KIDS BOOKS

spotted this kids book for recommended readers between the ages of 5-7 at the Barnes and Noble when i was there with my brat. I thought the concept of writing a story about a city that gets covered in lava burning all the people alive in an entire city made an odd choice for a kids book but what the hell do i know??

GUITAR AFICIONADO

So trolling the new stand the other day i grab the issue below and started to thumb through it when out pops a multi page spread with Devendra Banhart. Paraphrased taglines to swanky looking pics of ultra hip Devendra in thrift store duds "Photographed in cloths picked out by Devendra himself to show of his unique sense of fashion" Wonder if that guy has actually learned how to sing into a mic yet? Amazing how his shining little star just really took off out of nowhere. Also funny how in the grand scheme that the poster boy for "new weird America" has way eclipsed Michael Gira who really sort of put him on the map in the first place? And since I'm ranting on the topic of new weird American Joanna Newsom has a new triple CD out on Drag City?? are you fucking kidding me a triple CD of solo harp and vocal warble??

JACK ROSE DVD

OK so here's the full length trailer for the Jack Rose Glenn Jones DVD goes on sale as I'm told 4/6. The footage is pretty fantastic esp. the stuff capturing Jack in such a natural state in a sunlight loft in Brooklyn playing to a few friends. Note at about 4:53 you can see my bald head off to the far right side of the screen doing knob tweaking during the Philly live set. As a side note that Byron Coley guy does strike me as a smug little prick. I don't know the guy or anything but i have seen him do some "readings" before (big fucking yawn) and as far as i can tell he's mostly famous for being Thurston Moore's friend. What a fucking brilliant idea what famous clown can i latch onto with "friend" status to gain creditability for my stupid nonsense???

LURKER

Philly basement scuzz mess home CDR thing induced fuzz feedback and lo-fi fuckery
http://www.archivecd.com/image/DEEP%20POSSUM%20EDIT.mp3
enjoy the malaise

LOUDEST SOUND IN RECORDED HISTORY

Saw a show on some HighDef channel (I'm a sucker for anything on Hidef TV) about Krakatoa.

The loudest sound in recorded history occurred on August 27, 1883, just off the coast of Jakarta, Indonesia.
A volcano on the small island of Krakatoa was undergoing the cataclysmic stage of its months-long eruption. At 10:20 AM the volcano exploded with a sound heard, literally, around the world.
Scientists estimated the explosion's sound to be around 180 decibels, which is a great enough force to instantly kill all hearing tissue within a human ear.
For comparison, 180dB is about 13x as loud as a jet engine from 100 ft, or as loud as a rifle shot at point blank range. People 2,200 miles away in Perth, Australia could clearly hear the eruption immediately after the explosion.
The explosion spewed a cloud of lava and ash that killed all 3,000 people living on an island 8 miles away. Tsunami waves caused by the volcano crested at over 100 ft.
The eruption sent a shockwave of energy that traveled around the world approximately 7 times and registered on measurement instruments for 5 days after the eruption.
Tsunami waves reached the coast of South Africa over 8,000 miles away, and smaller waves registered on tidal meters as far away as the English Channel.
However, the English waves occurred too soon after the explosion to be remnants of the tsunami. Scientists believe these disturbances were instead a result of air displacement caused by the sound of the eruption

More nerdy sound factoid stuff.. dont know if this is true or not but sounds feasible i suppose

But if you're talking about sound in decibels at the recording source, it's a different story. The loudest sound possible in air is 194 decibels. What does this mean? It means that anything with a higher energy density cannot travel as a sinusoidal wave through air--the wave breaks down, causing turbulence and friction at the wavefront (like comparing smooth ocean waves to the breakers on a beach that happen when a wave gets too big). Such energy in air would turn into heat and even possibly light or plasma rather than sound; it only turns into sound under 194 decibels. You could imagine that in the first split second of a nuclear blast, the fireball has an energy density greater than the equivalent of 194 decibels, and instead of "sound" you get instant supersonic wavefront of destruction. Once the energy density breaks down, the shockwave travels out at the speed of sound, starting at 194 decibels and getting quieter as it radiates outwards. Probably the people who live to tell about nuclear blasts have heard sounds in the lower 100s of decibels or less. Recording equipement and ears actually get destroyed at sounds lower than 194dB, for example supposedly your hearing tissue gets destroyed pretty instantly at 180 decibels, and even 150 decibels will make you go deaf in a short while. So: loudest absolute sound is some sort of cataclysmic explosion volcano, meteor impact, big bang, etc. Loudest sound in energy density is 194dB and occurs at the edge of destructive events, such as major explosions, suicidal blue whales, supersonic aircraft, etc, but this sound is not heard or recorded by the observer; it diffuses by the time it is heard or else it kills the listener.

STEREOPHILE

Was trolling through stereophile http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/the_recording_angel/ and saw an article about some blind test with recorded music and live music and noticed John Atkinson's recording rig consisted of two different pairs of DPA mics the 4003 and the 4011's and Millennia media mic pre's.. good call John.. the past few years i've been running the DPA4052's (same family as the other 4000 series DPA mics minus a mic body) and the Millennia media M-2B tube mic... All of the bigjar books recordings were done with this rig and of particular note i think the Religious Knives CD came out particularly awesome sounding if i don't mind patting myself on the back too much.

COLD CAVE

I started to hear some buzz about this band like 6 months ago and was intrigued by the name, which i liked a good bit.. i later heard one of the dudes was from Philly, and Hospital records was doing some spanky limited tape releases from them. Alright so time to google that shit and check out myspace tracks. Mind you i never download music online because as a general rule i hate listening to music off a shitty PC with $50 speakers, but myspace I'll cruise to sample shit out as its so easy. Anyway back to story, I punched up the COLD CAVE myspace page http://www.myspace.com/coldcave and the jams immediately started to flow... I was mixed with a handful of emotions, the most powerful of which was being thankful i hadn't been 6 months late to the party this was utter shit.. I lasted 20secs on the myspace page and was pronto out of there. I did get a fair chuckle thinking it was pretty funny that some one currently could take Depeche Mode and twist that into some current underground rebirth that was "cool" once again. What a fucking scam!! sheer genius. Like 3 weeks later i was cruising some audiophile nerds blog off the stereophile website http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/ Stephen Mejias who i guess is from the NNJ area as he writes about the Princeton record exchange and NYC a bunch. Anyway I'm cruising his blog finding amusement in lots of different shit when fucking cold cave pop up with a big gush attached to it.. "2009 single of the year" voted by him.. no wonder i cant sell releases anymore my taste must be even shittier then before. For the record this youtube video didn't make me burst into as much hate as the myspace track but i still don't like it. Yours truly grumpy old man signing off.