bruce springsteen

Audiophiles are, by definition, listeners, but we can also be watchers. I have a collection of around 100 concert DVDs and Blu-rays. And while a good number of them are in 5.1 channel surround, most also have 2.0 stereo mixes. I play both types over my two-channel home theater system. The best of these discs will test the limits of your system's stamina, pop one on, turn it up to "11," and you're there.

Tell us about your favorite concert/music discs in the Comments section.

"It Might Get Loud" is definitely … Read more

Thanks so much to Props Guy Jim for Photoshopping The 404 Podcast into the "disappearing" photo from "Back to the Future"! The movie recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, and check out this picture Jim snapped of the photo in action at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance. Thanks again Jim!

Mark Licea joins us for a chat about television programming as it's affected by streaming content providers like Hulu and Netflix.

As those two companies compete to offer the cheapest monthly subscription price, consumers face a decision to either stick with HD cable/FIOS and a DVR box or cut the cord and stick with Internet video.

Regardless of your decision, there's plenty of content available online for your entertainment, and our conversation naturally steers toward late-night programming and Conan's second week of shows on TBS. There's also the AMC zombie series "The Walking Dead" and "Boardwalk Empire" on HBO. On the other hand, sometimes we just want to sit on the couch and channel surf!

After the break, we run through a few voice mails that humiliate and educate our audience, and there's also a question for Jeff about his experience traveling through the TSA's new airport security scanners. We try not to get too serious about it, but everyone seems to have an opinion, so tune in to find out why Wilson will be taking a boat ride to CES next year.

OK, Michael Jackson is weirder, but Tom Waits is a more interesting sort of weird. I thought so before I read Barney Hoskyns' "Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits," but now I know it.

Thing is, Tom Waits is his own genre; there's no other songwriter or musician that does what Waits does. No one ever tagged Waits a folkie or rock musician, or even all that much of a musician. Waits is Waits, and that's all he has to be.

Hoskyns tries to nail down exactly who Waits is, but never really succeeds. We learn that in the early 1970s Waits was a beatnik poet of sorts, but somehow his tunes were covered by mainstream acts like the Eagles ("Ol' 55") and Bruce Springsteen ("Jersey Girl"). During his early days he was based in Los Angeles, but Waits wasn't really part of the radio-friendly LA singer/songwriter pack led by Jackson Browne and Warren Zevon. His early heavily textured, noir-romantic records were populated with stellar jazz players.… Read more

Let's face it: Musicians' income from CDs and downloads is on the wane, so they have to make a buck where they can.

Ticket prices for local venues in New York City can be pretty steep. Small jazz clubs can easily run $30, plus a two-drink minimum.

Steve Knopper's "High Ticket Prices Could Hurt Concert Business" article in Rolling Stone at least pointed to relative "bargains" among the big summer tours. Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen's shows have ticket prices under $100; Dave Matthews Band's seats go for $32 to $75; Pearl … Read more

Iffy sound quality isn't a new problem. Bad sound can't directly be blamed on digital, analog, vinyl, CD, or even MP3. Those are release formats; the quality of the recording itself is what I'm talking about.

Granted, personal taste plays a big part in defining good or bad sound. For every person who says the sound is clear and detailed, there's another who thinks it's ragged and harsh.

That said, the trend of late is toward spitty distortion, the kind that obscures the sound of the vocals and instruments, and buries them in grunge. I'm not opposed to grit that adds an edge to music, but I can't stand recordings made by people who either don't know what they're doing or are too deaf to notice the error of their ways.

Bob Dylan, of all people, agrees with me.

"You listen to these modern records--they're atrocious, they have sound all over them. There's no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like--static," Dylan said in a Rolling Stone interview with Jonathan Lethem in September 2006.

He's not just referring to other people's records; he included his own record, "Modern Times," in his rant: "Even these songs probably sounded 10 times better in the studio when we recorded 'em." I believe Dylan. That album was a blurry wall of sound. You can hardly hear individual instruments.

The worst recording of 2009 so far--it's still early--is the Heartless Bastards' "The Mountain" CD. It's too bad because I really like the music. It rocks hard, and I love Erika Wennerstrom's strange voice, but there's severe distortion whenever she sings loud.

The distortion was so incredibly annoying that my speakers' tweeters sounded broken. If the distortion just appeared on the hard-edged, bluesier numbers, I might have thought that it was intentional, but the sound was just as ragged on "So Quiet," in which Wennerstrom is accompanied by violin. … Read more

Did you catch Bruce Springsteen's halftime performance on Sunday? Turns out, you were listening to The Boss sing to a prerecorded backing track.

According to this Chicago Tribune interview with Super Bowl pregame entertainment producer Hank Neuberger, only Springsteen's vocals were live (Jennifer Hudson and Faith Hill lip-synched).

As Neuberger correctly explains, it's impossible to set up a rock band for a live performance in five minutes and have anything approaching decent sound. Either you sing to a prerecorded backing track or you accept that millions of viewers are going to hear a crummy performance.

In fact, … Read more

You could down a $5 Cinnamon Dolce Frappuccino in ten minutes, and it's gone forever. How many Cafe Mochas do you buy in a week? Tasty as these frothy concoctions can be, it's a fleeting satisfaction, isn't it? An album's worth of music is a repeatable pleasure, something you may enjoy dozens of times over the years. A CD is still a lot cheaper than a week's worth of Starbucks.

Sure, it's a matter of how you want to spend your disposable income, and whatever puts a smile on your face. But when I … Read more

Testing out a set of PC speakers is practically begging for an interoffice dance party, so when Lacie's USB speakers arrived at the office, we couldn't wait to bust open the box and get it started. Unfortunately, the speakers don't sound nearly as good as they look, and the high price tag is the final nail in the coffin.

French designer Neil Poulton helped Lacie design this set of PC speakers that use USB connectivity alone for both power and audio. We're typically all for a product that lets us chuck another wire out of the … Read more

The CD may be on its way out, but music and concert DVDs are doing just fine, thank you very much! Late last year I wrote a feature for Home Entertainment magazine running down some of my favorite music DVDs of all time. They were all "live" recordings--there wasn't a single MTV style "music video" in the bunch. This is an abridged version of the article, check the Home Entertainment website to check out the complete article. Oh, and I've added a few DVDs that didn't make the article.

Led Zeppelin

With a … Read more