The Vinyl District
February 4, 2021
Part one of the TVD Record Store Club’s look at the new and reissued releases presently in stores for February 2021.
NEW RELEASE PICKS: Douglas Lee,
Themes for Falling Down Stairs (Self-released) This album, available on 180gm vinyl, CD, cassette and digital, was released back in October, but it just recently entered my consciousness, and since the entrance was an impressive one, here we are and here it is. This looks to be Lee’s first record, but it’s obvious he’s accumulated experience along the way, as the compositions are his, and he plays a variety of (often unusual) instruments together with leading a large band that’s immersed in a neo-lounge jazz/ soundtrack mode (of a sort) that’s a bit like a puree of Henry Mancini, Nino Rota, Combustible Edison, and Angelo Badalamenti, with Mike Patton and John Zorn giving slow nods of approval from the sidelines. This batch of references will hopefully establish that Lee’s approach
Spacewar!
Screenshot:
This is a virtual
DEC PDP-1 emulated in HTML5/JavaScript running the original code of Spacewar! , the earliest known digital video game. If available, use gamepads or joysticks (currently Chrome and Firefox only, see instructions-memo below) for authentic gameplay the game was originally played using custom control boxes.
Spacewar! was conceived in 1961 by Martin Graetz, Stephen Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen. It was first realized on the
PDP-1 in 1962 by Stephen Russell, Peter Samson, Dan Edwards, and Martin Graetz, together with Alan Kotok, Steve Piner, and Robert A Saunders. – Spacewar! is in the public domain, but this credit paragraph must accompany all distributed versions of the program.