The Stereo Society newsletter February 2003

Every time we add something new, you'll see a linked guide to it here,
with our archive of past Newsletters.

If you join the Stereo Society, you will receive a monthly newsletter with direct links to everything new and announcements about fresh downloads etc.
Please forward a copy to a friend.

We have one major feature added this February, with many interesting related bits, but first we have to thank you all for another record, with 20,000 of you or your relatives showing up in January. Statistics follow later, but our hard-working server can’t even take the weekend off. Don’t get considerate just yet, computers don’t get that tired.

We’ve spent much time in the rock+roll department, but CDs such as Johnny Reinhard’s Raven give away our allegiance to all things truly alternative. One of the players on Johnny’s CD was a singular presence. Don ‘the Gong’ Conreaux’s activities take the synthesis of life and music to an exceptional level. We have rarely seen instrument and player more as one united than in our studio when Don makes his extraordinarily varied sounds from what is to most eyes just a big lump of metal. We had to talk.

Gong therapy, the cosmos, the whole alternative description of the world around us is invoked in Don’s interview, conducted at his home in Greenwich Village, New York City, on a bone-chilling Saturday in January 2003. You can hear his measured tones in RealAudio as well as read the (edited) transcript. There are about ten additional related new pages.

At the end, he offered the interviewer a gong experience: lie down on the bed, turn the lights down, and I’ll play. What can a guy say?

A recording, at Don’s suggestion, was made in stereo on the portable DAT player used for the interview recording. With his permission, we offer the six-minute personal performance as a stereo hi-res mp3 download (about 6Mb). Even in mp3, you hear the extraordinary changes and details in this performance by a true virtuoso. It’s impossible to reproduce the swirling spatial sounds you hear in front of the real thing, but you get a very exciting clue. Don’s CDs give you even more sonic stimulation, and you can buy them at his site.

We entertained more than 20,000 sessions (visitors) in January and served more pages than ever (nearly 80.000, which shows that y’all do stick around and enjoy what we have to offer). (And please keep buying the CDs, please, even though we have new ones about to hit.)

Before we celebrate the record hits, we’ll give you a brief introduction to that ‘hits’ statistic, which is often used to bamboozle. ‘Sessions’ are visits to the site, during which a visitor may call up several ‘pages’ in a ramble around. Generally, the success of a site is measured in pages served, since that reflects how much interest keeps the visitor clicking as well as the crowd total. Often, though, ‘hits’ are quoted as if they are related to the visitor total. They aren’t. Hits are simply the number of files called down from the server while someone is active at the site.
Don’t worry, last month we had a record in the hits department too, with over a quarter million for the first time in our existence.

Thanks again. If you have any thoughts, contact us as usual.

And another reminder to go see BETTY in New York if you are within 3000 miles of that freezing city. Their off-Broadway musical BETTY Rules is continuing despite everything. On- or off- Broadway, everything hangs by a thread and bums on seats. Please go see them. You won’t be disappointed.