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"What's Going On"

John Atkinson Aug 10, 2020 First Published: Aug 10, 2020

Mother, mother
There's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There's far too many of you dying

I watched the TV with horror. George Floyd, an African-American man in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was being killed in front of the camera. I retreated to the listening room. In what couldn't have been a coincidence, the Roon app's "Discover" function had recommended I play What's Going On, Marvin Gaye's groundbreaking album, released in 1971 by Motown subsidiary Tamla.

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Terry Riley: Get What You Need

Jason Victor Serinus Jul 29, 2020 First Published: Jul 29, 2020

For two months, I'd been planning to attend Terry Riley's appearance at Seattle's 536-seat Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall. For two weeks, I'd been planning to watch a presidential-candidate debate on television. Only one problem: As it turned out, the two events were scheduled for the same night. Even after a decade of trying to master the muddle known as multitasking, it was impossible to do both.

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Art Dudley: The Art of Being

Jason Davis Jun 16, 2020 First Published: Jun 16, 2020

Photo: Sasha Matson

I met Art Dudley twice, and in both instances, he was exceedingly humble and gracious with his time. The first time, I thanked him for hosting the Virtues of Vintage panel at DC's Capital Audiofest, just moments after he was verbally accosted by an unwell man seated in front of mesomething about audio-journalism lingo and abstract phrases like "midrange bloom."

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Will the Circle Be Unbroken?

John Swenson May 26, 2020 First Published: May 26, 2020

I loved New Orleans music before I even knew what it was.

In the mid-1960s, I went to high school in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which back then was a bleak, On the Waterfront landscape of dock workers and drifters hanging out in the pool halls along Bedford Avenue. We were warned to watch out on our way to track practice at nearby McCarren Park, because the pool halls were violent and confrontations often spilled out onto the street.

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Musicology Begins at Home

Julie Mullins Apr 28, 2020 First Published: Apr 28, 2020

When I was growing up, calling Dad to dinner required a trip down carpeted stairs to the basement, an audiophile man cave in a time before the term had been invented. I'd open the door from the kitchen, and a great wall of sound would emergeand nearly blow me back before I descended the stairs.

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From 78 to 24/384

Jason Victor Serinus Mar 27, 2020 First Published: Mar 27, 2020

When I was 11, my father brought home the voice of tenor Enrico Caruso (18731921) in a three-LP box set whose faux leather cover and sepia-tinted photos I admired over and over. When he put on the Sextet from Lucia di Lammermoor, I exclaimed, "Daddy, I've heard that before!"

"Yeah, you broke it when you were 2," he replied.

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"Isn't Our Hobby the Greatest?"

Robert Schryer Feb 04, 2020 First Published: Feb 04, 2020

As per our ritual, Karim and Dan arrived at my door in late afternoon, bearing our ritual's customary offerings: dark beer, wine, cold pork sandwiches, fruit and chocolate tarts, good music on well-recorded CDs, and audio hardware to try out on the host's hi-fion this particular Friday, my hi-fi. It's what we did: break bread while gabbing like regular folk about regular things, then bolt for the listening room for an evening of hi-fi fun.

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Keeping the Audiophile Faith

Carl Thomas Hriczak Jan 02, 2020 First Published: Jan 02, 2020

It's 9:45 on a mid-September weeknight in Greater Toronto. Having spent the evening reveling in the glory of her 9th birthdaycandles blown out, presents open, pleasantly full of Wegmans' Ultimate Chocolate CakeOur Birthday Girl has one additional request:

"Can we please play 'Happy Birthday Polka'?!"

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The Ghost in the Machine

Herb Reichert Oct 29, 2019 First Published: Oct 29, 2019

"The crying rain like a trumpet sang
And asked for no applause."Bob Dylan, "Lay Down Your Weary Tune"

I remember as a toddler sitting in the kitchen on a highchair, watching my mother smoke a cigarette, apply red lipstick, and tune a turquoise table radio from one news station to another. Between the strange, nattering voices, the radio emitted a sharp hissing sound. That's my first memory of human voices coming from a little box.

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Vertigo

Sasha Matson Sep 17, 2019 First Published: Sep 17, 2019

In Alfred Hitchcock's great film Vertigo, filmed in San Francisco in 1957, the protagonist, Scottie, played by James Stewart, becomes obsessed with Madeleine, played by Kim Novak. Scottie, a retired detective, suffers from a disabling case of acrophobia, which becomes a critical if tenuous plot point.