Copper


Hoping All the Verses Rhyme

Issue 127Opening Salvo

Goodbye 2020 and here’s to a better 2021. Anything else I could say would pale in relation to what Ray Davies of the Kinks sings in “Better Things.” httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs6G9tisVdU Copper...

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The End of a Hollywood Era

Issue 127TRUE-LIFE ROCK TALES

In early summer 1969 I was living in Laurel Canyon when the sublet on the cabin I was renting ran out. I had been out of the Army for two...

The Lathe of Heaven

Issue 127AUDIO ANTHROPOLOGY

Now that's how to cut a record! Audio Engineering, February 1950. It wasn't a monster hit back in 1964, though Glen Campbell and Leon Russell played on it! Courtesy of...

Elvis Is Back in the Building

Issue 127COMPLETE RECOVERY

New records from deceased music icons are often filled with mixed emotions from fans: some will welcome any releases of previously buried or newly-discovered gems that captured the magic of...

Hard Times, Thrilling New Music

Issue 127BE HERE NOW

Hard times often produce spectacular music, and 2020 was a year in which artists responded to this disorienting year with songs of joy, insight and poignancy. This is a thrilling...

Caring for Records: Mark Mawhinney of Spin-Clean

Issue 127THE COPPER INTERVIEW

Spin-Clean offers its Spin-Clean Record Washer MkII vinyl record cleaning systems, which have their origin in the first Spin n’ Clean record cleaning device in the 1970s. Mark Mawhinney currently...

To Test or Not to Test, That is the Question, P...

Issue 127DEEP DIVE

In a previous installment of this series in Issue 126, I discussed measuring the most important component of an audio system, which is the ear. It is most important because no...

Vintage Tube Amplification During a Lockdown, P...

Issue 127REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE

There are some things that you just have to do at some point in your life. After reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig and Jack Kerouac’s On...

Confessions of a Setup Man 11: Can A System Be ...

Issue 127FRANKLY SPEAKING

As audiophiles, we are on what can sometimes seem a never-ending quest for better sound from our systems. After all, the better the sound, the closer we are to the...

Interviewing Genesis in the 1970s, Part Two

Issue 127FEATURED

Or, How I Got to Meet My Idols My first two interviews with members of Genesis, in 1974 and 1975, were initially made possible by the fact that I was the...

The Pink Robot Welcomes You

Issue 127PARTING SHOT

Photo by Michael Walker, taken in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the entrance to the Meow Wolf immersive art museum.

On the Baron: Tim de Paravicini, in Memoriam

Issue 127MUSIC AUDIO AND OTHER ILLNESSES

There was a message for me to call Dan Meinwald early this afternoon, December 17th. I didn’t think for a second the news would be what it was. Tim de...

Toshinori Kondo: Playing in Uncharted Territory

Issue 127TRADING EIGHTS

There’s a lot more to jazz than late nights on a club stage reading standards charts. Experimental trumpeter Toshinori Kondo sought to expand the definition of jazz to include the...

Shakin' It: Ray's Top 20 of 2020

Issue 127FEATURED

2020 was a year that presented all of us with a number of challenges and curve balls, to say the least. One industry that ground to a complete halt was...

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: The Unbroken Circle

Issue 127OFF THE CHARTS

If you know anything about the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, you know to take jug bands seriously. Although this CMA and Grammy Award-winning country rock group has come a long...

Stop, Hey, What’s That Sound?

Issue 127FEATURED

In Issue 125, I told you about my war on LPs and my search for an alternative. After a lengthy affair with cassettes, I switched to CDs. The CD gave me everything...

Award Season

Issue 127TOO MUCH TCHAIKOVSKY

Christmas came early last month! In the space of ten days, I got four back issues of Gramophone: August, October, November, Awards! (Somehow the September issue managed to arrive in mid-October.) Pandemic postal priorities,...

A Classic Reissue and Three Great New EPs

Issue 127TO BE DETERMINED

Booker T. & the M.G.’s – McLemore Avenue (50th Anniversary Edition) Booker T. & the M.G.’s were basically the house band at rhythm and blues label Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee,...