RSMurthi's DigiDips & SoundToyz

Looks like Dunlop aren't done with Hendrix yet. Just out is the Jimi Hendrix Signature Wah that apparently reproduces "the unmistakable wah tone heard on Hendrix classics like Up From the Sky, Voodoo Child (Slight Return), Little Miss Lover and Still Raining, Still Dreaming". If you buy that, be ready to kiss goodbye to $199.98. More

NYT photos

Here's an interesting New York Times story about the resurgence of the premium denim industry in Los Angeles: 'Everything about the luxury denim industry, which began taking root here in 2000, has a fly-by-night feel, from the esoteric brand names — Antik, Nudie, Evisu, Monarch — to the sky-high prices, which have hit $1,000 a pair. But the new business is firmly rooted in this city’s rich blue-jean past, tapping into a vast network of experienced designers, sewers, laundry houses and fabric importers who gave birth to the first generation of designer denim in the late 1970s and ’80s — brands like Guess and Hilfiger — only to fall idle when such companies moved much of their manufacturing to China and Latin America. Premium denim companies like Bread, far from dropping from the sky, picked up the pieces and rejiggered and retooled that ailing industry to become a $400 million economy that sustains an estimated 100 companies in Los Angeles.' More

John Fogerty has just come out with a new album titled Revival which, despite being a tad subdued, stays true to his swamp rock roots and radiates his high regard for artistic integrity. In this 2005 CMT interview, he talks about the epiphany he had while visiting the Delta blues legend Robert Johnson's gravesite: 'I'm just mulling over Robert's great career and the mythical, legendary 29 recordings that he had made. Basically, I'm looking right at a big tree that seems to be where Robert was long ago buried. And I'm thinking about how these songs are very vital now. Remember that 1990 was within probably a year of the big [Robert Johnson] boxed set that got released and went platinum. I thought, "I wonder who owns the rights to those songs." And then I got this very negative image. I thought, "It's probably some lawyer" -- some unsavory type in a tall building in New York City with a big cigar. I thought, "God, we always get screwed. That really stinks." And then I just shook my head. Very emphatically, I said to myself, "It doesn't matter. Those are Robert's songs. I'm standing here with Robert Johnson, basically, at his gravesite. He's the spiritual owner of those songs." That's literally the phrase I born to myself. And at that moment, that's when the lightning bolt hit. My eyes got real wide, and I thought, "That's just like you. Do you see it? You're the spiritual owner. No matter what you've gone through, you wrote those songs. You created them. You lived those songs, and you're the one who really can sing those songs with the true understanding of how they came into being." It doesn't matter about the mythical tall building and the crooked guy with the big cigar. Robert's story was just like mine, and that was when I made up my mind.' More

Looking for a hassle-free way to digitise your old cassettes and records? Then check out ION's Tape2PC and TTUSB. The former is a USB dual cassette deck for converting cassette albums into MP3 while the latter is a turntable that allows you to digitise your old vinyl collection directly to CD or MP3, also via USB. Both units are bundled recording software. More

From MIT Media: 'If you think that the latest breakthrough in clothing is no-iron cotton... think again. Researchers at the Media Laboratory are redefining what our clothing can do for us, developing innovative ways to merge computing "seamlessly" into our everyday shirts, shoes, or eyeglasses. A first example is the Musical Jacket — a Levi's jacket that has been transformed into a musical instrument, complete with keyboard, synthesizer, and speakers, by students in the Opera of the Future and Physics and Media groups at the Lab. The Musical Jacket looks like any other denim jacket, with an added decorative element: an embroidered keypad over the left pocket. This keyboard, developed by Interval Fellow Rehmi Post, graduate student Maggie Orth, and undergraduate researcher Emily Cooper, is sewn from mildly conductive thread. When it's touched, it sends a signal to another processor, which in turn runs a MIDI synthesizer, built by Motorola Fellow Josh Smith and graduate student Josh Strickon. Sound is projected through mini-speakers in the jacket's pockets. The whole setup weighs less than one pound, with most of that weight coming from batteries and speaker cases.' More