tim merritt [dot] net

One of the would-be idols rendered a pale shadow of Pete Townsend’s Baba O’Reilly this evening. Which sent me back to the original, full strength. And then Won’t Get Fooled Again. Sometimes, I go back to the music that shaped me, and this was an essential part of the soundtrack for me.

Other authors have described this album and its essential songs, and you can find their words with a minimum of searching. I’ll just tell you to listen, loudly.

Eric Alterman and others on the best pop and rock albums of 2007. Must revisit these lists!

Media Matters – Altercation: For Goodness’ Sakes: The Altercation Music Lists

Our local CompUSA has reached the 30%-50% off, all-fixtures-for-sale stage of its closing. I found the RocketFM from Griffin Technology forless than $9, so I can broadcast any audio from my computer over low-power FM. With this hack I extended the range to the clock radio at the far end of the house… which means much more variety than the usual meager fare on the local airwaves.

Lifehacker’s Geek to Live offers iTunes power tips

I want to keep track of these, for Ellen. (Shhh.)

This is an old link I should have posted ages ago, from the UK’s Observer Monthy Music (“OMM”): Tom Waits on his cherished albums of all time: ‘It’s perfect madness’

In the first of an occasional series in which the greatest recording artists reveal their favourite records, Tom Waits writes about his 20 most cherished albums of all time. So for the lowdown on Zappa and Bill Hicks, step right up…

Here’s that take on Bill Hicks:

bq.15 Rant in E Minor by Bill Hicks (Rykodisc) 1997

Bill Hicks, blowtorch, excavator, truthsayer and brain specialist, like a reverend waving a gun around. Pay attention to Rant in E Minor, it is a major work, as important as Lenny Bruce’s. He will correct your vision. His life was cut short by cancer, though he did leave his tools here. Others will drive on the road he built. Long may his records rant even though he can’t.

I need to consolidate the music I’ve accumulated on the laptop drive and on one of my external backups, and boom, I come across this hint at macosxhints.com – Easily move music between drives with iTunes 7 – in my usual semi-daily Mac news browsing. Tomorrow night, it will be done. Life is good.

Download Now: The Free iPod Book 2.0

It’s here: The Free iPod Book 2.0, by iLounge.com! Weighing in at 194 pages, this revised and expanded second edition of our popular Book is your one-stop answer to every major iPod and iTunes question… plus much, much more.

There’s a large fillet of wild-caught salmon smoking on the grill, a very light snow is falling (nothing will stick, but in Atlanta, that’s cool), we’re drinking good red wine, a Gershwin special is on the radio, and we’re going to watch Almodovar’s Talk to Her. I feel rich.

...with crab cakes! Ellen and I had the house, and New Year’s Eve, to ourselves last night. We had homemade crab cakes, asparagus, salad, and peach sorbet, with a nice 2003 merlot. We welcomed the new year listening to H. Johnson’s Jazz Classics on our public radio station. His show has been on for more than 20 years, and it’s one of the many things that make Atlanta a great place to live. First song of the new year: Ray Charles’ America the Beautiful. Nice.

This came as part of Small Dog Electronics’ Kibbles and Bytes enewsletter. I’m keeping it here – below the fold – as a reference for me and for anyone who might find it useful. Thanks to Small Dog!

For iPod Newbies
Ed@Smalldog.com

A very good, very clever friend of mine was delighted to receive his first iPod this Christmas. He ripped open the package, turned the iPod on, and immediately set the language to Chinese. He does not read or speak Chinese. Rather than read the fine print in the manual, he called me to learn how to reset the iPod. He also had lots of other questions about how the iPod works – the same questions we hear everyday at Small Dog Electronics. Because many people will be receiving the iPod this holiday season, I decided to dedicate this article to answering six of these very common questions. If you are the person that all your friends call when they have ANY computer problem, hang on to this article for them!

Jimmy Page Was My Co-Pilot –
“My English teacher’s assignment was an oral report on a book of our choice. I had no trouble selecting a book, because I had just read the definitive work on one of my favorite topics: Led Zeppelin. Stephen Davis’s cheesy Led Zep biography, Hammer of the Gods, had just been published, and I probably read it front to back the day it came out.”

I loved Led Zeppelin myself. Loved them. I know they didn’t define Rock Star Excess, but they practiced it and burnished it to an excessive gleam that virtually no other band has been able to touch. Despite this and innumerable other flaws, I revere some of their early power blues, and some of the great stuff on Physical Grafitti still makes me drive fast. From Panopticist: Cultural Surveillance.

Saw the Johnny Cash biopic tonight (spoiler: he marries June and sings at Folsom Prison). E and W liked it more than I did, and I liked it, but it was too… patterned. A.O. Scott describes it well in his comparison with the Rac Charles biopic: Walk the Line”offers more tribute than insight.” I recommend it, but it won’t blow you away. You will want to buy some Johnny Cash music afterward.

We watched the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular this evening at the Fox Theatre. The show was fun, the precision dancing was impressive, and the Fox is a great venue for this kind of old fashioned entertainment. My favorite part was how impressed the little kids were. One little boy walked by during the intermission and said, “It’s a great show!” He was right.

O’Reilly: Hacking Your Car: How to Get Clean Audio and Video Signals into Your Car

Manufacturers

There are only a handful of primary manufacturers in the “12V” accessory market (as they call it.) There are also a large number of one-off products designed and manufactured to solve a specific vehicle and model need, such as “AUX in adapters for late ‘90s Jettas” or the like.

In addition, in these niche markets, sometimes one manufacturer makes the adapter and a number of other companies buy it and put their sticker on it, but don’t actually make it. Some companies will also clone other companies’ adapters, selling knock-offs, so the standard make-sure-you-can-return-it-if-anything-goes-wrong consumer advice applies.

Resources

Here’s a list of audio adapter companies:

The Roadhouse

We get back to the full sound of big guitars, big horns and big beats this week. Thanks to NorthernBlues, Alligator and Vanguard, there’s new music aplenty in this edition. Kenny Traylor, Charlie Musselwhite, Toni Lynn Washington, Guitar Shorty, and The Holmes Brothers take the fore, while seven more great blues artists bring up the rear. We’re having a ball this week in The Roadhouse – the finest blues you’ve never heard.

This was a draft I noted almost three years ago: Boing Boing: Laughing and Crying Records. It’s a great idea. Reminds me of Drivin’ ‘n’ Cryin’ from the 80s and 90s: rock is for driving and country is for crying.