Fred Manteghian

Up until some dreadful time today, Connecticut radio station 104.1 played new alternate rock music and did it very well. Not enough of a market to justify formulaic shock-jocks, the former owner, the great, the diseased, the much-maligned Clear Channel radio conglomerate ran 104 WURH like a great indie radio station. No live DJ's, in fact, the few radio breaks they took between songs mostly made fun of the other stations (many of whom they owned). WURH was where I could hear the Killers, the Kings of Leon, Cage the Elephant and a bunch of stuff I didn't care for either, but it was all new for the most part and who isn't at least a little sick of classic rock at this point! Once a week, they played an oldie like that dreadful Four Non-Blondes song whose title I paid a hypnotist to make me forget, but for the most part, radio 104 was always fresh!

The Black Crowes, <I>$hake Your Money Maker</I> (LP, DEF American Records, 1990), picked up during my first trip to Las Vegas in a used record store on Sahara. Even 20 years ago, The Black Crowes were doing what bands like the Rolling Stones seemed incapable of anymore. This hard-driving rock has no missteps and no end to the catchy tunes. Singer Chris Robinson's distinctive gravelly voice, a cross between Rod Stewart and Mick Jagger, gets stellar backup from the two guitars, bass and drum line-up that's as tight as it is raw.

If you look real close, you can see Capt. James T. Kirk sitting in his command chair. The <a href="http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2131034" target="new">Radio Shack Indoor VHF/UHF/HDTV Antenna with RF Remote Control</a> may not be able to pick up intergalactic transmissions, but it does a decent, if somewhat mixed job, with HDTV signals. In one case, it reached out over twenty miles to pull in a full-time digital <a href="http://www.stationindex.com/tv/callsign/WSAH" Target="new">"multi-cultural shopping"</a> station (so now you can not only buy things you don't need, you can buy them in languages you don't understand). But what wasn't so impressive was its inability to pull in the closest tower, a mere 8 miles away, in anything but analog (and miserable looking analog at that!).

Life’s Too Short for Bad Shoes

Buy a pair of shoes online that don’t fit quite right, and it’s easy enough to box them back up for the round-trip refund. You wouldn’t think you could say the same about a 70-pound speaker like the Aperion Intimus 6T, but mailorder company Aperion Audio makes it almost as easy. The Portland, Oregon–based company manufactures in China and purports to pass the savings on to you. Aperion wants you to be 100-percent satisfied, so it gives you 30 days to try the speakers at home. The company will even pick up shipping costs both ways if you decide not to keep the speakers. So even if you can’t go to a store to listen to them, Aperion speakers are a no-risk purchase. Still, six boxes full of speakers worth almost $4,000 is hardly an impulse buy like a $39 pair of Converse All Star Sailor Jerry high tops on eBay, so listen up.