My new PC speakers : M-Audio AV40
3 months ago, I decided to buy a pair of speakers with decent sound quality for my PC and ended up getting the Swans HiVi D1010MKII 08. I wrote in an earlier post that I found the sound quality to be excellent – I had no complaints at all, especially since I got them at a decent price. But unfortunately, the build quality was a lot less impressive: on one fine Sunday morning, the left speaker refused to produce any sound. I called the retailer and apparently the dealer no longer represents Swans here any more. I found out the hard way that I wasn’t going to get any support for this and was not happy at all.
I couldn’t go back to my old Altec Lansing 221 speakers either – they worked alright – but treble and resolution were completely missing and after a few months of using the Swans, it was unbearable. So I ended up buying another pair of speakers, this time I opted for M-Audio’s AV40.
Right out of the box, I found the speakers’ bass overwhelming even without using the bass boost feature. I put this down to speaker placement as the AV40s have a bass port at the back of the speaker and my limited desktop space means the speakers sit close to the wall. I used some foam to stuff up the port and that really helped.
So how do they compare to the Swans? I would say that I still prefer the Swans which sound slightly better (from recollection) and are less fussy with placement (because it has no ports). The AV40s also look and feel more tacky because of the use of plastic despite costing nearly twice as much. BUT, what’s the use of preferring the Swans if they are so unreliable? On the plus side for the M-Audio is the speaker wires are just normal speaker wires, so they are replaceable and upgradable.
Don’t get me wrong, the M-Audio AV40s are nice and are definitely an upgrade on run-of-the-mill PC speakers which really aren’t cheap these days. And they are keeping me happy too.
Re-discovering Bitches Brew
I finally decided to purchase a new copy of Miles Davis‘ seminal jazz fusion double album Bitches Brew last month when it saw it on sale at a reasonable price. I’ve never really liked Bitches Brew despite its reputation and I realized that this might be because the thick old school double CD I bought back in the 1990s was poorly mastered. Apparently, according to many on-line sources, that old CD release sounded extremely muddy and many of the details were hidden by the bad mix.
Listening to the new CDs I bought (I think it is the Legacy Edition, with 2 CDs and 1 DVD), I could immediately hear the difference and it is one of the most night and day experiences I’ve heard from different masters of CDs. I’m hearing a lot more percussions now and it really changed my impression of the album.
Highly recommended!
Swans HiVi D1010MKII 08 is a major upgrade for me
My latest upgrade to my home PC, where I listen to most of my music, is the Swans HiVi D1010MKII 08 powered speakers. I am indeed very happy with my new acquisition as I managed to get them for a very reasonable price and I am now hearing details that my previous pair of Altec Lansing 221 multi-media speakers could not reproduce.
And now I finally have a reason to re-rip my CD collection to FLAC.
2010 new discoveries : Devon Allman & Karen Elson
Looking at my music collection, I see that most of the stuff I own isn’t exactly very new. Of the CDs I bought that were released in 2010, most of them are classic rock and acts that have been around for quite a while like Robert Plant and Bryan Ferry. Anyway, here are my favorite albums of 2010.
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Of the albums above, I was particularly impressed by Devon Allman’s second album. Devon Allman is the son of Greg Allman (of the Allman Brothers Band) and his band Honeytribe plays a contemporary brew of blues rock that is not un-similar to Govt Mule. Devon Allman and his band have been playing music for a while, but since he isn’t on a major label, the CDs are relatively hard to find and he doesn’t get too write-ups in the press. I came across Space Age Blues online and found the songs on the album very listenable and the quality of the musicianship high. Huey Lewis also plays some guest harp on the album.
The other major find was Karen Elson, a fashion model turned musician. Her debut album The Ghost Who Walks was produced by her husband, Jack White of the White Stripes. This is not a vanity project, however. The music on The Ghost Who Walks is atmospheric and original, and in my opinion, superior to a lot of new acts.
UK mag Total Guitar’s top 50 riffs of the decade
UK guitar magazine Total Guitar’s latest issue celebrates the “greatest guitar riffs” of the last 10 years. I haven’t bought the magazine but the list of top 10 riffs have been released online.
Of those 10 songs, I only know The White Stripes’s Seven Nation Army and Velvet Revolver’s Slither. To my classic rock tuned ears, Seven Nation Army at least has a muscular and memorable riff; can’t say the same for Slither. And I haven’t really listened to any of the songs or albums from the rest of the bands on the top 10 riff list.
- Plug in Baby – Muse
- Slither – Velvet Revolver
- Afterlife – Avenged Sevenfold
- The Dark Eternal Night – Dream Theater
- Knights of Cydonia – Muse
- No One Knows – Queens of the Stone Age
- Seven Nation Army – The White Stripes
- Halo – Machine Head
- Mr Brightside – The Killers
- Beast And The Harlot – Avenged Sevenfold
Oh dear. I think I’ve become an old fart …
Related Articles
Muse have ‘greatest riff of century’ (telegraph.co.uk)
Muse song named greatest riff of the 21st century (independent.co.uk)
MacArthur Park was first recorded by Richard Harris!
Back in the 1970s, my family lived in the same house as my grandmother and my uncle, who just came back from the States. He had a nice record collection and my first introduction to many pop and rock albums was in his room. One of the records he played very often was Donna Summer‘s live double LP containing MacArthur Park. I still think it is a brilliant piece of pop and a justified disco classic.
While the most famous version of the song is undoubtedly Donna Summer’s version, I knew MacArthur Park was written by someone else and the disco queen is merely performing an inspired cover. What came as a shocker to me was that the first known release of the song on an album was by Richard Harris, aka The Man Called Horse. I know Harris mainly as an actor and never knew he was also a singer. I did a quick search on YouTube and found the song. Surprisingly, Harris does a nice version of the song, one that I see myself going back to enjoy.
And here is Donna Summer’s disco classic for comparison.
Orchestra Baobab : great music for relaxing
I really miss not being able to watch the David Letterman Show. A few years ago, ATV (a free-to-air) local TV station broadcast David Letterman around Midnight and I would check Dave’s website to see what music acts he would feature each night. One of the finds was Orchestra Baobab. I’d never heard of the band, and quite frankly, would not have come across it at all if not for The David Letterman Show.
Orchestra Baobab, according to Wikipedia, is a Senegalese band. They were basically the house band at the Baobab Club, one of Dakar’s fanciest nightspots. The band was formed in 1970, and fused Afro-Cuban rhythm and Portuguese Creole melody with Congolese rumba, high life and a whole gamut of local styles.
Their most famous album is Pirate’s Choice, originally recorded in 1982, but only released in Europe in 1989. It was massively popular in France. The album was re-released again in 2001 as a double CD with extra tracks. With renewed interest, Orchestra Baobab recorded an album of new material – the result was Specialist In All Styles. Their performance I saw on David Letterman was a song of that album called Bul Ma Miin, and it totally convinced me to go out and get their albums.
Orchestra Baobab’s music has a very relaxed feel; the slyly intoxicating Cuban beats are embellished with extraordinary guitar work and tasteful saxophones. It is hard to describe the music, but I hear blues, jazz as well as reggae influences. Here is a clip of the band performing one of their signature tracks Utrus Horas :
Link to biography section of Orchestra Baobab’s official website.
Once A Gangster : Ekin mocks gangster genre
I can picture some producer pitching Once A Gangster 飛砂風中轉 as follows
Let’s reunite Ekin Cheng 鄭伊健 and Jordan Chan 陳小春 from the Young And Dangerous series in a satire of the Hong Kong triad movie. This time, instead of plots to become the head of the gang, our heroes don’t want to become the new Godfather as it means police harassment and eventual jail time. We can sell this as Old And Not So Dangerous.
The film started its run today in Hong Kong. And I did have a good time – it was mostly funny. Most of the comedy points at the fact that most gangsters simply want to make more money which translates to more power and influence. The outdated model of gang elders electing a new leader is presented as both silly and not very democratic; like Johnny To’s 杜琪峰 Election movies, Once A Gangster also pokes fun at Hong Kong’s electoral system but in a more light-hearted fashion. Other running gags include a bumbling undercover cop named Yan (satirizing Tony Leung Chiu Wai’s character in Infernal Affairs, which was co-directed by Alan Mak 麥兆輝, the producer of this film) and Swallow’s (Ekin Cheng character) desire to study Economics at the University of Hong Kong instead of becoming gang head.
Like most comedies I see, the makers of the film fail to make the premise and gags in Once A Gangster work over a feature-length film. There are moments in the middle part of the film where Once A Gangster is pretty much a straight forward gangster movie and not much of a satire. And Candice Yu’s 余安安 grating performance as Swallow’s mother annoyed the hell out of me – and let me say this, I was a great fan of Candice Yu when she was young (i.e. back in her television days with RTV). She looked real cute back then.
As a matter of interest to film buffs, Once A Gangster was co-scripted by Chapman To 杜文澤.
In concluding, I would recommend Once A Gangster, but would hesitate calling it a great movie.
Dream Home : Hong Kong’s best cult film in a while
Much of the publicity surrounding Dream Home prior to its release was focused on the clashes between director Pang Ho Cheung 彭浩翔 and actress-producer Josie Ho 何超儀; arguments regarding the final cut was the supposed reason for the delays in bringing the film to the screen.
Last week, I finally got to see the movie as it has been wide released in Hong Kong. Classified as a Category III film in the territory, the producers have marketed Dream Home 維多利亞壹號 primarily as a cult gore film much more than as a social commentary. Josie Ho stars as a common telemarketer struggling to make ends meet; apart from her day job, she works a couple of part-time jobs at night as well. Her ultimate goal and obsession is to buy her dream home, not just any apartment, but one that oversees Victoria Harbor. When she finally has the cash to pay the deposit for her dream flat, however, the sellers decide to withdraw the flat from the market. Shocked and outraged, she decides to go all out in order to secure the apartment.
So what does this “all-out” entail? Well, Josie Ho’s character basically kills and maims the tenants living adjacent to the apartment she wants to buy. She succeeds and the massacre means that the flat is now no longer “desirable”. I don’t know how people in other countries view this, but with Chinese, the re-sell value of property would be significantly lower if anything nasty has happened in or near an apartment.
The film jumps back and forth in time: it starts with Josie on a rampage, and jumps back to show us her miserable life living in a cramped and old home with her parents. I suspect this narrative device helps spread out the murders, making it more palatable than having it all in one go in the final 30 minutes; it also means gore fans won’t have to wait an hour for anything gruesome to take place.
Much has also been said of the social commentary aspects of the film. Yes, they are there: property developers using under-handed tactics to force poor families from their homes for re-development and the impossibility of a white collar worker to even save enough for down payment for any home. It’s all there, and it works as the force that pushes Josie Ho’s character over the edge.
Anyway, what’s going to secure cult status for this film isn’t insight into social issues like ever-escalating-never-affordable property prices but how much gore there is. Let’s see, we have death by suffocation via plastic bag and vacuum cleaner, skulls bashed in by golf clubs, disembowelment, planks shoved down the mouth, screwdrivers through the back of the head, eyeballs squashed on the floor … I can’t remember all the ways people die. There is some sex and a guy does have his penis cut off. Pang employs a comic touch to all these proceedings so it doesn’t come off as overly revolting – some scenes actually solicited a few laughs.
As a final note, production quality is but no means low. I mention this because for many, if you say cult Hong Kong film, they think Riki-Oh. That’s one super low-budget film. No, Dream Home is a superior product: handsomely shot, well-written dialogue, and decent special effects.
Recommended viewing and arguably the best cult film to come out of Hong Kong in quite a while.
Metal god Ronnie James Dio dead from cancer
Renowned vocalist Ronnie James Dio passed away on 16 May from stomach cancer. He was 67.
Dio was a much-loved metal singer, diminutive in size but expansive in vocal range. From Elf, to Rainbow, Black Sabbath, and fronting his own band, Dio never buckled to passing trends and made pretty much the same type of fantasy based metal that hit its prime in the late 1970s and 1980s. Although his type of metal was eclipsed by grunge music in the 1990s, Dio nevertheless continued to produce the same sort of mystical metal till his death.
Ronnie James Dio came to prominence with Rainbow. While Rainbow’s nominal frontman was Richie Blackmore, Dio’s distinctive vocals immediately become a huge selling point; Rainbow’s first 2 albums are rightly considered masterpieces in the classic rock / hard rock genre. When Ozzy Osbourne quit Black Sabbath, Dio became his replacement. While Dio was never going to be able to replace Ozzy as the iconic Sabbath vocalist, he did manage several solid albums with a deteriorating Sabbath. A few years ago, a nice compilation of Dio’s Sabbath years was released.
In 1983, Dio formed his own band and released the classic 1980s metal album Holy Diver. Holy Diver is one of the best metal albums from the 1980s and features an extremely solid band with lead guitarist Vivian Campbell (previously Thin Lizzy, would then join Whitesnake and eventually Def Leppard) at the pinnacle of his guitar shredding days.
Here is a clip of the band performing their hit Rainbow In The Dark off their debut album Holy Diver. The performance was recorded off a late night television show shortly after the release of the album, and features Ronnie James Dio at the peak of his career. More clips of Dio.
Last year, Dio reunited with his Black Sabbath band mates. Heaven and Hell was essentially Black Sabbath Mk II and their 2009 album The Devil You Know was a welcome return to form.
