Stephen Mejias

You know what tomorrow is? <a href="http://www.recordstoreday.com/Home">Record Store Day</a>! It’s not that guys like you and me <i>need</i> a special reason to go to the record store and buy a bunch of vinyl, but it’s nice to have it anyway. You’ll find me at my local shop, Tunes, in Hoboken, by no later than 10am, waiting for the doors to open. Last year, I showed up just 30 minutes after they had opened, only to find that most of the coolest stuff had already sold out. Not this year. This year, <i>I’ll</i> be the one that gets all the cool stuff.

I’ve been digging Dexter Gordon’s 1963 album, <i>Our Man In Paris</i>, featuring Bud Powell on piano, Pierre Michelot (a JA fave) on bass, and Kenny Clarke on drums. Look at how deep and cool Dexter Gordon looks on the cover, balancing a smoke between his fingers, lost in thought.

Last January, John Atkinson wrote an enthusiastic review of <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/dynaudio_sapphire_loudspea…’s 30th Anniversary Sapphire</a> loudspeaker; impressed by its big-bottomed bass, neutral midrange, and stable stereo imaging, JA concluded:

Ah: Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino has fun when she’s with Ronald McDonald. Hmm. Here’s the video for Best Coast’s “When I’m With You,” directed by <a href="http://www.peteohs.com/">Pete Ohs</a>:

The <a href="http://www.eskucheme.com/">Eskuche</a&gt; 33-1/3 headphone. On May 3, buy a pair of these and get a limited-edition <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/the_world_is_crazy/">Best Coast</a> 7” single. <a href="http://pitchfork.com/news/38483-best-coast-new-video-new-single/">Pitch…; told me, via <a href="http://twitter.com/stereophilemag">Twitter</a&gt;.

Longtime <i>Stereophile</i> contributor and well-respected child psychiatrist, Larry Greenhill, is a fan of Insane Clown Posse.

Comparisons to a young Bob Dylan are inevitable. There’s the same sort of defiance, the odd insouciance, the long lines of poetry squeezed out and hacked out and blown out like kisses, too. The guitar work is very good&#151scintillating at times and always passionately wrought&#151but it’s the voice that gets you. The voice&#151childlike but crotchety as hell, delicate but yearning, beautiful but completely wrong. The voice is what gets you. Kristian Matsson is The Tallest Man On Earth; he plays rock and roll, and plans to be forgotten when he’s gone.