OTHER TECH

I don't fire up the big rig anymore. Oh, I lived for the day when I could afford a first-class stereo. I started off with a pink record player my father got at a bankruptcy sale. And graduated to Columbia all-in-ones we got through a family friend when CBS still owned the record label and made hardware. But my parents wouldn't allow me to get a component system when I was in college - they were afraid it would get stolen! After two years as a ski bum, I was ensconced in Los Angeles at law school - and as a belated 21st-birthday present, they let me pop for a system.

I've still got the JBL L100s. And the Nakamichi 582 cassette deck, which made perfect tapes that only sounded good on that particular machine. And even though I've upgraded to a CD player so sophisticated that the CD moves and not the laser, and I've swapped my old Sansui amp for an NAD with enough power to blow up the neighborhood, I never hit the On button anymore. Because I've switched to MP3s. I got these Cambridge SoundWorks MicroWorks speakers. With a ton of power. The satellites sit on either side of my computer monitor. And when I fire up one of the 10,000-odd tracks in my iTunes library, I'm in heaven! I'm in the music. God, I'm listening to more music now than I ever have. I listen all day long while I work. I've got three iPods, even Altec Lansing's inMotion portable speakers so I can rock out in hotel rooms. I'm down with the Digital Revolution.

But I don't get why the record labels are not. Why don't they realize that it's a panacea? That more people can have more music at a lower price per track? It's like cellphones. If everybody's got them and talking, the providers make a ton of money.

So what I do every day is rant and rave in my e-mail newsletter that everybody in the music industry receives, The Lefsetz Letter. [You can sign up for it at lefsetz.com. - Ed.] I tell them what's up with technology and point out that the records from Back When were better - that's why Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd are the biggest acts among teenagers today.

In this space every issue, I'm going to give you some insight into my world. Where record execs squeeze me to hype their new acts - yet I find gems like KT Tunstall's performance of "I Want You Back" on some TV show in France on YouTube.com and get turned on that way. Top-down marketing is dead. It's all about word of mouth.

I'm looking for good things, and there are very few out there. When I find them - whether they be old gems like Brian Auger's "Bumpin' on Sunset," which I discovered on XM's Deep Tracks, or the aforementioned Ms. Tunstall [see our review of her debut, Eye to the Telescope - Ed.] or some new piece of gear - I'm going to let you know. I try to be as honest as those Classic Rock records of yore, and although I don't expect you to agree with everything I say, I hope my passion resonates.

See the previous Lefsetz entry.

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