Our fave breakfast place - Square Diner, Tribeca.

One of the nights, we thought we might splash out a bit and went to see Italian opera tragedy, Rigoletto, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

You can see a bit of the massive Chagall paintings in the left and right windows.

It was performed at classicMetropolitan Opera or ‘The Met‘ as they call it.

We managed to get a snapshot at the end even though no cameras are allowed.

Rather posh interior, don't you think?

Before the opera we had a brilliant meal at the Oyster Bar in the basement of Grand Central Station. Highly recommended.

Delicious oysters from Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts.

If you go for a few of the delicious oysters, followed by New England Clam Chowder, together with a pint of Brooklyn Lager, you’re not only getting a proper taste of local specialities, you also get it all for around 25 bucks (including tax and tip)!

This place has been here for almost a hundred years and some of the chefs seem to have been here since the beginning:)

I must also say that the oysters are also some of the best we ever tasted.

New York is probably one of the best places for live music. We had such a good time listening to this fella, Chilly Gonzales. He’s a sort of stand up comedy rapper on a grand piano that often performs in a smoking robe. We caught him at Joe’s Pub, where he called his show a ‘Piano Talk Show’ which pretty much sums his style up. Definitely worth checking out if you get the chance.

More stuff from NY coming soon.

Howdy

Lars

Photo: Andrew Nicholas - www.thiscityismine.com

After a nice authentic NYC dinner at the classical institution Peter Luger Steakhouse in Brooklyn, we arrived quite late at the Terra Blues Club in Greenwich Village. Having eaten a good chunk of delicious meat we were in the best of moods. We got a table, ordered a few beers and then the music started. What a shock – we were totally blown away by this guitarist and his trio. Loud, long, powerful jamming tunes that sometimes went from one song and seamlessly changed over to another one. Suddenly a trumpetist arrived at the dark stage playing a solo – and this underlined the openness of the music.

We had seen this recommended in the TimeOut Magazine and took a bit of a chance as we had never heard of Michael Powers before. He has a lovely voice and plays fabulous solo guitar with a lot of rhythm and a free floating feeling – just great! Apparently he plays with his drummer and bass player twice a week at this blues bar in Bleeker Street. Powers is heavily influenced by Jimi Hendrix, but with his own unique thing within the given frames of the genre – guitar blues.

Another night we reserved a table at The Blue Note Café and saw a great act with Joe Sample (formerly The Jazz Crusaders) telling stories, recounting memories and playing music from his long career.

A very intimate and personal performance – trio jazz at a very high level, which we enjoyed a lot.

The same night we popped in to a place called The Groove Bar & Grill. A proper NY place with different live bands every night. The band called Li’nard (which is the name of the band leader to the right in picture) played a lot of covers but in their own R&B type way which was really cool. We had to sit at the last available table, right in front of the small stage and the band made fun of us for covering our (golden) ears – it was quite loud just in front of the stage with a full band performing – so we became part of the entertainment. It was a right laugh all the way as they were as good as entertainers as they were musicians and singers.

If you’re in NYC for a few nights we highly recommend all of these places:

Blue Note
Club Groove
Terra Blues Club
Peter Luger Steakhouse

The first photo in this post was taken by Brooklyn photographer/designer Andrew Nicholas. The rest of them were only taken with our mobile phones unfortunately, so sorry about the quality.

Cheers
Jörgen

Zine Noodles Dim Sum, a favourite for a quiet lunch in one of the neighbouring resorts to the Venetian, Palazzo Resort.

So now we’re back at home with a bit of a home coming blues, being in the States sure is a lot of fun. Here are the last few memories:

This is Audio Federation’s room at ‘The Show’, with an all Audio Note UK setup, the HiFi Show that goes on at the same time as CES in the Flamingo Resort.

Neli being dj.

Audio Federation’s second room with the new Audio Note Jinro integrated amp.

Lamm electronics & Wilson Audio Sasha back at CES.

Real nice loudspeakers from Venture.

Joseph Audio loudspeakers with Mr Joseph himself to the left.

Soulution electronics and Magico M5 loudspeakers in a really stylish almost Zen-looking room.

DLS electronics, we really like the fresh, clean look of these items.

DLS loudspeakers

Last but not least, Gallo Reference 3 loudspeakers, small and good sounding with a rather unusual design.

This is it. We look forward to the next CES already but I reckon there will be a few more HiFi Shows in between.

Thanks for now.

Lars

P.S. This is a view from The Empire State Building, proper NY by night. Hopefully we’ll be back some time soon.

but we still have loads of stuff to show from Las Vegas so here we go:

Chrystal Cable’s Arabesque rather special loudspeaker entirely made out of glass.

dCS and Jeff Rowland electronics with Focal loudspeakers.

Good sounds from DynAudio Consequence Ultimate Edition with Octave amplifiers and Wadia CD-player.

A peak inside, the cross over network from the Consequence Ultimate Edition.

Nice system from Lindemann, all inclusive, loudspeakers and electronics.

Big audience at TAD, housed in one of the bigger suites at the 34th floor.

This is it for now but I think that we actually have enough for another post tomorrow or so. Now it’s time for a taste of the good flavours of Chinatown, New York.

Cheers
Lars