Magix Music Studio 12 Deluxe (PC) 
Price: ?49.99
Customer Review: Oh, Oh, Oh, it’s Magix!
For the price, this program offers an astonishing array of features - it’s a fully functioning audio and midi recording studio environment complete with mastering effects, vst and directX support and re-wire. If you don’t know what any of those are, don’t worry, it comes complete with an array of built in instruments and effects so you can complete a song or track without ever going “outside the box”. Simply stunning for the price. And friendly. And the support (i’ve used both email and forum-based support networks for this program) has been brilliant. At first any software of this nature seems complex, but once you delve in and get started, things just seem to fall into place. I kept finding things I wanted to do, expecting to have to buy one of the more highly thought of program (Cubase, Sonar, etc) but finding that I can do it here after all. Thoroughly recommended.
Customer Review: Great product gets even greater
I’ve been working with Music Studio 7 for some time now and have finally upgraded to version 12. I have not been disappointed. Easy to install and easy to get started, this relatively inexpensive piece of software is an incredibly powerful tool, offering as much if not more functionality than the cheapest Cakewalk or Cubase. This edition features integrated Midi and Audio too - not before time I hasten to add - making it an even bigger rival to the aforementioned names. As a word of advice though, you will need to load the update patch from the Magix website after installation otherwise your MIDI wont work! A little niggle, but at least it has been spotted and dealt with. The Magix helpdesk got back to me very quickly (within 1 hour) to advise me of that after I discovered the midi problems, so that is another reason to buy this software!
The Boyfriend [1971]
List Price: ?10.99
Used Price: ?13.99
Customer Review: I agree with Dr Featherweight !
Where is the DVD release of this classic piece of Ken Russell camp ? It showed what a good actress Twiggy could be (where is the DVD of Madame Sousatzka ????) and is enormously indulgent and good fun. Please remaster the original director’s cut and release it on DVD. Given the ridiculously high prices being asked for old ex-rental VHS tapes of this film, a DVD release sounds like it would be a profitable exercise.
Customer Review: Where is the DVD?
Rotten day at work? Vile weather? Stinky flu? Generally feeling sorry for yourself? Jim-jams and slippers, hot chocolate, toast and jam, cat on lap - and on with ‘The Boyfriend’. I loved this film as a very young teenager, its joyous, completely silly and serves the same feel-good purpose as ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ or the original ‘Producers’ - I’m delighted to see it’s on video (for years you couldn’t get it in the UK at all), but MGM - WHERE IS THE DVD?
The Year the Music Died: 1964-1972: A Commentary on the Best Era of Pop Music, and an Irreverent Look at the Musicians and Social Movements of
Follow the Music: The Life and High Times of Electra Records in the Great Years of American Pop Culture
Customer Review: Lovely telling of Elektra and the ’60s music industry
Elektra emerged from the ’60s as one of a very few independent labels to match the majors success. While others had fleeting commercial success or labored in record-collector obscurity, Elektra managed to maintain its artistic roots as it found its way up the top-40 charts. Label founder, Jac Holzman, and co-writer Gavan Daws re-tell the music industry’s transformation to a conglomeratized business through the prism of Elektra’s emergence in Greenwich Village folk clubs to its absorption into the WEA triad.
Holzman’s first-person reminiscences are brilliantly interwoven with interviews from many of those who were there, providing additional shades to many of the story’s events. The first half of the book is particularly fetching, following Holzman as he founds his label amid the folk revival of the early ’60s, and makes up business practices to match his feel for the art and artists. Also of great reward are Holzman’s tech-rich descriptions of equipment and recording sessions. Less incisive is Elektra’s flight into the arms of Warner Brothers, no doubt reflecting Holzman’s relative disinterest in the business of music.
Customer Review: great book about the music biz
This book really knocked me out. It’s a great look inside the sixties and seventies music business. What makes it particularly appealing is that the author was not just there but one of the major figures who made it happen. Jac Holzman and Gavan Daws have chosen to write the book from multiple points of view, quoting extensively from many of the best artists and producers of the time (even when their point of view is uncomplimentary or very different from the authors’). FOLLOW THE MUSIC lets you in on the party from many fascinating points of view. Reading this book brought me back to a time when this end of the century was being invented. I really loved it.
