KL Internation AV Show 2009

Kuala Lumpur Internation AV Show 2009 was held from 24/7 to 26/7 at JW Marriott Hotel, Kuala Lumpur.

I spent about 4 hours at the show this year. There were quite a number of top end audio names at the show. Here are some pictures taken at the show:

The crowd at one of the big rooms

Sales, sales, sales

Impressive lineup

My favourite loudspeakers

Hank Williams - Greatest Hits

Hank Williams lived a very short life, from 1923 to 1953. However, many of his songs such as Your Cheating Heart, Jambalaya, Cold Cold Heart and many more became classics. Together with Jimmie Rodgers and Fred Rose, they became the first of the 3 inductees to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Hank Williams is a legend.

Emmylou Harris - Roses in the Snow

In 1979, I was a student in Sekolah Menengah Ibrahim, Sungai Petani, Kedah. In that year, my school held a school concert. A stage was even built for students to perform. I remember that they were quite a number of students who went up to the stage to perform. However, there was a band that was made up of 3 student guitarists who performed the song "Boxer". Their performance left a lasting impression upon me until today. I could still remember 1 of the students was Ong Chee Keong.

I found and bought a cassette that contained this song performed by Simon and Garfunkel soon after the concert. 2 years later I went on to study in Singapore. One day, I found another cassette that contained this song. However, the singer was Emmylou Harris. That was the first time I came to know about Emmylou Harris. I bought the cassette.

When I started to collect LPs, I found this LP and bought it in August 2006.

As Emmylou Harris is a guitarist, guitar becomes the most popular musical instrument in many of her songs. Coupled with the crystal clear voice of Emmylou Harris, the songs in the albums are all very very country-oriented. The songs I like most are "The Boxer" and "I'll Go Stepping Too".

望春风

I love Melaka food, particularly Tian Chee's mother in-law's superb nyonya food. I love the old charm of Melaka building architectures. I also love Jonker Street.

During one of my many trips to Melaka, I went to a second hand LP shop at Jonker Street to look for LPs. When I reached the shop, there was no other customers and the shop owner was sipping Chinese tea relaxingly with his 3 friends.

After I flipped through the stacks of records. I finally selected just 1 EP titled "Staring at the spring breeze (望春风）. All the songs in this EP are sung in "Hokkien", a Chinese dialect. When I handed the LP to the shop owner for quotation, he became so excited and took this EP to his friends. He explained in such excitement to his friends and me about how did he first listened to this song and how good could he sing the song.

He quickly offered me a cup of Chinese tea and started his rendition of 望春风. Wow, he could really sing well! His friends and I clapped along as he was singing. At the end his grand performance, he offered me this EP for free. Anyway, I put some money on his table, thanked him and bade goodbye to him.

John Denver - Back Home Again

I enjoy listening to music. When I listen to good music, I listen with my heart and soul. It's like I have been elevated to a different place, time or even dimension. It's like a kind of meditation. John Denver's Back Home Again is a song that can give me that kind of feeling.

The album cover depicts John Denver and a woman, presumably his wife. In back-cover is a gem i design. It shows John Denver with a group of men and women, all dressed casually in country-style clothing. Very warm and homely.

This album of John Denver revolves around home and family too. I like the song Back Home Again very much. This song is about a truck driver who is driving under a very cold and rough weather. Although he is yet to reach home after 10 days on the road, his longing mind has already raced back to his farm and his home to his loving wife, softly burning fire place, hot supper. Oh, my heart resonates with every word of the song!

Wilf Carter - 40th Anniversary Special

After I bought my LP player, I spent a lot of time listening to my small collection of LPs. Of my collection of LPs, I found that I loved Slim Whitman's yodeling songs very much. So I started to turn to Internet to find out more about yodeling. After weeks of research, I noted down names of yodelers in my diary. Wilf Carter was one of the yodeler I got to know from Internet.

I found Wilf Carter - 40th Anniversary Special in Nov 2006. I felt elated because I thought I would never be able to get any yodeling albums besides Slim Whitman.

The above pictures were extracted from a piece of note found inside the album.

Wilf Carter was a born in Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1904 and passed away in 1996. He was a true blue cowboy. In fact he worked as a cowboy during his youth.

In this doubled LP album, Wilf yodels in many songs. The songs that impressed me most is "Yellow Rose of Texas" and "My Nova Scotia Home".

For those of you who want to have a taste of yodeling. Here's a link to Youtube's Wilf Carter's "Yellow Rose of Texas", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tnu6ui_8nI0