More 2008 tunes

Here's some more stuff that I listened to this year:

Equipment, two items of note:
I picked up this fancy car stereo, a JVC KD-PDR80 this summer that plays mp3s right off a USB flash drive. High fidelity? Hardly, but neither is the listening environment in my eight year-old civic. Convenience? Amazing, I can fit some 40-50 albums in high-rate (VBR-0, roughly 200kbps) form on a 4 gig drive. No more shuffling cd's in the car, and I can listen to a lot of older stuff easily without feeling like I'm wasting a cd-r. If only it used SD memory (so I didn't have a thumb drive sticking out of the dash) and played flac files. Ohwell, it's pretty sweet anyway.

I have this old turntable, a Dual 506, that has this ultralight tonearm that's fussy about cartridge mating. The Ortofon OM series is preferred, but they are becoming discontinued and you really want a higher-level stylus (OM 20 or greater, starting at $100 for the stylus) alone to make it sing. I've had a cheapo OM-3e on here since I got it, but the kind folks at Audiokarma.org gave me this little tip. There's this cat on eBay selling these new old stock 'Digitrac 200 NE' cartridges for $20 including shipping. Turns out they were an OEM Ortofon 20 from the 80's that had a crappy motor setup, so most of them are missing a channel. Turns out the stylus is a nude elliptical, grey market vesrion of the OM-20. So for $20 and using the old OM body I had, I have a $180 cartridge that takes this 'table to another level. I've got it set up in the den/workout room and actually put more hours on it than my main rig, a Music Hall mmf-5. No inner groove distortion, smooth highs, solid lows, and decent midrange. Amazing.

Dave Holland Quintet- Burned a bunch of his stuff from a buddy of mine (I know, bad, BAD). This guy is a hell of a jazz bassist and composer but even better bandleader. All these recordings (late 80's to mid 90's stuff) feature player that just fucking rip that shit up. This is rocking jazz, but definitely not jazz-rock. Killer stuff.

Delta Spirit- My Brother and I went to finally catch the Old 97's back in October. Too bad they sucked. They just didn't want to be there, acting and playing all aloof, guitarist out of tune, slack solos, no energy. We were right in front of the stage so I could see the
setlist, which was shrinking with every song change. So they ended the show early and bro got us into the show in Higher Ground's smaller room. This place was packed with college kids, and this band Dr. Dog was playing. I've seen the name around, figured they were some jam band crap. Their 'look' was pretty horrible; fedoras, Ray Bans, white shirts and skinny ties. Why do these kids born in the 80's (90's?) feel a need to relive that era that they never really knew? Anyway, I soon learned that if you shut your eyes and listen to the music that these kids played some killer indie pop, sort of a Guided by Voices by way of Apples in Stereo/Elephant 6 sort of thing. Checking out the merch table I saw this record by Delta Spirit, who I heard of in a promo email from Pure Pop. I guess they had opened for these Dog kids (horrible name, horrible).
Plopping that platter on at work the next day I was amazed. This was rootsy, Americana-sort of folky rock, with great songs. Turns out the members used to be in some up and coming emo outfit but smartened up and moved to the back porch. So to sum it up, bro and I went to the
wrong show that night, and this is easily one of my top 3 records this year.

The National- Okay, sometimes I'm late to the party. I often make new music choices based on 'best-of' lists from the previous year. I kept seeing The National's Boxer listed for 2007, so picked it up along with its predecessor Alligator. While I prefer the earlier record, I really dig these guys in general. Really downbeat stuff with somewhat complex/mid-tempo instrumentation, right up a Wilco fan's alley.