The New Sound

As promised before, here is a picture of my new sound setup.

Moving from top to bottom, there is the Goldring GR-1.2 turntable, the Pro-ject Phono Box MKII (the silver thing), the LiTe DAC-Ah (the black thing), and the NAD 320BEE amp. On the top right is one of the EPOS ELS-3 speakers. Still missing is the vintage Sony discman I bought; that will be the Sony D-5A. In total, I basically have three sources of music:

Vinyl: Goldring GR-1.2 --> Pro-ject Phono Box MKII --> Audioquest Coral I/C
Computer: Chaintech AV 710 --> Glass Digital Audio Toslink Cable --> LiTe DAC-Ah --> Belden 1505F I/C
CD: Sony Discman D-5A --> Analog Research Gold Raincoat I/C

Of course, all three converge at the NAD amp, which then goes NAD 320BEE --> Paul Speltz Anti-Cable --> EPOS ELS-3.

Speaking of music, tomorrow is the Sigur Ros show. It's probably gonna be the same as the Madison show; but this time, I should have better seats. Also, I got tickets to the Mogwai show next month in Chicago. Never seen them in action before so that should be awesome. Lastly, I got the Yndi Halda CD recently. Typical post-rock I guess but still very powerful.

You Are There

"You Are There" is the new upcoming Mono full-length. It just leaked on the net, and I'm listening to it right now. Haven't had time to fully digest it yet but so far so good. For the past few weeks, I've been really into post-rock; even moved all my post-rock CDs into their own booklet. They were sorta mixed with my indie and metal booklets.

Another reason for my recent obsession with post-rock is ...drum roll... my new stereo system! After much consideration, I decided to sell my previous surround sound system and buy an entry-level audiophile system. So I got a new amp (NAD 320BEE), new speakers (EPOS ELS-3), new turntable (Goldring GR-1.2), and other accessories. Also ordered a new CD player and a DAC for my computer, but they aren't here yet. So, in the mean time, I've been listening a lot to my vinyls, which, turns out, are mostly post-rock. When the system is fully assembled, I'll take some pics and post more details.

Social Networking

I recently got an account at last.fm and I can't believe I didn't do this sooner. I see people with their most recently played list all the time. In about a week, I've found at least two bands that I can see myself really get into: The Evpatoria Report and Esmerine. Check out my profilehere. My only complaint is that the site's update schedule is very irregular and slow. I know they can't afford to re-compute the rankings in real time, but that would be awesome.

Using last.fm and seeing other social network inspired projects (delicious, flock, etc) has made me think about other applications with social networks inside. The TiVo recommendation system and the Amazon recommendation list can definitely learn something from these sites. The feature of obscure vs. popular recommendations on last.fm is really neat. Also, instead of hiding where/who the recommendations come from, letting me check out other users' lists made the experience much more grounded. It also caused me to waste hours of just browsing the site.

I also found out about 4flix.net today via Digg (yet another great social website). You can buy classic movies on 4flix for $2 and there's no DRM! I saw a bunch of Hitchcook movies on there; will definitely need to get them later.

Top Ten of 2005

Only about 10 days left in 2005, I thought I'd post my top ten albums of 2005 here. I made this list a while back actually; nothing too good has come out since then.

10. Sunn O))) - "Black1"
9. The Mars Volta - "Frances the Mute"
8. Sufjan Stevens - "Illinois"
7. Rosetta - "The Galilean Satellites"
6. Pelican - "The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw"
5. Darkest Hour - "Undoing Ruin"
4. Dredg - "Catch Without Arms"
3. Bright Eyes - "Digital Ash in a Digital Urn"
2. Sigur Ros - "Takk..."
1. Red Sparowes - "At the Soundless Dawn"

And maybe some honorable mentions to Feist, Martha Wainwright, Andrew Bird, Modern Life Is War, Eisley, A Silver Mt. Zion. Looking forward to 2006, there are the new Mogwai and Belle and Sebastian in the immediate future.

House Cleaning

I've been doing some house cleaning this past week. I sold the XBox and Gamecube to EB today. Only got $25 for the Gamecube; what a ripoff. I'm keeping the PS2 for now though. Gotta have something. I also put down my pre-order for the XBox 360 and Project Gotham Racing 3 a while back. Can't wait for that.

Also being sold on EBay right now is my 12" Powerbook. I upgraded to the new 15" Powerbook last week. It's a much better model. The new higher res screens make a huge difference. I don't know how I lived with the 12" the past couple of years.

Other cool things I got recently include the new Star Wars DVD (what the hell, it was cheap), new Office Space special edition package (sorta cool), Arrested Development DVD (awesome), WNYX mug (totally awesome!).

Sigur Ros

"Wow" is the word to describe the Sigur Ros show last night. Anima opened and they were pretty interesting. Used some cool stuff like wine glasses, a saw, etc. As for Sigur Ros, they played several older songs along with newer ones from Takk. The split was about half-and-half. Lighting was pretty cool; fit the mood very well. I only wished the show was louder. Overall, it was definitely one of the best shows this year.

The show was in Madison, WI (which made for a long 3.5-hour drive back afterwards) and we got there at about 4:30 so we had like 4 hours to kill. Fortunately, Junebug was showing at some art theatre not far from the concert venue. I had heard good things about this movie, and it did not dissappoint, even though we missed the first 10-15 minutes.

Here is a picture from the show. I uploaded a bunch more in the photography section.

Seinfeld and Sigur Ros

I'm in the middle of my little road trip here. Saw Seinfeld earlier tonight in Rockford, IL. It was really cool to finally see my comedic hero in action for the first time. He did about an hour; only about 3 minutes were old material. Tomorrow, I'll be driving to Madison, WI to catch Sigur Ros. I should have some pictures when I get back.

iPod Nano

Last week around this time I was paying close attention to the Apple press event in San Francisco. Once Steve Jobs announced the iPod nano, my credit card was out. And today, the FedEx guy dropped it off. The nano is by far the slickest MP3 around. It's so small that I feel like I'll break it in half if I'm not careful. The color screen is very nice, too. It makes my iPod mini look like ancient technology. The only complaints I have so far are the lack of firewire support and the difficulty in removing the computer connection cable when the earphones are plugged in.

Got a bunch of concerts and shows upcoming up. Some of them actually require some long distance travel. This week, Minus the Bear, Sufjan Stevens, and Xiu Xiu are playing shows here. Sufjan and Xiu Xiu are playing on the same night; I'm hoping I can catch both shows, unlikely though :-( The Sufjan show should be awesome since the theme is Illinois; I've heard that they dress up in Illini cheerleading outfits. And then this weekend, I'll be seeing comedian Jim Gaffigan. I really got into his stuff this summer; definitely one of the top 5 comedians around these days.

And then next week, my roommmate Gio and I are going to see Seinfeld in Chicago and Sigur Ros in Madison. Both of those should be awesome. Seinfeld is my all-time favorite comedian and show.

Currently listening to: Slowdive - ``Souvlaki''. This is classic showgazing from 1993.

p.s. Football is back! My Huskers scored 3 defensive touchdowns. Ohio St. lost. Michigan lost. Green Bay lost. Eagles just lost. Bears almost won. Good stuff.

Shampoo Banana

I'm offically back in Champaign-Urbana after the summer in LA, sort of. After arriving here the Friday before last week, I had to leave almost immediately for KDD'05 in Chicago. That lasted for 3 days. Then, this past weekend, I was in Chicago again for a reunion with a bunch of college friends. On Saturday, we hung out for basically 12 hours in downtown Chicago with 4 of them at the ESPN Zone. I also saw The Bean for the first time; pretty cool I guess. I'll try to post the pictures I took soon.

On Sunday, Alex and I checked out the Dan Flavin's retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art. I heard about this on Radio Zero and was very curious. For those who are unfamiliar with Flavin, all his art is done with fluorescent light fixtures. If you're in Chicago from now until Oct. 30, definitely check it out.

I Miss Rain

I'm driving through Nevada and Utah today and look what I run into.. Rain! Living in LA this entire summer, I haven't seen a single drop of rain. I never thought I'd actually miss it, but weeks and weeks of straight sunshine actually got a little annoying. Now that I'm in the midwest, I can finally get some variety in weather. That and paying only $2.40 for gas.

One thing I will miss about LA is the amount of concerts on a weekly basis. Last week, I got the chance to see Red Sparowes and Pelican. Both of them put on amazing shows. The Red Sparowes album was standing firmly in my top 10 of this year, and seeing them live just reaffirmed that spot.

Currently listening to: Sigur Ros - ``Takk''. This album is out Sept. 15th and it is absolutely wonderful. I got tickets to see them in late Sept. Can't wait.