Sep 25, 2020
Welcome to Episode 8 of Holly Jolly X'masu! In this episode, I talk about the phenomenal 1968 album, “Christmas Tenor Mood” by the Nakamura Hachidai Quintet and Hidehiko Matsumoto. I’ve been looking forward to this album, not just because of how great the music is, but because of its pedigree. As I doing my...
Aug 25, 2020
Welcome to Episode 7 of Holly Jolly X'masu! In this episode, I cover the 2014 compilation, “Flying Dog Christmas,” from Flying Dog records. I figured this would be a good choice for August, expecting to be in the dog days of summer, but ended up recording it during a stretch of fall-like weather.
I didn’t realize...
How to Record and Digitize Vinyl
Jul 31, 2020
One thing my less technologically-inclined friends have asked me is how to rip copies of their own vinyl records. Okay, what they actually ask me is if I can do it for them, but for the more adventurous out there, I thought I’d post some instructions and pointers.
The first thing you need is a decent turntable....
Jul 25, 2020
Welcome to Episode 6 of Holly Jolly X'masu! This being my first Christmas in July episode, I wanted to do something special. I covered a variety of summer-themed or summery-sounding Christmas songs instead of a single album. Considering the current state of the world, I wanted to stick with mostly upbeat songs. I’ll...
Blog Post – Christmas in July “Kentucky Christmas” dinner
Jul 24, 2020
To help celebrate Christmas in July, I decided to have an authentic Kentucky Christmas dinner with my family. If you listened to episode two, you’ve heard of Kentucky Christmas and its origins. If you haven’t, I’ll summarize. Thanks to a brilliant marketing ploy, KFC (or perhaps just one enterprising and...
