IV, Music, Headphones, iPods, etc.

[John Carvill]

> From: Robin Landseadel
>
> On Oct 27, 2009, at 2:57 PM, John Carvill wrote:
>
>> We know Pynchon loves Rock 'n' Roll, yes?
>
> Maybe?
>

Eh? You're joking, yes? Maybe.


> . . . say "rich chocolaty goodness."

Eh?


>
>> Was live rock music ever free, anyway?
>
> Woodstock wasn't a "free" concert until the gates were mobbed, then
> trampled. We've been paying for anything attached to that aggressively
> overhyped event ever since. And can one imagine a costlier "free"
> concert than Altamont?

Yes, that is sorta, like, what I was sayin'...

Wasn't the original Monterey festival free? Organised by former
Beatles press officer/Apple boss Derek Taylor.

>
>> Is he, as has
>> been suggested, making a sly reference to iPods?
>
> He is making a sly reference to anything digital in 2009 in as many
> places as he possibly can.
>

Yes, I know, but I meant that particular passage.

>> Mostly what it reminded me of was Steppenwolf . . .
>
> I Like Smoke & Lightning . . .
>

I get it! I get it! Get the motor runnin'....

I meant this stuff from Herman Hesse's novel:

"At one part Mozart puts a record of Handel on the gramophone and
Harry has a fit. How could he possibly listen to this bastardized
tinny sound of Handel's profound music; it is blasphemy. Mozart laughs
at him at tells him that music on the gramophone is to real music the
way Harry's life is to reality; a distortion that gets something
right. What Harry must do is two things: he must learn to accept the
world as it is given to him and he must learn to laugh at the
distortions. Harry chooses, in fear and trembling, knowing it will be
painful and that he will often fail to embrace this comic sense of
accepting a meaningless reality, to go on and hope that someday he
will learn to laugh at the distortions while appreciating the
significant essence of the underlying reality which we can never fully
achieve."

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/personal/reading/hesse-steppenwolf.html

"Harry’s profound attachment to music is obvious from the start, when
the preface describes the curious changes that come over him at the
symphony. Harry’s earliest and greatest idol is Mozart. Among Harry’s
greatest frustrations with modern popular culture are the radio and
gramophone, which he dislikes because he believes they defile sacred
music. For Harry, music floats above the world of mundane realities, a
perfect, transcendent sphere of the spiritual. This high estimation of
music recalls German Romantic aesthetic theory, which prized music
foremost among the arts because it does not attempt to represent
something else, as visual or dramatic arts do. Strictly pure, divorced
from having to picture or describe any physical thing, music seems to
belong to the divine world beyond the visible one."

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/steppenwolf/themes.html


>
>> I'm just now getting back into vinyl, having
>> compared the Beatles remasters to some old vinyl and realised that the
>> new CDs cannot possibly compete. Not exactly news, of course, but the
>> extent of the disparity is striking.
>
> Guess it all depends on your playback gear. "Beatles For Sale" sounds
> better from my 2009 CD remaster than on my 30 year old Parlophone vinyl.
>

Not sure it depends on your gear that much. (I mean, I know some
audiophiles get way out there. Heard of a guy recently who had a huge
metal spike buried under his house, to improve the sound of his
hi-fi.) But, if you have *really* crappy gear, then you can still get
great sound from an LP. If you have *really* good gear, you can get
good sound from a CD and amazing sound from an LP. I have a Pro-Ject
Debut turntable, often cited as the cheapest 'proper' turntable on the
market, can be bought brand new for less than £200, and it sounds
incredibly good.

I still think the Beatles remasters are very good, a big improvement
on the existing CDs. But the CD format is one I won't regret seeing
the back of, in so many ways. Listening to my copy of  'A Collection
of Beatles Oldies (But Goldies)', original 1966 UK vinyl, the
difference between that old vinyl sound and the new CDs is shocking. A
friend of mine described the vinyl sound as being 'more fluid', which
is a description I cannot better. It has infinitely more emotional
punch. With the CDs, yu feel as though you're listening to CDs,
whereas with teh vinyl, you feel you're listening to music.

Beatles For Sale, the new mono CD, was one of my favourites from the
Mono Box. I haven't compared that whole album to the mono vinyl yet so
I can't say whether I agree or not. But everything else I've compared
so far has seen the vinyl come out way on top.