On The Road With Al and Ivy: Blog

FEBRUARY 2024 COMPILATION ISSUE Note: All material by Al Handa unless otherwise noted. Contents copyright 2024 by Al Handa. All rights reserved. IN THIS ISSUE: The Quitturz Preview: Parts 1-3 A.I. And Art: Part 4 - Some Thoughts About Scraping Boogie Underground Preparedness Primer: Part 1 How To Find The Perfect Headphones: Parts 2-3 The Quitturz Preview: Parts 1-3 The eBook version of "The Quitturz" will be published in December and it won't be a straight compilation of the current Vella episodes. The most obvious change is the title. The Vella serial is called "The Quitters," which is a good title, but music groups and other organizations already use it. I figured it was best to change the spelling, and the new title better reflects the 70s Punk sensibility. There are two significant changes: the chapters have been resequenced, and a parallel story has been inserted. The Quitters is my best-selling Vella book and works well as serial fiction. Most of that ge...

IN THIS ISSUE: - THE BLUES, RAP, AND ChatGPT - PART ONE -  LIES, MORE LIES, AND MUSIC HISTORY…AND STREAMING -  INSTRUMENT REVIEW: DONNER DLH-003 16 STRING LYRE HARP -  A SURVEY OF BUDGET INSTRUMENTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD - SPECIAL PREVIEW: EPISODE 2 OF “I, IVY” ON VELLA, TITLED “MY GAELIC GARDIAN,   JEZEBEL” - SHORT TAKES All content unless noted otherwise by  Al  Handa ( deltasnake@yahoo.com) The Blues, Rap, And ChatGPT: Part One I'm sure most of you have heard about the new ChatGPT and the various views, ranging from embarrassingly uncritical raves to it being a third column for the AI conquerors who'll destroy humankind. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle; there's no doubt it'll be misused, but from my initial exposure to it, it looks like the next wave in search engines. It also has the feel of a paradigm shift and could profoundly change the tech landscape. I know it's new, but think it will be a great quick and dirty tool for research tasks...

Al  Handa  deltasnake@yahoo.com CONTENTS: From The Archive: If Music Reviews Are Purely Opinion, Do People Take Reviews Seriously?  (Plus An Informal History Of Music Reviews) (Originally published June 14, 2014, and revised Jan. 19, 2023) GUITAR REVIEW: EPIPHONE LES PAUL SL MELODY MAKER AN ANECDOTAL HISTORY OF CHEAP CHIC GUITARS FROM THE ARCHIVE: REMASTERED RECORDINGS IN THE DIGITAL WORLD (2015) Special Preview: Excerpt from Jook by Al Handa (Due August 2023) From The Archive: 1996 Review Of Television’s Marquee Moon Album (revised 2023) SPECIAL PREVIEW: Episode 3 of The Quitters on Kindle Vella From The Archive: If Music Reviews Are Purely Opinion, Do People Take Reviews Seriously?  (Plus An Informal History Of Music Reviews) (Originally published June 14, 2014, and revised Jan. 19, 2023) The answer to the above question is yes, no, maybe, and who cares. For a new artist who has a new release out, it can be a matter of life or death to have that release reviewed. N...