Daddy’s Still Got a Squeezebox

Good, old Logitech Media Server, aka Squeezebox. The SiriusXM and Amazon Music apps are long gone, and I still haven’t figured out if AAC-to-MP3 transcoding can be made to work for live streaming stations.* Nevertheless, after 12 years, LMS continues to be my most useful digital music source, between having a Logitech Squeezebox Touch, two Squeezebox Radios, and the Squeezeplay PC software.

Logitech stopped making the hardware ten years ago, but they keep mysqueezebox.com running, and occasionally the official release version of the server software gets updated. Something I appreciate with Squeezeplay is how quickly I can jump between stations, as I demonstrate here in one of my TuneIn categories.

An insignificant quirk is that with stations showing information for individual songs, the menu matches what’s being played only when first loaded.

*Examples of stations using AAC are Luxuriamusic and Boss Radio 66. This is the same TuneIn menu seen in the video, as presented on my Onkyo receiver, which supports AAC.

Bend It, Shape It (Stream-of-Consciousness Blog Post)

This is something I started working on six months ago, following an e-mail exchange with good, ol’ Denro. Something that’s an inescapable interest for us, as well as the re-issue professionals we have contact with — Steve Hoffman, Bob Irwin, Andrew Sandoval, and Steve Stanley — is 1960’s record production (with Hoffman going further afield, in both directions).

After the introduction of tape recorders (thank you, Nazi Germany) made overdubs and editing possible, recording studios evolved into becoming instruments themselves. It became more likely that the difference between a hit and a flop could be determined not only by who performed the song, but how the record was produced and engineered.

Here’s an example. “Bend Me, Shape Me” by the American Breed debuted on December 2, 1967, and in early ’68 it became a top 5 hit. But that wasn’t the first time someone had taken a bash at the tune.

There was a very Psychedelic version by an obscure girl group, as produced by Tom Wilson, whose many credits included Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel.

The Outsiders, whose “Time Won’t Let Me” in ’66 was also a #5 hit, put “Bend Me, Shape Me” on their third album.

Within a couple of tom-tom beats, I recognize American Breed’s hit record. I would characterize the sound as nudging its way into Bubblegum Land.

Music Mike provides some background on the single vs. the album version of the song.

Music Mike has one of those classic Top 40 DJ deliveries that I have always admired, but wasn’t able to master myself during my stint at an AM radio mic. So let’s give a listen to Mike talking-up one of my all-time favorite singles.

Here’s Music Mike’s online station: https://www.kvkvi.com/

Tech sidebar: Curiously, Music Mike’s site behaves the way mine used to do here. By default it’s presented to the Net as unencrypted HTTP, but if you specify HTTPS the encryption works. Which is good, except his pop-up player isn’t working with HTTPS, only HTTP. I checked TuneIn, and because it sees HTTP for the stream it won’t play the station through most browsers. This isn’t the sort of technical trouble that FCC-licensed radio station engineers used to handle.

Continue reading Bend It, Shape It (Stream-of-Consciousness Blog Post)

Selling Out a Customer

I refer you back to this post from about a month ago.

Where I Am Not Today

The Toyota dealership is at it again, trying to get my 2017 Camry XLE. There’s another desperate plea from the dealership’s general manager, who must be finding himself in further embarrassing situations.

Whoever actually wrote this, it is definitely hand-written, with some of the ink smudged elsewhere on the shiny business card. What gets me is how it’s worded as if my car — that I bought new from them for cash — has been offered to someone else.

Whatever the truth is behind the sales pitch, I don’t appreciate the “boiler room” pressure. But I’m betting he’ll be glad I refused his unsolicited offers. His lots could soon be filled with repossessed vehicles.

The Great DECline

One of the few remaining vestiges of the once-mighty Digital Equipment Corporation is about to fall.

https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/30/intel_dec_massachusetts_demolished/

In 1986, Fortune magazine named DEC founder and CEO Ken Olsen as America’s most successful entrepreneur.

https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1986/10/27/68216/

It would have been laughable in 1986 to suggest that within five years Olsen would be forced out of the company he began in 1957, but that was exactly what happened. By 1996 the end of DEC, the former Massachusetts economic powerhouse, was in sight, after 40 years in business.

https://digital.com/digital-equipment-corporation/

In 1991 there was a recession that hit Massachusetts particularly hard. Every Massachusetts minicomputer company quickly declined, as the PC revolution took over. DEC, along with Data General, Prime, Wang, and Apollo all disappeared, but the Internet revolution came in just as quickly in 1995, and the economy turned around.

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=6777978

Operating a DEC PDP-11 minicomputer required women to wear a miniskirt. The user manual said so.

P.S. Allison Acoustics was another Massachusetts business that went under during the recession that began in ’91, when Roy Allison’s bank pulled his line of credit.