Rick Wakeman will be in NZ in October for three 'intimate evenings' (Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch).
Apart from his solo projects (six Wives of Henry the 8th, Journey to the Centre of the Earth) and his time in Yes, he has appeared on the albums of Al Stewart, Elton John, Lou Reed, John Williams, Cat Stevens (including the classic piano on Morning Has Broken), Marc Bolan, Marsha Hunt, Mary Hopkin, Black Sabbath, and David Bowie.
Sadly, I'll miss it as I will be in Australia then.

In these days of on-line help files, the art of manual reading seems to be getting lost. Here a a few pointers:
Operating Manuals (opmans) can offer: 

• background information (on the subject pertaining to the device)
  
• equipment description (features, architecture, connections, use, operating conditions)
• operating instructions (eg step by step instructions, tutorials)
• specifications
• troubleshooting (eg error codes)
• maintenance
• update and accessory information

So, what makes a good manual? I'll begin answering that by pointing out some bad examples: 

• too little information - some manuals are little more than a sales brochure
• too much information (eg the opman includes a full technical repair section)
• information pitched at the wrong level - you don't really want a kiddie version manual with a piece of pro gear. Nor should the manual assume you have a degree for a piece of hobby gear.
• poor English - a lot of products are oriental, so translation is important. It takes quite some time for a country to develop these language skills to a good standard.
  
• misleading information (eg "sales talk")
• insufficient or poor quality diagrams - with equipment manuals a picture really is worth a thousand words
• sections not in a good order, or a poor contents and/or indexing

To be fair, it is not that easy to write a really good opman. If you don't believe me try writing some simple instructions for, say, changing a car wheel. Your first attempt will almost certainly have the user come back and query some part of it. After a revision or two it will probably be ok. It is even more difficult when a manufacturer writes a manual for a piece of equipment. Many items we buy these days are complex and several different departments are involved in the design and build (eg software engineers, hardware engineers, production team, marketing dept.). They will all have their in-house documentation but just hobbling together bits of information from the various teams will not make a very good opman. Luckily, the pioneering age for the opman is now over (at least in the West), and decent manufacturers realise that an extra team is needed for generating all the manuals. However, more and more equipment is being manufactured in the startup industrialised nations of Asia. They are still at the stage of thinking of the manual as an afterthought, or perhaps an inconvenience. This will change (probably when they realise that, just like slick packaging, quality documentation can add value to the product).

A good manual, therefore, has:

• simple explanations (ie only as complicated as need be)
• concise text
• pictures (preferably colour)
• one language only (multi-language opmans are often hard to follow)
• a glossary
• humour (eg Mackie manuals)
• an overview
• well defined sections
• application examples
• accompanying DVD/ CD-ROM
• supplier contact details (for your country)

ok, maybe that last one is superfluous now that every company has a website.

Here is how I used to read manuals: 

1. When I get a new piece of equipment I leave it in the box until I have read the manual right through. This is called delayed gratification, and is proven to be a winning strategy in life.
   
2. Next I go through any tutorial provided while using the equipment.
3. Finally, I refer back to the manual as a reference, using the applicable section (I can find the information quickly as I have already read the entire manual).

This was all well and good back when manuals were no longer than 30 pages. This is still the case for some hardware but software is a different story. With the manuals spanning several volumes and totalling thousands of pages, it no longer makes sense to do no.1 so after reading the install docs I will cut to the chase and start on no. 2. The downsides of this are that not having read the whole manual I can easily miss out on some of the features the software provides, and it is not nearly so easy to find information when I get stuck. But there you go, that's progress for you.
In any case, don't throw the manual out with the packaging. If you want to be a Power-user of your gear, start reading the manuals.

Stevie Wonder performs Sketches of a Life at the Library of Congress.

Beck's new album, Song Reader, to be be released in December 2012, will feature twenty songs as sheet music only, with full color art for each song, and in a hardcover carrying case. Whether this will rekindle playing, singing and listening to music as it was before recordings became popular remains to be seen. Get ready to gather around the piano, folks...

Theta Music have a good variety of online ear-training programmes, for both music and audio.

There is a good bio here about Carol Kaye, legendary bassist.

I was surprised to find that the curly black guitar lead is still around. You can buy them at Amazon. I used these back in 70s and they were awful - noisy and the wires would break regularly. I can't remember what the attraction was.

Marc Alan goodman is building a studio in Brooklyn, NY. You can read about it, as it progresses, here.

In a similar vein to the Women's Audio Mission (based in San Francisco), The Smart Women's Recording Club encourages and educates women in London.

A Pianomate has come up for sale on TradeMe. I had one of these from the music shop to try when they came out in the early 70s. It was designed to "augment the natural sound of the piano", and in fact it couldn't do much else as you can hardly play a piano and have it silent too! A good description of it is here and as well as photos there are two audio examples. As soon as I heard them I remembered why I took the thing back to the store! 
Also mentioned on this page is the Stylophone as it was also marketed by Dubreq. We had one of these and it is really no more than a toy. Interestingly David Bowie wrote Space Oddity on this little wonder, and the glissando heard at the start of the bridge of the song is the Stylophone's big moment. And it just keeps getting weirder  - none other than Rolf Harris was the person responsible for making the Stylophone popular. There is a BBC doco that features it here.