My cable broke.

The last time I bought stereo equipment it was 1999 and the MP3 revolution was still a year away. I was in the bathroom when an acrid smell wafted through the house. My Sansui burned up. My trusted integrated amp was no more. And unwilling to live without sound in my house for a single moment I went up to the hi-fi store and replaced it. Not that they wanted to sell me a stereo amp. Was I sure that I didn’t want home theatre?

No.

TV is something you see, music is something you hear. It was mixed for two speakers and that was all I needed.

And this transaction begat a conversation about cables. And they convinced me to lay down for some ultra-thick jobbies that they cut on the spot and I went home and experienced top notch sound. For a year or so. And then everything emanated from the desktop, Napster eclipsed CDs and MP3s ruled.

Now unlike Guerinot I saved my CDs, and all my vinyl. But I’ve been thinking about selling the CDs recently, they sound so lousy to begin with.

But today I’m glad I kept them. Because through these Thiel SCS4s, they sound MARVELOUS!

I got an e-mail from somebody I don’t know wondering if I wanted to audition them. The speakers, the Thiel SCS4s. He was an intermediary, someone who knew the family, who’d recommended them to a couple of rock stars, you’d recognize the names, I was sworn to secrecy.

I said sure.

And schlepping them from my girlfriend’s house where I had them delivered to mine just about gave me a hernia. The pain in my gut woke me up the following morning. So I wasn’t eager to finish the job. But I set aside today for the task.

But as I was plugging in one of those expensive cables I noticed something…the connection had come undone. And not being a crimping expert, not having the appropriate tools to rebuild the connection, I started rummaging through a cardboard box so old the sides had collapsed, looking for my old speaker wire, from the seventies.

It was unfindable. So I went with even a narrower gauge. No, not that clear stuff, but just a bit heavier lamp wire.

And I’d like to say the hookup was easy. But there’s so little room and so much dust I was getting more frustrated by the minute.

But stunningly, when I hit the on switch, I got sound.

Now these speakers are not that big. Not as large as the JBLs I set them upon, with woofers that can shake the house. They’re heavy, but they don’t dominate, only a true nitpicker would have a problem with them being displayed.

But there’s a clarity and enough punch. And what emanates from these speakers is MUSIC! You remember music, don’t you? Not that white noise that comes from earbuds, not that bass-heavy thump that comes from Beats headphones, but that sweet sound that goes straight to your core, makes you feel all gooey inside, makes you feel positively alive.

It’s like we listen with steel wool in our ears. There’s so much garbage between the sound and our ears that we lose touch with the essence. It’s like going around with dirty glasses. Would you watch the flat panel with these?

And remember that first HD experience? Most of today’s listeners have never had that with music. That jaw-dropping wow. That eureka moment. That startling sensation that you’re living on the cutting edge.

Now this guy sent me these Thiels because he thought they were affordable.

They’re $1190 apiece. And that might sound like a lot, but back in the seventies we spent $333 apiece for our JBL L100s, and with the pace of inflation, these cost less.

Then again, you do need an amplifier, a CD player.

I’m running an NAD 317, with 80 watts per channel into 8 ohms. And if you know NAD, that’s a very conservative statistic, if you want to compare it to the crap, double that number, maybe add even more:

NAD 317 Stereo Integrated Amplifier

And I’ve got a Sony CDP-XA20ES CD player. It only stores one disc at a time, and it utilizes a weight and the CD moves, not the lens, and you can read a review here:

Sony CDP-XA20ES CD Player

And you’ll notice that the Sony is over a decade old and cost $700 back when.

And the NAD was just a bit more expensive.

But this is cheap in the realm of stereo aficionados.

But you don’t even need an amp and CD player this good.

For $3500, you could build quite a system.

WHAT?

Then you have no idea what plasma televisions cost when they were introduced. Not everybody owned one, but enough people were blown away at their early adopter friend’s house that they purchased too and the price came down.

So, if we all went out and bought stereo, I imagine price points would drop.

But you still might not be able to afford these Thiels.

But if you can…

I’m hearing stuff I never knew existed on albums I know by heart. It reminds me of way back when when we listened deep, when music didn’t bounce off of us, when we put on our thinking caps and dove in, marinating in the experience.

Thiel SCS4

Thiel SCS4

So my friend Cathy says she’s going to go to work for Rob Gordon at W.A.R.?

Huh?

You mean the guy who used to work in A&R at EMI, who started his own label? Those never went anywhere, not twenty years ago.

But then she unfolded the story of the Samples, how they left Arista and put their next record out on W.A.R.? and she was doing radio promotion.

Cathy used to work at Atlantic. The big time. But now she was working for this pisher label and was getting adds on this act I’d never even heard of before.

Then she sent me the album, "No Room". It was good, it was professional, I really liked it.

Start with:

1. "When It’s Raining"

It sounds like Colorado crossed with the Police. How did an indie band do something so professional? I could break down every element, but just listen, you’ll be hooked, by the changes, the vocal, the texture. This has been labeled "white music", but last time I looked there were plenty of Caucasians in America. If you went to Hampshire College and didn’t get into Phish, you might just be into this. If you ever go to Colorado, fire this up when you put the top down, draw the sunroof open, it’s the perfect soundtrack, it’ll put a smile on your face.

It’s the little things that enrapture you, like the keyboard texture at 2:16.

2. "Summertime"

No, it’s not the classic song, but it’s classic in its own right. Very dreamy, great on a hot sticky night after you’ve pulled on the pipe, had a few gin and tonics.

A great band is not limited to only one sound, they’ve got a whole repertoire. "Summertime" sounds little like "When It’s Raining", but you certainly know it’s the same act.

3. "Did You Ever Look So Nice"

Sure, it’s white reggae. Pioneered by the Police and put out of business by the Outfield, but there was nothing wrong with that sound. This is minor, yet infectious.

4. "Nothing Lasts For Long"

Epic. The anti-Top Forty track. If you’re into album music, this is for you. Stuff made to sound right as opposed to what fits on the radio.

5. "Giants"

Hang in there until :53, when the acoustic guitar starts picking. This is so intimate, it feels like you’ve been awoken by someone singing right outside your window. Somehow music is now seen as for everybody, something to bump butts to in the club, but the best stuff is positively PERSONAL!

And if you liked the foregoing, be sure to play all of "No Room", it’s up there on Spotify for your perusal, but I want to pull out some other Samples gems, there are so many.

Now if "No Room" had been on a major, everybody would know the Samples, it’s just that good, there’s not a loser cut on it. And it’s beholden to no corporation, it contains an indie spirit. And "No Room" is the best, but the follow-up, "The Last Drag", although a bit of a disappointment at first…I’ve come to love it too.

6. "Carry On"

No, not the CSN&Y song, but it’s as intimate as anything Stephen Stills has ever sung. You want to go see the band live just so you can telepathically connect with the singer.

7. "The Streets In The Rain"

I’m looking for people
That I used to know
And I’m looking for places
We used to go

That’s how it was in the pre-Facebook era. You always wondered…WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM? You remembered the good times, you wanted to reconnect. And the fact you rarely could allowed you to feel warm all over, especially when you heard music like this.

8. "Little Silver Ring"

It’s got a circular feeling, you start rotating your head in time, from the very beginning. How could someone this talented not be known by everybody?

9. "The Last Drag"

The title track. Listen to the dog bark, it sounds like it was cut on a porch in the middle of summer, you can see the moths flying around in the lamplight.

"Transmissions From The Sea Of Tranquility"

This mostly live album is now my favorite Samples work.

10. "Watching The Wheels"

Just as good, if not better, than the John Lennon original.

11. "Indiana"

Now after slogging it out on an indie, the Samples went back to a major, MCA, and messed up their moment, "Outpost" was not as good as the W.A.R.? albums.

The original "Indiana" is on this album, it’s ok. But listen to this live take from "Transmissions From The Sea Of Tranquility"…WHEW! It’s like you’re driving in a car cross-country and a buddy is singing his story, but you can’t be buddies with this guy, he’s just too TALENTED!

12. "Flying"

This is like listening to your favorite seventies album, and like so many classics, it never goes out of date. So heartfelt!

13. "Little Silver Ring"

The instruments TWINKLE! Like there’s pixie dust in the air!

This takes you away from the workaday world to the private space that only music inhabits…you’re thrilled to be able to go there!

14. "The Last Drag"

And this is why I’m writing this whole piece, I can never forget hearing this and continuing to play it. Life is so complicated, so often you feel alone. But this take on this song fills up the whole listening space, you feel okay, that you can make it through.

And you can’t find "Wild River (Colorado)" on Spotify. I think Sean controls that one, not W.A.R.? But it’s fascinating when someone can still hit the peak long after their moment is gone.

The Samples lived the life. They owned their own bus, twenty years ago, when that was unheard of. They lived the life of rock stars, going on the road, getting high, getting laid. But businessmen they were not.

The original band split up. But Sean carried on with new players. Didn’t seem to matter, he could still hit the high notes, literally and figuratively.

But then he burned out a few business partners. And ultimately it all came screeching to a halt. He left Colorado and wound up broke back in Vermont, where he started. He sold his equipment, he gave guitar lessons. You’ve got to get by.

And I haven’t heard from him in eons. It’s got to be so frustrating to put so much effort in and at the end all you’ve got is the good times.

But that’s not true. You’ve got the music too!

Spotify link

Previous Rhinofy playlists

"People spend $300 on crazy things all the time, things like handbags. So work all year, scrape the money together, and come to my show. I’m worth it."

Madonna on Lady Gaga, ‘W.E.,’ Her New Album

It’s not the eighties anymore.

But don’t tell that to an ultra-rich woman living in a London inhabited by wealthy oil sheiks that appears to be oblivious to the recession, never mind the plight of those in the Midlands or the United States.

This is how we know Madonna is toast. Ahmet always kept up with the trends, that’s how he stayed relevant. And Madonna tried, albeit a beat behind the hipsters, distilling their fads for the masses, but now she’s lost her way.

You’re supposed to be in bed with your fans. Or at least give that illusion. She’s supposed to say she wants to charge less, but the scalpers won’t let her, she wants to make sure fans get the tickets. Or, if she really cared about the fans getting tickets, she’d lower the price and go paperless.

But Madonna never cared about her fans. Certainly not after she got rich and started living a better life hanging with the upper class.

And this worked in the go-go eighties, even the dot com nineties, when seemingly everybody had money and was living the high life.

But now, when those same fans who lined up as teenagers are mothers balancing the books to put food on the table, Madonna insults them?

As for the comment re handbags, isn’t this what’s wrong with America? Empty, soulless gratification, like too much of Madonna’s recent music? People are hungering for truth. Sure, they want to party, but not at these prices.

Not that I believe Madonna will do poor business. But I’d be stunned if her album’s a success in America. She’s too old, too unhip, and without Top Forty success, you’re done.

It’s a brand new music business and Madonna’s not part of it.

The saturation marketing of yore, where we had to endure her, is gone. We can ignore Madonna pretty easily these days. And that’s what she hates most. She wants that attention. But rather than remake herself for a modern era, she’s gonna go on the road and sing those old hits.

She’s incredibly smart. If only she let her face fall and sang about the travails of the middle age woman, then she could truly be a leader, an icon, she’d have a chance of regaining her previous status.

But she blinked. She spends more time in the gym than on charitable issues and has had fat injected in her cheeks when her fan base is riddled with cellulite. Once upon a time she was a chubby everywoman, now she’s a Terminator, a veritable computer, made of metal and plastic as opposed to flesh and blood.

But she mirrors society quite well. The rich and famous have lost touch with the hoi polloi. Not realizing, that without them they’re nothing. She can take her money and go home, like David Bowie, but if she goes on the road who does she think is paying for all those tickets? Certainly not Citibank or Goldman Sachs.

Watch this Elizabeth Warren video, it gets the essence straight:

Elizabeth Warren on Fair Taxation

So Madonna is just like Mitt Romney. Living off the grid for so long that she’s lost touch with it. Mitt thinks a casual bet is 10k and says he doesn’t worry about the poor, that the safety net will take care of them at the same time wanting to get rid of national health and continue to cut welfare payments.

Madonna, wanna make a difference? Stand up for the little people!

But she’s not from the sixties or seventies, she never learned that lesson.

She screwed everybody known to man. Where was her outrage when the Susan G. Komen foundation took away funding from Planned Parenthood? Madonna moved to NYC broke, I’d be stunned if she didn’t use Planned Parenthood for birth control. Furthermore, isn’t birth control all about empowering women?

But Madonna doesn’t care about you, only herself.

And since she got away being sassy in the Reagan eighties, she thinks the same behavior works today.

If she thinks she’s worth $300 a ticket, she’s dreaming. Nobody’s worth that. And if they can get it, it doesn’t last forever, nothing does.

Speaking of which, do you think we’ll be hearing "Like A Virgin" next to "I Want To Hold Your Hand" on oldies radio fifty years from now?

Don’t make me laugh.

I know Madonna’s answer. It’s everybody’s answer today. I sold out, so shut up. Money trumps everything, ends every conversation. Like we should revere these bankers just because they’re rich.

Well, the rich and powerful media companies got trumped by the online masses on SOPA.

And the blowback caused the Susan G. Komen foundation to reverse course.

That’s the power of the people. You want to be on their side if you want to win.

Madonna is not.

Spotify link - Electric Landlady

"we’ve grown accustomed to treating ‘the music industry’ as synonymous with a handful of large recording companies."

Why We Shouldn’t Worry About The (Alleged) Decline Of The Music Industry

That’s from Timothy B. Lee’s report about Mike Masnick’s Midem presentation:

The Sky Is Rising: The Entertainment Industry Is Large & Growing… Not Shrinking

We need new glasses. Imagine if all you had were reading specs. You wouldn’t be able to see far away, you’d be oblivious to the big picture.

That’s what’s happened in music. Since the four soon to be three major labels have been complaining, as well as the stars their machine built, conventional wisdom is that music is screwed, going down the drain. But more people are recording than ever before and it’s easier to hear their music and more ways to pay them if people like it.

I heard this Kila track, "Electric Landlady", on Sirius XM’s Spectrum last night. Now Sirius XM is a service that not only charges listeners, but pays copyright holders and performers. That’s all good. But without Spotify, without YouTube, that track would have gone into the ether, I probably never would have heard it again.

I’d never heard of the act, never mind the track, but I liked it.

I typed the title on my hand-set, sent myself an e-mail and just checked out the cut on Spotify, then looked up the band on Wikipedia.

It was all news to me.

And it ain’t exactly rock and roll, but I like it. And I’ve played "Electric Landlady" five times already on Spotify.

Today, it’s easy to spread the word. Sure, there’s more information than ever, but with so many people listening, a certain amount rises up. Maybe not to the top, but to the point where the creators can get paid. Maybe not as much as in yesteryear, but in the old days those stars were the only ones getting paid. Now the wealth is shared.

Furthermore, read this article from the "Financial Times":

Spotify hits 3m subscribers to improve conversion rate

Spotify conversion is going up.

Only one online music service will win. And Spotify has traction and now apps, which should not be underestimated, they could kill Pandora.

But now when you can check out everything you’re not going to listen to the same spoon-fed stuff over and over again.

Kila is never going to be on Top Forty radio. It’s never going to be a priority at Sony. But "Electric Landlady" is damn good.

YouTube link -Kíla- Electric Landlady