The power of the pause

"Soundcheck" had a fun segment looking at some of the best pauses in rock history. Sounds silly but you'd be amazed at how much energy is created but a moment of silence. 

The "Soundcheck" segment is interesting enough, but music geeks will find the comments on the WYNC website a worthy read. 

Cassettes on the comeback?

I was catching up on some recent podcasts while taking a short vacation and enjoyed this "Soundcheck" episode on the alleged renaissance of cassette tapes among cool musicians.

First it was vinyl coming back, then a whisper of hope for 8-tracks, of all things. But cassettes, a ridiculous format prone to sound decay or the player chewing the tape itself? What's next, Hit Clips?

But I can actually see a little upside for this cassette trend, if there is one, as younger generations co-opt tape decks tossed aside by their parents or buy older cars that still play cassettes.

I for one am longing for a tape deck to play any of the dozens of mix tapes or punk albums I've still got stored in the garage. The deck in my '95 Explorer just died, so I'm unable to dig into lost treasures, many of which only exist for me in that format. They include this Urge Overkill classic, the last song that Explorer deck was able to play:

Alejandro Escovedo should be a star

Alejandro Escovedo's new album is a knockout, and restores some balls-out rock to his sound, which had turned softer in the years since he nearly died in 2003.

Above is a stream of an excellent "Soundcheck" episode that chronicles Escovedo's rich and diverse musical background (from punk and cowpunk to recording with Springsteen), samples some of the new disc and leaves me marveling at how Escovedo's passion, persistence and sheer will continue to create great stuff as he heads toward age 60.