This is Stefano Bertoncello's Blog (ステファノ・ベルトンチェッロ - トゥーグッドイアーズ − ブロガー、オーディオ＆ミュージック・コンサルタント) devoted to pacific topics like Music - live and reproduced - i.e. discs, audio, guitars and whatever musical: concerts, workshops, exhibitions, etc. Furthermore: travelling - as a mind-game and real globetrotting - and books, movies, photography... sharing all the above and everything which makes Life better and Earth a better place to stay, enjoying Life, in Peace. Proudly ads-free since 2007! Enjoy.💫
I so much love this music… and the just issued vinyl version is so lively and shiny.
Unfortunately, ECM’s vinyl isn’t up to par with the ‘70s early pressings or with US WB’s, anymore: it’s noisy and crackling like a few years old record, but… music is so good you do forgive them!
💫
A marvelous disc!
💫
On this day in 1982, Bob Dylan was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. According to Randy Poe, the Hall's Executive Director, Dylan had one request: He wanted his picture taken with Dinah Shore.
Poe: “Decades later, I can still recall the look of shock on Dinah Shore’s face as she came around the corner of the partition and saw Bob Dylan standing there?”
It was David Amram, one of Dylan's tablemates, who asked Dylan "why on earth he wanted his picture taken with Dinah Shore." Amram did not detect a hint of humor in Dylan's response.
Amram: "He looked at me and he said—dead serious—'So my mother will finally think I'm somebody.'"
A nineteen-year-old student at a music high school in Latina, Italy, discovers twenty errors in the score distributed by the Ministry of Education during the second final exam.
Not just minor typos: misplaced alterations, incorrect chords, entire bars divergent from the original, and a score that appears to have been pulled from MuseScore, a platform where anyone publishes amateur transcriptions without any philological verification.
The student writes an open letter to Minister Valditara, shares it on social media, and provides precise and timely evidence. The Ministry's response is unwavering and unequivocal: some inaccuracies, yes, but the evidence is valid.
Meanwhile, the offending file is quietly replaced on the institutional portal with the corrected version, as if nothing had happened.
This is the country where students are expected to be rigorous, precise, and responsible, and then they are dumped with a flawed score plucked from the internet. This is the country where those who make mistakes don't resign, don't apologize, don't blush: they barricade themselves behind the validity of the procedure and wait for the dust to settle.
Institutional arrogance is never more ferocious than when it disguises itself as magnanimity. Umberto Eco had already seen it all: the moment the words of a wise man and those of an incompetent are put on the same level, democracy doesn't win, entropy wins. That boy from Latina knows more than the person who signed that document. And this, in 2026, is already news.
I admit I’m a nostalgic, romantic old fart… BUT, I cannot deny that a 25+ years old transport/DAC combo - quite expensive in its hey days - still makes sense today, as my (twogood) ears seldom lie!
I much more rely on and prefer a vintage top model than the ubiquitous, awful blue-LEDs’ Chinese rebranded majority of currently available disk players.
🤭😳😉🤭
I own and use some nice, vintage CD players (Studer A730, Esoteric D2/P2, Madrigal Proceed, Denon and Parasound SACD) but these Meridians’ have a raison d’etre with their precise, natural, surprisingly lifelike sound presentation.
Detailed but not tilted on too shimmering highs, extremely dynamic but relaxed, at Meridian they knew their business, indeed: something also Jean Hiraga noticed when he visited me in 2013 and wrote a review about my (old) system for his “Stereo Prestige” magazine…
He was a fan of the newer and newer digital gears, but, was honestly and admittedly impressed by the beauty of Meridian’s sound and he clearly stated in his review.
Preserving these venerable gears, including some routine check-up, is a music-lover mission and happily so.
💫
Boxed sets of the Freddy Bannister festivals at Knebworth. This one concentrates on the Beefheart appearance in support of Pink Floyd in 1975 and the Zappa appearance in support of The Tubes in 1978.
The set includes:
If you’re interested in a copy please contact Wendy Bannister at Henrietta.j.bannister@btinternet.com
💫
Saw on YouTube and it’s a labor of love.
… and Ruth Underwood’s tears at the end of the movie made me emphasize a lot… same as with Ensemble Modern rehearsing for The Yellow Shark album… and the concert in Munchen… and in Prague… and… and…
He was a genius, period… and a brave man, indeed.
❤️
From the founder of CAN, an amazing record,.. classical music for 3rd millennium and a recording 2die4!
On vinyl and CD…
💫
PJ Harvey announces 'Voyager', her first new music following the release of ‘I Inside the Old Year Dying' in 2023. Listen, watch and pre-order the limited edition 7" vinyl https://pjharvey.lnk.to/voyagerFA.
Recorded with a full orchestra at Miraval Studios in Provence, 'Voyager' takes its name from the NASA probes launched in 1977, still travelling through interstellar space nearly 50 years on.
Polly says, "The song had already started life as part of my work towards my new album, so when Professor Brian Cox invited me to write a piece for his new show, I sent him the voice memo of this song to see if it resonated. It immediately made him think of the Voyager craft and the sound of its signal being sent back to Earth.
I have long been fascinated by the spacecraft and its journey, and asked myself what it might say to us if it could? This was an inspiring route to take to develop the song.
I'm very happy with the end result, and it's wonderful to hear the orchestral score bring such expansiveness to my music. I thoroughly enjoyed researching the history and journey of Voyager 1 & 2, and was glad to be able to quote the great Carl Sagan within the song, and his famous description of our fragile and beautiful 'pale blue dot'."
Listen to Polly's voice note https://pjharvey.lnk.to/voyager.webFA
This precisely manufactured, made in Japan clamp, sure not hideously priced like others, has a cool characteristic: its underside is flat, not recessed like most of other designs… this feature easily and brilliantly solved an issue on my Garrardzilla as I’m currently using an isostatic-graphite mat 10 mm thick, which leaves the spindle protruding only 6 mm… the nice Audio Technica’s clamp brilliantly works while others wobble a bit due to spindle dome-shaped tip.
Last but not least, it’s cool using an AT-618 clamp while simultaneously using a WE-618B MC SUT… but I’m just kidding.
😉
Then, the others:
Nipper
🤣
Some random pictures of my 10” discs collection I took while tidying up the records shelves… have many others, including a sought-after John Fahey’s double 78 RPM, a Leon Redbone’s “Champagne Charlie” promotional-only 78 RPM and some Robert Crumb’s Cheap Suits Serenaders 78 RPMs’… then a mother-load of classical mono 78 RPMs’ but this is a different story.
This is a limited edition reissue… I also have a mint original Fontana 10” I bought at Disk Union in Ochanomizu, Tokyo.
💫
.jpg)
.jpg)
