Apparently, absolutely nothing. While I didn’t make any predictions for this years Grammy Awards, I did make some personal picks. Evidently, that’s the kiss of death. Paul Winter took the New Age Grammy for his very fine album, Crestone, but I would’ve preferred Eric Tingstad’s Southwest, which was a much more ambitious recording and a…
Category: Reviews & Commentary
Reviews & Commentary
A Reimagining of The 50th Annual Grammy Awards:
The 50th Annual Grammy Awards happen this Sunday, February 10. The Grammy’s wouldn’t appear to have much relevancy for Echoes listeners or most people interested in non-commercial or alternative music. And as far as the TV spectacle goes, you’re right. There hasn’t been an interesting non-Rock act on there since forever. The New Age Grammy,…
Reviews & Commentary
Synthesizers vs Acoustic Guitars-A False Paradigm
Is Echoes a haven of acoustic guitar or an outpost of electronic music? I ask that question because at a Loreena McKennitt show in Harrisburg, PA that Echoes hosted with WITF, a listener walked up to our table and stated simply, “Less electronic music. More acoustic guitars.” I glibly responded, “I hear you, but that’s…
Reviews & Commentary
A couple we may have missed: Mystical Sun, Japancakes and Patrick O’Hearn
Albums by Mystical Sun, Patrick O’Hearn, and Japancakes may have gotten lost in the shuffle of our year end best of lists. Mystical Sun’s Deeperworlds was a disc I’d been waiting for since we interviewed him in 2004. We played this CD a lot, but I think since we had been so familiar with…
Reviews & Commentary
Five Rules for Christmas CDs
I hope many of you enjoyed our seasonal programming this year with Sonic Seasonings, An Echoes Christmas and An Echoes Winter Solstice. WEXT in Schenectady ran 30 straight hours of Echoes Christmas programming. WXPN in Philadelphia scattered at least 8 hours of programming throughout Christmas day. These programs tap into a more contemplative and often…
Reviews & Commentary
The Perfect Echoes Gift-The Brian Eno iPod
iPods have revolutionized music listening. Music fans can travel around with 160 gigabytes of storage. That’s 40,000 songs and more than 4000 CDs worth of music. For ambient musicians like Steve Roach and Robert Rich, whose compositions last the full 72 plus minutes of a CD or the 7 hours of a DVD, the iPod…
Reviews & Commentary
Leave Your Laptops Home: Radio Massacre International and Trevor Dunn
I’ve attended a few concerts recently that pushed me further into the No-Laptop Zone and they couldn’t have been more different in their sound, influences, and effect. The best of them, Radio Massacre International and the Trevor Dunn’s Schemes of Omission employed no laptops, prefab drum loops, sequencer patterns or CD replicated soundscapes. Trevor Dunn…
Reviews & Commentary
The Sound & Vision of üNN
Someone sent me a link to a new video of theirs on YouTube. The music was good, but the cinematography was bad, the sound was awful and the audience was inattentive. But like all things on the web, there were links to some other videos including this one by an artist who records as üNN.…
Reviews & Commentary
Echoes at Eighteen
Echoes 18 We don’t celebrate our anniversaries well on Echoes. We did a decent job of our tenth, but didn’t really milk it for all it’s worth. And the 18th doesn’t quite have the import of the 10th or 20th. Going back into our past never seems quite as important as moving forward into the…
Reviews & Commentary
Prince-Space Guitar God in Waiting
I’ve never been a big fan of Prince, although I’ve always respected his obvious genius, distinctive vision and even enjoyed a lot of his songs, especially in the 1999-Purple Rain zone. I realize that I probably miss the point of Prince entirely. For me, he was always a bit too much about image over music.…