We took a little trip to New York City last weekend to see Great Lakes Myth Society play a show at Lit. We’d never seen them play live before and it was absolutely amazing. Not sure if I’ve ever heard five-part pop harmonies sound so good in such a dingy venue. (As an aside, I’d like to know why all the clubs in New York City seem so unsafe. Every time I see a band there I find myself heading down narrow stairs into a dank basement where electrical cables are held up to a cement ceiling by duct tape. Sometimes I’m too busy planning my exit routes to enjoy the show.)
While in NYC we stayed at the Tribeca Grand hotel. It’s a pretty swanky place. You can even get a room that includes a video camera and a complete Apple editing suite. The hotel is a big triangle with rooms on the edges and an open center with a bar/resturant at the bottom. There’s even a movie theater in the basement next to the gym. When we first got to the room it seemed a little stuffy, but it sounded like the A/C was on full-blast. Turns out there’s a speaker on the ceiling pumping out white noise (to mask the din coming from the bar?). Took awhile to figure out where the volume knob was. There’s also a speaker just outside the door that we couldn’t control. Our room also came with a bunch of indie-pop CDs (Aimee Mann, Ted Leo, etc.) and a couple in-house compilations to listen to on a Bose Wave Music System. I’d never heard a Wave radio before, but I’d seen the commercials touting the bass response — and there is a lot of bass, but it’s strange. It kinda sounds like the “LOUDNESS” button is fully engaged — there’s bass, but it’s artificial and way too present. The bass doesn’t extend very low and it sounds like there’s an octave missing between the bass that is there and the midrange stuff. Not a very well-rounded sound. In the Wave’s defense, I didn’t try to tweak the sound at all. I just ripped the CDs. They’ll sound better at home.