, their presence here conjures up more Anglo-Appalachian influence than pure First Nations.

The lyrics overflow with deep-seated peace and appreciation of the world, not the anger and frustration found in a track like “Still You Take,” about human greed that destroys both the earth and our fellow creatures, not to mention ourselves. The poet’s range of expression is as wide as her musical taste.

Even after hearing a few diverse songs, don’t think you can guess what Fé will offer next. Her 2013 album, Caution to the Wind, at first seems like it’s by an entirely different artist with the same name. The opening track, “I Want to Be with You,” could be a ʼ70s pop tune with soul-inspired harmonies and cliched imagery that begins “Ever try to catch a falling star?” But it’s unmistakably Fé’s voice. And isn’t that a Native American wooden flute I hear?

By track 3 of Caution to the Wind, there’s no question who’s writing these songs. The social conscience returns and the romanticism steps aside. “Bye Bye Missy Blues (for Little Mommy),” while its jazz fusion sound may bring to mind Steely Dan, deals with the painful issue of teen suicide: “Missy lost her life down by the railroad tracks. / She couldn’t take it.”

And then, in “Great Grandpa’s Banjo,” yet another aspect of Fé’s musical persona steps into the light. No accompaniment besides rattles supports the tight overdubbing of her voice in this traditional-style song.

It’s worth noting here that Fé is not always a solo act. She also performs and records Native American-influenced songs with a group called The Ulali Project, an all-female “First Nations quartet,” as they bill themselves. There’s no intermixing of styles, and the traditional drums and garb keep the focus away from jazz or pop. The excellent singers blend well together and really sell their traditional roots as a vibrant musical form.

Fé’s most recent solo album, from 2015, is Sacred Seed on Nueva Onda records, produced by Mathis Haug. It includes songs in English, Tuscarora, and Tutelo. (Tutelo is in the Siouan family of Native languages, whereas Tuscarora is related to Iroquois. Both peoples consider North Carolina home.)

She used Tutelo for the song “Mohomoneh,” which is a prayer of gratitude to Mother Earth.

One of Fé’s self-proclaimed goals in music-making has been to explore “the connection between Native music and the African-American primal art form.” Maybe that strikes you as a gimmick, or as too New Age-y to bear. But give it a chance. Here’s the title track of Sacred Seed. The soul-inspired phrasing is there, but with a different approach to the overall sound. It combines traditional Native percussion with piano and the twanging bass of bluesy jazz. All this is in service of socially conscious lyrics:

Part of Fé’s identity as a Native American is clearly bound up with her maternal musical line and the important role of women in First Nations society. A multitude of female voices slide in close harmony against a bowed upright bass in “Woman’s Shuffle,” with breathtaking results. Fé describes what they’re singing as “vocables” rather than language, but the sense of empowerment is unmistakable. She calls the style “old Southern Indian soul.”

Pura Fé is impossible to categorize. She’s the kind of artist who keeps learning and therefore keeps changing. As her philosophy deepens, the wisdom she shares gives the devoted listener greater strength. There is no end to this process of growth. As she puts it in her song “True Freedom,”

Who are we? Powerful beyond measure.

Who are we? Power of the Creator.

This article was first published in Issue 33.