Sound

SAN FRANCISCO -- It all began with three of us Baby Boomers trying to describe the sound of a Zippo lighter to a 12-year-old."Oh, I miss that sound," said Stephen."

Artist: The Honest Mistakes Hometown: Baltimore Members: Joylene Dalia (lead vocals); Chris Ehrich (guitar, backup vocals); Adam Kvisaari (bass); Frank Corl (drums) Sound: Guitar-driven power-pop that isn't afraid to be proud of its genre Fact: The band feels they have finally found the sound they've been looking for on this record. Project: Break Up is available now. Next Gig: On "this-baby-isn't-going-to-raise-itself" hiatus More: myspace.

Kingsley Flood is an Americana band by accident. Two years ago, singer Naseem Khuri, 30, was a graduate student slumming it in Cambridge and pursuing a master's in public policy at Harvard. But through a roommate ad, he wound up living next door to Nick Balkin, a 30-year-old guitarist who was then playing with a Boston band, and the two struck a friendship and a working relationship. You might say Craigslist turned Khuri into a rock 'n' roller. "I was gonna do some fancy international relations job," said Khuri, who now lives in Washington.

In claiming that "there are no sound arguments against granting same-sex couples the right to be married," Mr. Rodricks omits his views of both "rights" and "marriage" - two essential components of his argument ("The irrational fears of same-sex marriage foes," Sept. 10). By "rights," does he mean natural rights inherent in man's design or socially-constructed rights determined by public opinion statistics? By "marriage," does he mean a relationship rooted in the physical, psychological and spiritual sexual design of men and women, or a socially-constructed, legal category for bureaucratic administration?

Los Angeles -- There's an episode of the old "Batman" TV series in which a villain ties Robin to the clapper of a giant clock bell. When the clock is to toll at midnight, the sheer cacophony of the ensuing gonging is supposed to spell a particularly gruesome auditory doom for the Boy Wonder.Not to suggest that the makers of "Batman Forever" have plotted the same fate for moviegoers, but certainly, if you see and hear the movie in the right theater, the experience can be akin to hanging out in that bell with the Caped Crusader's hapless sidekick.

Altec Lansing speakers deliver at reasonable cost Not everyone has space around his computer for four or five satellite speakers and a subwoofer. And many of us don't want to pay $200 or more just to get good sound out of our PCs. Altec Lansing's Model 2100 solves both problems. It's a three-piece system that costs only $100 and delivers excellent sound without requiring you to lay down wires and hang a bunch of speakers like Christmas decorations on the walls and shelves around your computer.

If there's a computer user in your house, or your whole household uses the computer, you'll never have to worry about finding the perfect Christmas gift. There's a program or gadget out there for everyone.One of the neat things about writing a computer column is that I get to try out a lot of them, and as the holidays approach I like to share my favorites. Some of these are new and state of the art, and some are old stand-bys. On the gadget front, my first recommendation is that you treat yourself and your computer to a multimedia upgrade, if you don't already have one. This is a pretty big gift, but it's worth it. A multimedia kit consists of a CD-ROM drive and a sound board for IBM-compatibles and a CD-ROM alone for Apple Macintosh computers, which come factory-equipped with sound capabilities.

These days, jazz is crawling with would-be prodigies, young musicians who have albums in the stores before they're even out of their teens. The trouble is that too many of them mistake proficiency for profundity, and end up trying to set their own course before they're really sure of what it is they have to say.That's one reason it's a relief to come across Ron Holloway. Because unlike so many players, who would cut an album of their own at the earliest opportunity, Holloway waited for almost two decades before recording "Slanted," his solo debut.

Although it was meant as a christening, last night's season-opening concert at the Pier 6 Concert Pavilion was in some ways more like a wedding.There was something old: headliner Ben E. King. There was also something new, namely the pavilion itself. King's set had plenty that was borrowed, including songs by Sam Cooke, Otis Redding and the Shirelles, and anyone looking for something blue need only have glanced at the neon "Harborlights Concerts" sign above the stage.Mostly, though, it was like a wedding in the sense that it seemed to herald a bright and productive future -- provided, of course, the evening's few awkward moments were simply the result of a new situation and not signals of trouble ahead.

When attempting to describe the warm, lustrous sound Emmanuel Pahud produces with his flute, some reviewers find themselves dipping into the vocal music vocabulary. Take, for instance, this review from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which lauded Pahud for "blending the delicacy of an art song artist with the power of a prima donna." As it turns out, the analogy is pretty close to the mark. As the 29-year virtuoso explains, part of the secret behind his rich, creamy tone is that he relies on many of the techniques opera singers employ.