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Although this happened awhile back, to me, it's so funny I thought I'd post it so you guys could get a chuckle out of it.
While eating lunch with co-workers one day, a guy asked me what kind of music I like. I told him I was pretty much a classical music nut. He looked at me and said "Oh, you mean like Yanni?" Another time, while drinking in a bar with a friend, he explained to me how the music of Led Zepplin will stand up with anything ever written by Mozart or Beethovan. I really had no come back. I mean, when the conversation starts like that, where do you go from there? He finished by explaining to me why Counting Crows were the "rock poets" of our generation. I just love bar talks. One last story. One year around Christmas, a co-worker found out I was an audiophile. He came to me seeking advice on a system for his wife. I asked he what he wanted the system to do. He explained to me that he wanted music throughout the house, being able to play radio, records, cd's and tapes. He wanted it to be top quality stuff, remote controllable from any room in the house. This was an older guy who makes a ton of money. I was licking my chops at the propect of being able to put together a top notch, whole house system with someone elses money. I told him that such a system could be pretty darn expensive. He replied, "Oh, moneys no object, I want the best and I'd be willing to spend 3 or 4 hundred dollars if I have to". I was speechless. Anyone else have a good story about encounters with non-audiophiles?
Follow Ups:
Some guys say that they can show off their cars in front of people, but they canīt do that with hifi ...
Though I had struck gold once when a guy responded enthusiastically about liking music. But you can probably guess his system - Bose Bahhhhhhhhhhh!Many who visit here proclaim "like it all - play anything you like" but that is usually a cover for limited knowlege. Like you, the tastes in this house are classical, and there seem to be very few genuine classical music lovers around.
I was out test driving cars yesterday and the salesman said that comment I then told him I had American and Australian electronics. He then said I should upgrade to Denon.
nt
I was listening to Country and the told me the music sucked. Just kidding. I was in my 996 turbo.
I know.. they all look alike.
you get the idea though
i scored hopless!! and i thought i knew thanks....zman
I once called Tower Records to find if they had a particular version of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in stock. The young man on the phone responded, "I don't think we carry much of that guy. I think he died or something."
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About 3 years ago - a new guy came to our firm and at some point we started talking about music. We quickly got on the subject of Santana and this guy had encyclopedic knowledge of Santana's early work. I was soooo stoked to finally have a coworker that I could talk music with. The next day we start talking more about music . . and he starts talking about Ottmar Liebert . . . and he won't shut up about Ottmar Liebert. Turns out he only listens to one old Santana alblum and lots and lots of Ottmar Liebert. Ottmar Liebert Ottmar Liebert Ottmar Liebert Ottmar Liebert Ottmar Liebert oh god . . it was awful. We didn't have anything to talk about. It was like getting a giant present on Christmas and finding a turd inside. So sad.Luckily I now work with a guy with a ton of great music stories, like he was once in a taxicab with Tom Waits the first time Tom Waits ever heard himself on the radio. And he's never once mentioned Ottmar Liebert!
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A few months ago I was looking at the Rotel web site at lunch one day,and the kid I was training at the time asked about it,saying he never heard of Rotel,and what did they make and so on.I told him what I was thinking about getting ,His reply was"WOW, for that much money you could buy Bose,its the best"
See link:
In the last case, how would you go about giving him music in, say, 6 rooms of the house for $400?
... circa 1980, a neighbor swore his brother's stereo was awesome (louder?) because the volume knob was labeled from 0-100, in increments of five, instead of the usual maximum of "10", in increments of single digits. Periodically, this STILL burns my ass... thanx for reminding me...lol. No, I'm not sure why...The only other tidbit that I'll never forget is hearing: "Fisher's about the best".
Bill, A friend of mine, who had well over 1000 CDs has a fixation with Billy Joel. This started in highschool and he is almost 40 now. Bill is a little bit anal and all his CDs are in alphabetical order.The Billy Joel CDs have their own special rack in a place of honor on one wall of the living room. The shrine is filled with tons of Billy Joel stuff including a bust of the man himself done in the classical style.
...and throw himself off the Tallahachee Bridge?
"The shrine is filled with tons of Billy Joel stuff including a bust of the man himself...."
Now that IS weird, although I do have a pair of Christie Brinkley's.
Give me rhythm or give me death!
nt
Best Regards,
Chris redmond.
and he strongly hinted that your Saturday nights were not the same without them......Here's hoping that Oz and NZ get into a war that leaves them with 3 fit players between them for the following week, and that the French produce one of their untypically ghastly games. Other than that, I would praying for form from England that I have not seen for months....
I am hoping for a good week-end, and will be drinking out of my "lucky glass"....
...having CD's in alphabetical order?!?!?! I couldn't have it any other way, same for my LP's. I also try to have releases from the same artist in chronological order! Yeah, I'm anal about some things. If I could just organize the rest of my life as well as my music...
marc g. - audiophile by day, music lover by night
my college aged nephew and his girlfriend came over my house to swim. A current(at the time) REM song came on the radio and the girl started singing along to it. As conversation I asked you like REM? She says, yeah I love them i have BOTH of their CD's. I then told her they have about a dozen or so releases dating back to 1981 I think. She didn't believe it so I had to bring her in the house to show her. I played some of their older material but she didn't seem to like it as much as the new stuff. Usually the opposite of most REM fans.
I was browsing through a CD store (hard to call them record stores nowadays) just after "Wayne's World" had come out in the theatres when a younger person asked an employee at the store:
"Do you have any CD's by that new group Queen?"
Lafayette radio store. I asked him to consider a pair of Dynaco A-25's, which sounded great. He thought for a moment and said, "No way man, I'm hooked on three-way!" I don't know why, but I always thought that was hilarious.Another: When about 17 years old, me and some friends had a big beer/dance party at a local clubhouse. I had a Dynaco preamp hooked up to a pair of SWTPC Tiger amplifiers, which were driving a pair of A-25's per channel. I must have hooked the speakers up wrong because they were putting a real strain on the amps. The amps kept overheating and shutting off. At one point, I walked into the room where we had the stereo set up and my friend had put ice bags on top of the amplifiers. I have never laughed so hard in my life and we nearly got into a fight over it.
One more: Some people I work with say they love music. I brought in a CD of Rubber Soul one day and they asked me who the artist was!
I have friends who, years ago, asked me to come over to help them with their stereo system. It "just didn't sound right". They couldn't be any more clear than that. These are/were bright, professional people. As they made me dinner (my reward for, hopefully, fixing their stereo), I went into the living room and discovered that the turntable was a bit too close to the wall; thus the platter was rubbing against it and, well, you can imagine that a 33&1/3 record was sounding like a 45 would at 33&1/3 - pretty darn muddy and s l o o w w. I pulled the turntable out about an inch, turned up the volume a bit, and returned to the kitchen, saying "how does that sound?". Well, you can imagine the laughs we had about that - and still have!Another time, completely different situation, different people, etc, someone whose house I was visiting told me his stereo had been sounding "tinny" for MONTHS. I flipped the turntable switch from 78 to 33&1/3 and he was in heaven.
You mean Led Zeppelin won't stand up with Mozart? It IS very funny sometimes to talk with others about music. Friends who've known I'm a big jazz fan for years bought me something by "Fourplay" for Christmas last year. I didn't know what to say, and I DO understand that it was probably filed under jazz at the store. I'm sure they had no idea what most jazz (other than smooth jazz) really is.
Great stories!
In the 70's, a guy at a audio shop listened intently to a direct-to-disc recording of Thelma Houston on a high-end system. After he'd listened to both sides, he tald the salesman he'd like to buy a copy of the recording. The salesman pulled an thick LP from a stack in the storeroom and brought it up to the cash register. The customer shook his head, "No, no, I wanted it for my 8-track player."
When I first started dating a woman, who said she shared an interest in Jazz, and who found out that I didn't have any Kenny G in my over 1000 Jazz titles in my collection, actually dissed me and thought I didn't know anything about the genre. She also said that she couldn't wait to tell her friends about how superficial I was telling her I loved "good" Jazz, but not having any Kenny G. She then asked if I had any Najee, Rick Braun, and a couple of other smoothies, and when i shook my head no, she just laughed indignantly. It was total bizzaro world. She called me the next day to tell me that she didn't think we had enough in common and dumped me.
Obviously her loss ...
LOL! Great story.
You have much much better odds at an aggreeable conversation about politics than music. I met a guy at work that likes John Mclaughlin- Mahavishnu Orchestra and Pat Metheny, but somehow thats about the only thing we both agree too. Go figure.
A few months ago on another message board, a classical snob made some comments about jazz & popular music that I found astonishing. Hearing someone like that say 'to me, rock music is an oxymoron' is hardly surprising to me and doesn't really bother me all that much. I've had plenty of that, my entire life, particularly from music instructors. Who cares, right? But this guy was a jazz hater as well, which I found quite interesting. He says that he "really can't give (me) an education in music to explain" that "it's just an historical fact that the best musical minds who ever put pen to paper didn't waste their thoughts on jazz. You don't like it, that's your problem, not mine." He went on to insist that "I'm sorry if trumpets, flutes, clarinets, and saxophones don't have the majesty, or range of different kinds of tonal colors, and therefore haven't been able to exploit as many possibilities music has to offer as a violin or a cello but that's just the nature of those instruments." Yeah, okay, whatever, Beethoven.Then there are the discussions with people who continue to insist that rap is 'not music.' They feel they have the right to define what is & isn't music for everyone. Anyone who expects everyone to enjoy ANY form of music is simply foolish; but I will not allow a rap-hater to dictate to me what is & isn't music simply on the basis of their dislike. And I don't even listen to the stuff all that much anymore! So I'm not really all that interested in defending the stuff, which is not an easy task for a variety of reasons. But...'not music?' My father had to listen to people say the exact same things about Art Tatum.
13 years ago Johnny Thunders gathered the Heartbreakers for one last reunion gig. He died six months later; it was the last Heartbreakers show, quite possibly the last time Thunders ever played in NYC, and it was actually the only time I ever saw him play. Thoroughly underwhelming, but then again his reputation didn't lead me to expect all that much. A couple of days later, I was in a bar with a friend who'd gone, and we were talking about how great it was to have seen the Heartbreakers, even if the show wasn't all that great, simply because they hadn't played in so many years & who knew if they were ever going to play again. The bartender overheard snippets of our conversation & asked who we'd gone to see. When we told her, 'the Heartbreakers reunion,' she said, 'How was Tom Petty?'
"Your posts are not informative or funny.
They are, however, consistently annoying."
NT
Idol worship among rock music fans is always a blast.Recently a women about my age mentioned she was a big rock music fan and was excited about going to a concerned that evening. Of course this got me interested and I asked her what concert and she replied REO Speedwagon, Styx and Journey. Though I was a little bit deflated at this fact I followed up with questions about popular music that was less than 25 years old but she responded with blank looks. Still hopeful that we might have something in common I asked her what her favorite Styx Lp was and she responded she liked the greatest hits package best, she also didn't like REO and that Journey was the greatest rock band of all time.
I was in the checkout line at my favorite record shop and had a copy of a Jesus Lizard record I was purchasing. Some kid all dressed in black with about a pound of metal clamped on his face came up to me and said "excuse me sir I find it pretty cool to see old people buying such good music".
A professional software engineer I worked with in 1993-94 wore a Led Zeppelin T-Shirt to work everyday, had Led Zeppelin collectables and posters hanging on his cubicle and carried a stack of CDs into work every day - 4/5 of them were Led Zeppelin CDs.
A very well and establish record collector I know expressed to me the overwhelming feeling of joy he gets when carrying a stack of 45s each worth over $100.
It's hard to find audiophiles to talk about music with because most music sounds like shit on their systems.
Most people my age or even up to 10 years younger than me that I meet who claim to be music lovers consider Tom Petty or the Dire Straights as being too much punk or alternative for their tastes.
Anticipating the most recent Lucinda Williams release I went to Zia record exchange at midnight to get it on it's release date. I stood in line with 20-30 kids waiting for the new Linkin Park (I think) record. The Lucinda Williams record sucked.
Discussing my record collection with a clerk at a used alternative record shop I inquired about his collection. He stated he had a very large and esoteric collection of great music - however he didn't want to talk about it with me because he was sure I had never heard of any of the bands or music he considered worthy.
I had a similar experience in the mid - 90s. I went to the Ticketmaster desk at Tower Records to buy a ticket for an Atari Teenage Riot concert in NYC. While we were waiting for the ticket to be printed the clerk - a typical 20-something record store clerk wearing a T shirt advertising an obscure band - said, "this is for your kid, right?" I indignantly replied "No, it's for me!" He looked astonshed but then smiled and said, "Hey, you have good taste for an old guy."
*It's hard to find audiophiles to talk about music with because most music sounds like shit on their systems.*
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