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Listen to This

On the other hand, I heart my sound & vision system. My new DVD/CD player came today from Richer Sounds. Like the amp/decoder (also from Mr. Richer’s emporium), it’s a Sony model. The whole system, including speakers, as it stands, cost 240 quid, which is a good deal.

Sony’s name speaks for itself, but what I like about their gear is that they’re so user-friendly, and the manuals (for once) are really comprehensive and helpful (rather than the usual badly-written sketches in several languages). For instance, the player was not automatically sending a 5.1 signal to my amp, but the manual pointed the way in seconds. I have so many issues with instruction manuals that this makes a big difference to me.

The new player is impressing me a fair bit. While the old player was perfectly acceptable, the Sony’s sound output has a definite edge. I am hearing things on my CDs I hadn’t heard before. The amp is not a powerful one (you couldn’t shake the walls with it, but in a residential setting, this isn’t a great idea anyway), but I love the complete ‘wall of sound’ I can get from the set-up, which includes a cheap-but-effective sub-woofer.
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Bidding Frenzy

I said I shouldn’t make a habit of ebay! I’ve found myself bidding on a number of items and I’m trying to not get carried away…

Items won: Joseph Cotten’s autobiography for mom (though I want to read it too); Bowie’s Buddha of Suburbia (a Russian import w/his Labyrinth stuff on the same CD) and Tin Machine II—thus completing my Bowie studio album collection, finally—plus a bootleg of his 1.Outside outtakes. Fortunately, they were all reasonably priced; this could get seriously expensive if you’re not careful!
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Random Music Comments

Still on music: finally picked up the last Blur album, Think Tank, the other day. Blur used to be my fave band a few years ago, but the fact that it took me almost a year—and HMV selling it off for £7.99—to get this one says a lot for my expectations. I wish I could say I was wrong; three listens later, I’m still waiting for one of the tunes to stay in my head. This, from a band whose melodies were always so memorable.

I will persist, though, and give it a few more tries. So far, it seems a huge disappointment.
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Not a Starman

I made another Bowie purchase. HMV has a lot of Bowie on sale at the moment, so what the hell. 1997’s Earthling is that rare Bowie oddity: an album I’ve never heard before. Well, now I have.

Before I get on to that: yes, I did really enjoy the new Bowie album, Reality. It seems to me it’s a notch or two better than Heathen, which I liked a lot, but felt was a little flaky around the edges. I appreciated the way most of it had a much harder, colder edge, which recalled Scary Monsters at times. No, I don’t think it’s that good; but it’s closer than most of Bowie’s recent work.

Bowie Reality 2003

I need a few more listens to decide for sure how well I rate it. So far, very positive.
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Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying

I’ll tell you another big drawback with this house move thing. I (rather optimistically) packed up a lot of my books and music some months ago in anticipation of moving! So, of course, certain items I might have given little thought to for aeons suddenly take on a rosy, alluring glow, knowing they’re just beyond reach. Oh, I could undo the boxes (which are in the spare room), but fiddling with all that parcel tape is too depressing. So I’ll wait. And try more optimism as best I can.
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