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I have a problem.  I’m totally overwhelmed when I go into music stores.  As soon as I walk through the door, I immediately forget all of the music I was excited about, then I burn out after ten minutes of flipping through the racks.

Never the less, I like owning physical media (and having control over how it’s ripped into my music collection), and used CDs are a heck of a deal these days.

So, a few weeks ago I started planning.  I put together a list of albums that were only partially represented in my collection, or were low quality rips … then I called my buddy Tom.

Tom is “that guy.”  You know — the kid in elementary school who was listening to Fugazi and Suicidal Tendencies when the rest of us were discovering Michael Jackson.  He was the kid in high school who actually had opinions about bass players and producers, and could produce lyrics from a discography of thousands of songs without a moment’s hesitation.  He’s been in (or worked with) bands for as long as he’s been able to pick up drum sticks (or a guitar, or a keyboard).  His room was (and is) piled with crates of vinyl, stacks of CDs, a wild assortment of instruments, and various musical paraphernalia.

Anyhow, I gave Tom a mission:  help me find new music, and start developing a sonic curricula for Mr. E.

We walked out of Everyday Music with 30 albums.  It’s all good, but there are a few stand outs.  In no particular order …

The Geraldine Fibbers, “Lost Somewhere Between The Earth And My Home” – Post-rock meets punk meets country?  Holy crap, it works.  I don’t track lyrics very well, but Carla Bozulich’s voice is amazing.  Circa 1995.

Jamie Lidell, “Multiply” – Stunning vocals, great production, a healthy twist of modern electronic and DJ dojiggery.  If you like the sound of Gnarls Barkley, old Stevie Wonder, and … well … if you like music, you’ll probably like this.

Yann Tiersen, “Amelie” – The sound track to Amelie is one of my favorite aspects of the movie.  It’s quirky, happy, playful music.  

Unkle, “War Stories” – I think Unkle is one of the best collaborative groups of all time.  ”Burn My Shadow” with Ian Astbury is particularly haunting song, and has a killer video.

They Might Be Giants, “Here Come the ABCs” – It’s the ABCs in a form I can get down to.  I sure hope Mr. E appreciates it.

Yo-Yo Ma, “The Cello Suites” – I love the cello, so I guess this one is a bit of a shoe-in.  Wonderful stuff.

There’s a pile more to dig through.  I’m a happy camper.

Any recommendations you’d like to make?

My first instinct was to keep this review short and sweet, but I realized that “holy shit” wasn’t going to be a particularly useful take on the situation. So, I’ll elaborate.

I’ve never been in a good position to build a solid home stereo setup. On one hand it’s a bit of an investment, and to make it worth while I needed to spend more time in an environment where I can listen to my music without bothering other people. On the other hand, soliciting information from the “audiophile” crowd is akin to drinking from a fire hose of terrible lies and fairy tales.

Never the less, I like music that sounds good (who doesn’t?). One of my first jobs was working as an assistant A/V engineer, and I have friends and family members who are professional musicians, engineers, and aficionados. I’ve been around and flirted with high quality audio most of my life, so it’s inevitable that I’d finally break down and put something together a system for myself.

Every now and then, serendipity strikes. I first heard of Aperion a couple of years ago, when one of my friends mentioned he’d gone to work for a speaker company here in town. I started pestering him about the job and the gear, and he had nothing but good things to say about the people and product. There seemed to be a lot of other people out there who agreed with him — and did so without pretentious trimmings.

A couple months ago I moved out of a shared office space and into my own home office. For the first time in a long time, I had a private space and a bit of a budget. Around the same time, Aperion released a new product line. Today I went to their office, had a listen, and walked out with a couple of fair sized boxes: a pair of Intimus 5B bookshelf speakers, and a Bravus 8D sub.

I’ve run through a pretty good cross section of my music today — Hifana, The Flaming Lips, Elliott Smith, Radiohead, Pixies, NoFX, Muse, Bruce Springsteen, Beck, Arctic Monkeys, Autechre, The Shins, Soul Coughing, Thelonious Monk, and even a little Beethoven and Prokofiev for good measure.

Back to my original review: Holy shit, my face hurts from smiling. I’m not going pile on the flowery language and esoteric metaphors about how it sounds, and I’m certainly not going to take advantage of Aperion’s 30 day return policy. The 5Bs are a pleasure to listen to, and the 8D fills out the bottom octaves wonderfully.

My only advice to people considering Aperion speakers? Ask them about getting a deal on returned or refurbished items, and spend the money you save on more good music!

I was cleaning my closet today and found a few CDs with photos on them, including this set. I had the pleasure of taking pictures with Juno Reactor 2001, when they came through Portland on their Shango World Tour. Great people, great music, and a hell of a show.

In other news, I miss my Contax 35mm camera and Ilford HP5+ film.

When I was sitting in a train station in Japan, I watched a variety show that featured a young guy with a banjo lookin’ thing who was dressed in traditional garb … but produced some SERIOUS TECHNO ACTION with some lady with a flute and a guy with a drum. It was awesome.

Not being able to communicate in Japanese has put a serious crimp in my plans to find out who this guy was and buy all of the music he’s ever made. So, this evening I was hunting around on the Intertron, and found a few things that get me close … but not quite there.

First, the thing he was playing is called a shamisen, which translated into American means “three stringed, cat skin banjo, played with a spatula.” No joke, it’s made with cat skin.

That let me dig up some pretty sweet stuff, like this dueling shamisen video, some hot solo action, a little shamisen vs. a DJ, and a shimsen vs. taiko video that gets pretty darned close to what I heard in that train station. The common thread in most of the good stuff I found is Kinoshita Shinichi, who, apparently, has awesome fingers. This is a promising lead.

Any chance anyone else out there can help me in my quest?

Update:  Worth posting again — the Hifana Wamono video that planted the Japanese hip hop / techno seed in my brain earlier this year.

So, here’s one of the best web apps I’ve seen in a long time:  http://portland.tourfilter.com

It’s immediately apparent what it does, the layout is simple and unobtrusive, and the content is easy to pick out.  And, it’s useful!  I dig it.

Oh.  And MC Frontalot is coming to town on Friday.  Yay!

Check out what arrived in my inbox this morning, a gift from a far away land. If you like good techno, great animation, and a little bit of crazy … watch this video from Hifana.

Happy Saturday!