Tampa Calling

Audio Visions South, the Tampa Bay area’s premiere, locally owned, high-end stereo and video store, will throw the second edition of its two-part event called “The Future of Music All Age Access Audio” on Sat., July 25, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The store’s acoustically exquisite listening rooms will buzz with activities.

The gathering will give music lovers a bunch of useful tips on gear, vinyl, accessories and more, and focus on how to maximize your music experience: AVS invites you to bring your digital media, CDs, LPs, iPod and laptop with you. Here are some of the event’s features:

• A Nitty Gritty LP cleaning station will be set up so your albums will be at peak performance levels when you learn to rip them to your computer.

• You will also learn the best way to rip CDs. Once ripped, you can load all your favorite tunes to your iPod and then we’ll help you figure out how to integrate your iTunes library with your in-home Hi-Fi system.

• We’ll go over streaming video and the best download method for your set up. Read the rest of this entry »

Uh oh, the 40th anniversary of Woodstock is about a month and a half away. Did you remember? If not, it’s probably due to the distinct lack of buzz, seeing as there is no official concert scheduled, although boosters keep adding “as yet” in hopes that original co-producer Michael Lang will manage to put together a show in New York’s Prospect Park.

A handful of mostly lame events are planned for different parts of the country, and a tour called Heroes of Woodstock — featuring Mountain, Jefferson Starship, Tom Constanten (repping Grateful Dead) and others — has 16 dates on the books (none in the Southeast). In all, though, it would seem as if folks have other things on their mind than memorializing the watershed cultural event.

That doesn’t mean it’s a complete wasteland. Sony Music has released a well-thought-out group of reissues called The Woodstock Experience, five two-CD packages pairing a classic 1969 album and a complete Woodstock performance. Sony catalog artists Santana, Janis Joplin, Johnny Winter, Jefferson Airplane and Sly and the Family Stone got the treatment.

Thirty-three acts performed at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair from Aug. 15-18, 1969, including such long-forgotten names as Quill, Sweetwater, Keef Hartley Band and Bert Sommer. (The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, The Byrds and a handful of lesser-knowns declined invitations. Jeff Beck, Iron Butterfly and Joni Mitchell canceled.)

Only a handful of the performances have been immortalized, mostly via the 1970 film Woodstock and its soundtrack. And Sony can legitimately boast three of them in this collection: Sly, Santana and Joplin. Winter did not make it into the movie and while Jefferson Airplane were represented with two songs in celluloid, their set has not earned the same historical cachet as the top three.

Let’s have us a closer look at these twofers. I’ve ranked them on their merit as live performances. Read the rest of this entry »

CAUSE WE SEZ SO!

VINYL:

• Tori Amos – Abnormally Attracted, limited edition Tori litho w/ purchase (while supplies last)!

• Booker T – Potato Hole

• Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career

• Les Claypool – Of Fungi and Foe

Leonard Cohen reissues:

• Live Songs
• New Skin For The Old Ceremony
  
• Songs From a Room
• Songs of Leonard Cohen
• Songs of Love & Hate

180 gram Sundazed reissues: Read the rest of this entry »