Peonies en Regalia

This issue’s cover: Joni Mitchell (1943 –). Riding on the carousel of time along with the rest of us on the merry-go-round. Every year my wife plants peonies in the...
Hope you don’t mind if I put on my proud-family-member hat here, to announce that PS Audio has just launched a new record label, Octave Records. As you might expect, Octave...
In Part One of this dialog between J.I. Agnew and reader/engineer Bob Lehman (Issue 112), they delved into the technical aspects of vinyl record manufacturing and absolute polarity. The dialog continues here....
Throw those windows wideOne day like this a year would set me right. …from “One Day Like This” In ye olden days of 30 years ago, as a writer I...
We don't know if this produced uncolored sound or not. From the Museum of the Hard to Believe...er, Audio, October 1977. That's one small and two large speakers. Got it?...
In Part One of this series (Issue 112), I noted that throughout the history of American music, the influence of the Christian church has been well documented and apparent. While...
If you have listened to any popular music from the last 75 years or so that was remastered for CD, DSD, SACD or limited-edition vinyl, there are very good odds...
So, as I have written about and stated in numerous articles and interviews, my portal to music was laid down through a 4-inch speaker through a Blaupunkt tabletop radio around...
I come from a family of smugglers. “Have you anything to declare?” the customs agent said as he pulled my father’s car apart. “No, nothing. Nothing at all,” said my...
Born in Brooklyn in 1959, Marcus Miller grew up surrounded by music. His dad was an organist and church choir director who made sure his son had classical music teachers...
Johnny Cash is part of America’s DNA. In a way, he was a one-man melting pot. His rich bass voice could praise the Almighty as effectively as it could tell...
In this installment, I’ll introduce you to two very different bands that still fall under the general category of progressive rock. Sensations’ Fix is not your typical Italian rock band, with...
It might be hard to imagine, but there was a time when there was not a Japanese restaurant in every city neighborhood and suburban strip mall. It was a time...
In the rental car, the two Jims and I head down I-95 south to Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. It’s an afternoon Rolling Stones concert and we have backstage VIP passes....
In the last six weeks, I’ve watched Mozart’s opera Le nozze di Figaro three times. That’s three hours per performance, so nine hours, not counting bathroom breaks or snack attacks. Well worth...
Rush – Permanent Waves – Fortieth Anniversary Edition Permanent Waves was something of a departure for Canadian power trio Rush; it was their first record since the addition of drummer and primary lyricist...