JuJuDeals

Which obviously stands for “Thank God It’s Finally Friday!” Wait, what did you think that second F was for? Never mind, it’s not important, cause it’s FRIDAY, and we don’t have to care about anything, including whatever you were about to say. This brings us to an important topic that we do care about, though, and so should you.

Summer jamz. Note the “z” at the end of the word “jam.” This differentiates it from any delicious fruit preserves you may also be jarring this summer, and regardless of whether Mother Nature has gotten the memo yet or not, we’re in spring. That means summer is right around the corner, replete with all of the jams and jamz you look forward to.

Now is the perfect time to start test driving your summer playlist. Pick out the tracks that put the amber liquid of beach sunsets into your days and the mischief-breeding heat of still-warm concrete into your nights. After all the stress of the last year, we’re calling it now: 2010 is going to be a Party Summer. So start getting your musical affairs in order, cause you don’t want to be the one still trying to get a good time started on Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls.

Unfortunately, we can’t really do the legwork for you as regards picking your music. We don’t really know what you like, see. It varies quite a bit depending on age, area, tastes, etc. We can tell you that we’ve been enjoying the new stuff from Gorillaz and Sleigh Bells, and Best Coast, but perennial favorites AC/DC, Pink Floyd, and The Beatles will almost certainly be making the cut as well. Luckily, what we can do for you is point you in the direction of some hot gear to enjoy that music from. A good summer will need music available in the following manners:

• From your car- You’ll want a way to blast some cruising music as you drive down the boulevard (play Lowrider) or the scenic detour (play Free Bird) with the windows down. For a budget car audio overhaul, we recommend the NCA-671 stereo and the NX-768 speakers. If you have a little more scratch to plunk down, the NX-686 or NX-684 stereos and NX-769 speakers.
• On the go- An MP3 player like the NX-142 is great for when you want to sit on your roof or lay on the beach and watch the sun set.
• At a party- Summer is nothing if not filled with barbecues, tailgates, grill-outs, chili cookoffs, beach parties, house parties, block parties, and the like. You’ll need a way to bring music around with you and blast it at your friends and associates. The NPB-425 stereo fills that niche nicely, playing a ton of different formats and built to go with you wherever you go.
• At home- Lastly, you’ll want something for your living room, bedroom, garage, or wherever you spend most of your time. There are a couple ways you can do this. If you like listening to things on CD (be it regular audio CD or a burned MP3 CD), a wall mounted NX-430 stereo will do you up nice. If more often find yourself listening to your music via MP3 player, the NAS-3001 MP3 player dock and speakers is probably more your speed.

Alright, what music recommendations do you have for us to pump through these sound machines? Leave it in the comments, summer lovers!

They say “silence is golden.” We don’t know just who “they” are, but they’re probably a total buzzkill. Everyone knows that silence is no match for music. Don’t believe us? Let’s break it down with some logic.

• Silence (S) is golden ($). [S = $]
• Music (M) is awesome (!). [M = !]
• Gold is used to purchase things (T) that are awesome. [$ x T = !]
• With awesome being the end goal, awesome is preferable to gold. [! > $]
• If [M = !], [S = $], and [! > $] are true, then by the transitive property of equality, music is much better than silence.

Thus, we bury an age old maxim. And what better way to commemorate its passing than with these slightly ominous looking portable MP3 player speakers, all the better to play Amazing Grace with at its funeral? Yeah, we admit they look a little bit like headstones, or maybe Stonehenge (wonder if we should have gone with an alien theme for today’s blog…), but don’t let that scare you. They’re (probably) not haunted, and ghostly sounds will only come out of them if you’re playing Halloween sound effects to spook trick-or-treaters.

The cool thing about them is that you can use them as your desktop computer speakers, as portable MP3 speakers, a way to boost your laptop’s sound-blasting abilities, or even for a portable DVD player. Everywhere you take them, they will herald the death of boredom and the doom of silence. Death is just a part of the cycle of life, though, and there is no death without rebirth. From the ashes of silence and boredom will spring the phoenix entertainment, enjoyment, and good times.

So don’t feel bad. Bring your portable speakers and play some rowdy Irish drinking music at silence’s wake. Have a good time. Share the fun memories. It’s what silence would have wanted.

What’s the difference between a musician and a crazed hobo yelling wildly on a street corner? The musician has the good sense to record what he’s doing. Also, probably amount of teeth and number of days since their last shower, though if you’ve ever been in a band with some really dedicated music guys, you know that the latter isn’t always true.

The crazy thing, aside from the hobo, is that even when you’re flat broke, you can still afford some pretty awesome microphones to record or broadcast the avant garde stylings of your folk-techno-clogdance fusion band. Take this one, for instance. Dirt cheap, highly sensitive, cool looking, and comes with all of the stuff you need to rock out. Or, if you dig through your sofa cushions and find another couple bucks, you can go wireless. Think of how nice it will be to bust some Van Halen-style jumping splits during a high note without worrying about your mic cord snagging your band mate’s Jamaican steel drum set and knocking down everything in your garage.

In this modern day era of music studios in a laptop and easy collaboration between musicians regardless of geographic location, you really have no excuse not to tap into that inner Beethoven (or that inner Johnny Rotten, whichever) and let your creativity out into the world. Or, you could go back to yelling on the street corner about the government agencies that used space lasers to steal your pants. Your call.