Category: Music

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This Place Could Be Dangerous

The Hard●Off chain of stores (including Book●Off) are a well known brand in Japan. (Something I learned while researching MiniDisc on YouTube.) They're expanding into the US market with a handful of stores, the most recent being the one in Phoenix that just opened a few weeks ago.

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Recommended Series!

You can find the CDs new on Amazon, but used copies are much cheaper on Discogs, even when you factor in shipping. I picked up near-mint copies for around $3-4/disc (not including shipping).

Interestingly, when I had these in my collection prior to the purge, I didn't rip them in their entirety to iTunes—something I now regret (and now has been corrected) since I've gotten them back in my collection.

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It's Rare These Days…

…that music can give me physical chills, but here I am listening to the Blade Runner soundtrack and the End Titles cut is making the hair on my arms stand up. What a brilliant piece of cinema…

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One Of My Grails Finally Obtained

I've been in love with Cerrone's "updated" Supernature (the original version was released in 1978 and I remember many a night at Maggies twirling to it) since I first stumbled across it online more than a dozen years ago. The original Supernature—and it's message—was good, but this "new" version was an aural orgasm. Finding a physical copy at the time however was problematic. All my usual venues didn't have it—or hadn't even heard of it—but after discovering Discogs, I found it was actually in print and available…albeit for a steep price. That didn't mean I stopped wanting it…

Well, considering that my disposable income is going to take a major hit after the 31st and considering certain events of the past couple months, I said fuck it—we're all gonna die anyway—and dropped the coin. It wasn't the most I've ever spent for a CD, but it was more than the $20 I usually pay for a sought after release.

Marie Kondo would undoubtedly ask, "Does it bring you joy?" And to that I respond, "Yes bitch. Yes it does."

In case any of you are interested…

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Another Nugget Acquired

Sony MZ-N707

Why, you ask? Because the my other portable developed a very wonky disc release mechanism and stopped writing the TOC (table of contents) to the disc after editing it, rendering every disc (no matter what was recorded) as "BLANK DISC."

When I reached the point I couldn't deal with this any longer, there were no other decent MZ-S1's showing up online, so I decided to try a different model. To be honest, it was the color that got me.

And wouldn't you know, immediately after I hit the BUY IT NOW button, an auction for another pristine MZ-S1 showed up. I submitted the minimum bid, never expecting to actually win the auction. Of course, a week later, I did…

Both units arrived today.

Sony MZ-S1

To be honest, it is nice to have a fully functional S1 again. The S1 has always been my favorite Minidisc portable, since I originally owned one in the early 2000s. While some MD connoisseurs decry its large, chonky design, I personally love it. See: Quirky.

One aspect of buying used Minidisc equipment that seldom gets mentioned is that oftentimes the sellers will throw in a few discs to sweeten the deal—or to just get them out of the house. Almost always they've got stuff recorded on them—not an issue since they can be easily erased and reused—but occasionally you find a gem hidden among them.

The first S1 (the one with the wonky release mechanism) came with an unlabeled disc with no disc name or track titles recorded. Before I summarily dismissed it and erased it, I thought I'd give it a listen. I really liked the funky jazz beat, so I took a chance that it was more than just YouTube-friendly royalty-free fodder (a lot of times seller post videos of their wares on YouTube), and fired up Soundhound. It immediately identified it: Ernest Raglin – Below The Bassline. It's been one of my go-to discs to listen to while falling asleep since getting it.

I know all this shit is boring as fuck to most of my readers—OLD MAN REDISCOVERS AND FINDS JOY IN OBSOLETE TECHNOLOGY AND WAXES POETIC ON ITS COOL FACTOR AS WORLD SLIDES INTO DYSTOPIAN HELLSCAPE—so thanks for sticking around in spite of it.