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Sustaining Creativity
Many years ago, I owned and ran a UK guitar shop, which my family and I had purchased as a going concern. It was a very successful and happy business...
London “Decca” Cartridges: Unique Design, Timel...
Decca cartridges are unique transducers with quite a bit of interesting history behind them, starring with the Decca company itself. From their 1929 beginnings as a British record company and...
The Yamaha Influence, Part Two
In Part One (Issue 134), we looked at Yamaha as being both a musical instrument maker and a manufacturer of audio components, and how each of those sides of the...
Small Town Charm, Big Town Music: My Father’s P...
Bruce Springsteen frequently sings about the grit and hardships of growing up in Freehold, NJ. His emotional writing makes it easy to visualize the life experiences he encountered in a...
All About That Bass
When I moved to Seattle in 1980 I lived in the Jensen Block on Eastlake Avenue, in a neighborhood of aging wooden houses, aging people, and industries that made things...
More of My Favorite Things
In addition to the recordings I included in the first part of “A Few of My Favorite Things” (Issue 129) there are many other recordings I enjoy having in my collection. If...
The Flow of Influences On Buying Equipment
What influences the equipment you buy? Make no mistake, none of us buy audio or musical instrument gear without being affected by past inspirations. I suppose my earliest memory of...
Groove Essentials: Four80East
This story began with hamsters and a squeak toy over 20 years ago and evolved into a unique contemporary jazz project called Four80East. In their own words: “We make groovy,...
Nils Lofgren – A Retrospective Look at a Musici...
Once upon a time, I was a young assistant manager at Globus Brothers Studios in New York City. They were the creators of the Globuscope 360, a servo motor scan...
Totally Transparent
When it comes to conversation, occasionally we may preface what we say with, “To be honest, I….” This figure of speech seems totally natural to us and endeavours to add...
A Conversation With Mark O’Brien of Rogue Audio
Rogue Audio manufactures a wide range of tube, solid-state and hybrid audio components including integrated amplifiers, preamplifiers, power amps, phono stages and headphone amps. Located in Brodheadsville, Pennsylvania, the company states...
Koss: the Granddaddy of Audiophile Headphones
As listening to music on headphones and earbuds has become ubiquitous, it is interesting to note that Koss Corporation (NASDAQ: KOSS) the company that invented and commercialized consumer stereo headphones in 1958,...
Role Models
Roy Hall’s article in the last issue triggered some disquieting school memories of my own. He reminded me of the nasty habit of many public school teachers in the 1950s and 1960s to read test...
Playing the Back Holes
One of my favorite motorcycling buddies, Ralph, invited me over yesterday to listen to his stereo system. Although he’s retired, he refuses to grow up and is still obsessed with motorcycles and music, just...
A Few of My Favorite Things
I have close to 3,000 CDs and LPs – a modest amount according to some people, an extravagant amount according to others. I used to have a large number of...
Ballroom Blitz
How was your New Year’s Eve? New Year’s Eve, ring a bell? Someday this pandemic will end and we will return to celebrating the end of the old year and...
Music and the COVID-19 Era
In 1968 we learned about Revolution 9; in 2020 we met COVID-19. Both disruptive, chaotic and confusing, but only the latter delivered unprecedented health and economic duress for so many,...
January's Most Memorable Concerts
When you run through a list of the biggest rock concerts of all time, one thing you’ll notice is that most were held during the summer months. I guess this...
Interviewing Genesis in the 1970s, Part Two
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...
Shakin' It: Ray's Top 20 of 2020
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...
Stop, Hey, What’s That Sound?
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...
Hit the Board, Jack
When I was a teenager, no one understood how I suffered. No one detected my secret genius. When I saw kids my age on TV or in the movies, they...
Christmas Songs Worth Listening To
As the calendar days inexorably approach Christmas, the usual playlist combination of the same 20 or so songs, such as Mariah Carey’s, “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” Wham!’s...
Concert T-Shirts: History in the Making
Recently, a college buddy posted a picture of himself on social media with a Pablo Cruise T-shirt that his brother had given him for his birthday. It was so random...
Five Weeks In Mongolia, Part Two
Part One of this story ran in Issue 123. A full day on the “road” to Baldan Baravain required significant recuperation. It took us some time to regain our land legs...
Interviewing Genesis in the 1970s – Part One
How I got to meet my idols. Me: “Hi, I’m Rich Isaacs. I’m on the Atlantic Records guest list.” Winterland box office attendant: “I don’t see your name here.” It...
My War on LPs
My life took a swerve in the summer of 1974. Did I have an affair with an older woman whose husband was away in a war? Did I learn that...
Boogie Wonderland
A great man once wrote: “Once upon a time in New York City, when the city finally went to sleep, a magical place opened its doors and invited people in...
Holiday Songs You Should Be Spinning!
Most people who know me well are familiar with the fact that I’m not a big fan of holiday music. Sure, the classics still work. But year after year, big...
10 More Great Guitar Solos
As I wrote in Issue 117: 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),...
Five Weeks in Mongolia, Part One
It’s morning in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. I feel green, shaken and dehydrated from a rather spectacular night of diarrhea and vomiting. In matters of revenge, Montezuma has got nothing on...
Val and Eddie, Amy and Tom Revisited
Note: this article originally appeared in Copper Issue 74. In light of Eddie Van Halen’s passing, we felt it appropriate to run it again here in tribute, updated and with an added...
John, Paul, George, Ringo and Irving
Irving Bieler was one step away from joining the Swinging Sixties. He was standing in front of the Music Box on South Main Street in Fall River, Massachusetts. He had...
An Assortment of Favorite Demo Recordings
Many audiophile magazines and internet sites compile lists of what they consider definitive demonstration recordings that every audiophile should own, or at least use religiously when auditioning equipment. I rarely...
Birth of the Cool
Everyone wants to be cool. But what the heck is cool? “What is Hip?” Tower of Power asked us. “Tell me tell me, if you think ya know.” See, even...
Visión Musical: The Mavericks’ En Español
“That voice!” I had just posted the newly released video of “La Sitiera” from The Mavericks’ new album En Español on one of the forums I visited that day, and...
A Conversation with Technics’ Bill Voss
Technics is a brand that needs little introduction to most Copper readers. Technics was once a household name in consumer electronics but eventually faded to the point where the marque...
K-tel Records: Now That’s What We Call Music!
Since the late 1990s the Now That’s What I Call Music franchise has almost single-handedly kept compact disc sales from completely falling off the ledge. The concept is a simple one. Each...
Two Hands Clapping
It was a lot of money, even with the student discount. He had never been to the symphony, let alone invested in an eighth row center orchestra seat. He wasn’t...
The Next Voice You Hear
“So you had better do as you are told/you better listen to the radio.” (Elvis Costello, “Radio Radio”) Sanyo catalogued the MR2810 2-Band Radio Cassette Recorder in 1982 I received...
Ear Flaps Up
Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Brahms Back in the day, students were required to take music appreciation classes. The course generally included an introduction to...
Record Store Day – An Alternative Opinion
I never really gave much thought to Record Store Day, other than to see it mentioned on the internet here and there over the years, and eventually I would become...
When Dire Straits Made a Springsteen Record
There has been a lot said about the importance of Bruce Springsteen’s 1978 album Darkness on the Edge of Town. It was a transitional album for Bruce, taking him from beachside...
Often Snubbed, Punk Rock is Alive and Well!
In the spring of 2018, an historic event took place in Newark, New Jersey: the Misfits, a local and legendary punk band that disbanded in 1983, reunited for a single area show...
Unusual Musical Collaborations and Cameos (Part...
It often comes as a surprise to music fans when they hear that their favorite artists, in any category, are themselves fans of other musical genres. Even more surprising is...
Busking: All the World’s a Stage
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
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...
Audio Shows 101: What to Expect As A First-Timer
A guide for newbies to make the most of the audio show experience. Since audio shows have been sidelined for the year, I felt it might be a good time...
The Earth's Heartbeat: Native American Music
All plants are our brothers and sisters,they talk to us and if we listen, we can hear them.If we wonder often, the gift of knowledge will come. – Arapaho nation literature[1]...
Songs of Praise from Unlikely Artists, Part Three
In Part One and Part Two of this series (Issues 112 and 113), I noted that throughout the history of American music, the influence of the Christian church has been...