Copper


Issue 117

Issue 117Opening Salvo

This was the hardest issue I’ve ever had to put together. Not because the writers were late on copy (quite the contrary), or things went awry in production – it...

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How Products are Made, Part 2: The Design Process

Issue 117DEEP DIVE

In our first installment of this series we looked at the first step in getting a product to market: the initiation process. At this point the company has an idea of what...

I Know What I Like, and I Like What I Know

Issue 117PARTING SHOT

So say Genesis in “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe).” Taken at a fix-it shop in Dripping Springs, Texas.

Nothing Comes Close

Issue 117AUDIO ANTHROPOLOGY

You know, they might have been right. From Audio, November 1958.   Then again, maybe not! From Audio, February 1965.   Now that’s what we call home entertainment! From Electronics Made Easy, 1956.   Tracking at...

A Conversation with Sota Sound Inventions

Issue 117THE COPPER INTERVIEW

Sota Sound Inventions offers turntables ranging in price from the $1,250 Moonbeam IV (complete with tonearm) to the Statement Series Millennia Eclipse starting at $10,750. Sota was founded in 1980 by...

Two Classics Remastered, and Two Up-and-Coming ...

Issue 117TO BE DETERMINED

AC/DC – Back in Black (24/96 Edition) Early 1979, AC/DC was in the studio working on their sixth studio album Highway to Hell with legendary producer Eddie Kramer, who had been assigned to them...

Close Encounter of the Musical Kind

Issue 117SITTING IN

How great would it have been to drink coffee with Mozart, share a pint with Brahms, or take a shot of Stoli with Tchaikovsky?  Just to sit around and talk...

Bill Watrous: Eight Great Tracks

Issue 117TRADING EIGHTS

It’s easy to dismiss the trombone as a backing instrument that carries the middle and lower voices in arrangements. At its worst, it’s a sluggish, blatting elephant. At its best,...

Busking: All the World’s a Stage

Issue 117FEATURED

Did you hear the one about violinist Joshua Bell? During part of an experiment conducted by The Washington Post in 2007, the Grammy nominee and best-selling recording artist played his Stradivarius violin...

Ten Great Guitar Solos

Issue 117FEATURED

Full disclosure: I am not a musician – I play no instrument (I can whistle pretty well, though). I did play the drums (in high school and college), and I’ve...

The Long-Lost Record Label Concept – Part 1

Issue 117REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE

The record label, that round paper label in the middle of each record, has existed in one form or another since records first became flat (some believe the Earth will...

About Faces! (and the Small Faces)

Issue 117OFF THE CHARTS

They were Mod until they turned psychedelic. They were Small Faces until they became just plain Faces, only to become Small Faces again. This London-based band, started in 1965, is...

Eight-Tracks: Taking the Plunge

Issue 117EUREKA MOMENTS

Eight years ago, The Village Voice ran an article on the opening of The Eight-Track Museum in Dallas – a destination open to the public and a celebration of everything associated with this...

The Golden Age of the Fab Four vs. the Fab Five

Issue 117TWISTED SYSTEMS

The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones. And the winner is… Now that I have your attention, we are going to pretend to be Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, click our heels...

Of Tubes and Men

AND OTHER ILLNESSESAUDIOIssue 117MUSIC

I got new tubes! No, really! “Why is he telling me this?,” you wonder. It’s where I got them and what they are that’s not insignificant, although a couple of...

Beethoven and . . . Britten?

Issue 117TOO MUCH TCHAIKOVSKY

Remember Beethoven? Late in 2019 the classical-music world set out to celebrate a Beethoven Year, but then the pandemic got in the way. Has this become an odd moment to chat...

An Outgrowth of Hair

Issue 117TRUE-LIFE ROCK TALES

The first time I met performer Susan Morse was in the spring of 1969 at the Psychedelic Supermarket head shop on Las Palmas Blvd. We were looking at the cool...