50 Ways to Read a Record Part 8

In earlier installments of this series, we’ve focused upon the various types of phono cartridges—pickup cartridges, if you prefer. Though wildly different in their internal construction, all these cartridges have...

Following the Commodities Market

5400 Hours of Fun, Part 2

[Ken Fritz has abilities and ambition that put most of us to shame. Ken decided to build his own speakers—and the listening room for them. As you’ll see, he did...

Tom Fine: New Mercury Living Presence Analog Re...

[Tom Fine is a second-generation audio engineer, specializing in mastering and analog-to-digital transfers. The son of audiophile pioneers C. Robert and Wilma Cozart Fine, he grew up steeped in music...

Monster and Sonos: Back in the News

Some companies seem to have a hard time staying out of the news: think Gibson, Sears, and Monster Products—which most of us still think of as Monster Cable. We last looked at the bumpy ride of...

Early Music in the Bay Area: Sackbuts and Crumh...

It’s well-known for its fog, iconic bridge, wineries, redwood forests, and cable cars. It’s also known to early music enthusiasts as a world-class early music research center, for being home...

Bessie Smith Part 2

I am always interested in transitory events whether they be political, biographical, or musical. The emergence of the blues as first a song form and eventually an art form is...

Stand Back

January 29th is not JUST my Mum’s birthday, it’s also the day, in 1983, that Stevie Nicks and then husband Kim Anderson were making their way up the PCH to...

Heart

I am awake. Not a slow-opening-of-my-eyes awake. More a slap-in-the-face awake. My eyes open wide and I see the nurse standing over me. A few days before this, I had...

Food, Wine, and Advice

One. When I moved to Manhattan in the mid-seventies things were not expensive, but I was almost always penniless. My wife, a student at Parsons School of Design, worked part-time...

Dylan, The Beatles, Mick Jagger, The Fugs, and ...

If I titled this story “The Strange Life & Times of Richard Alderson,” chances are: a)  My readers wouldn’t be too excited b)  You probably wouldn’t read past the title,...

Information

6: “What do you want?” 2: “Information.” 6: “You won’t get it.” 2: “By hook or by crook, we will.” 6: “Who are you?” 2: “The new number 2. You...

Immaterial Science

Back in Copper #66, I wrote a Cynic column entitled “Nothing New Under the Sun?“—and judging from the comments on that article, my point was either unclear, elusive, or misunderstood. I’m about to comment...

Silence Isn’t Silent, Redux

Let me tell you about Bernie Leadon. Bernie came to some notice in the late ’60s, as a member, first, of Dillard & Clark, and then of The Flying Burrito Brothers. And...

Collaborators

Nearly all the great creative musicians were good collaborators. It obviously worked for George Frideric Handel (1685–175). Eccentric country squire Charles Jennens (1700–1773) wrote several libretti for him; Handel set them...

Iguazu Falls