Copper


Hope for the Holidays

Issue 126Opening Salvo

The term “Happy Holidaze” has become a cliché, the progenitor of silly memes and cards – and has also taken on a new meaning in 2020. What a year it’s...

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Changers in the Night

Issue 126AUDIO ANTHROPOLOGY

Now that’s what we call holiday gift-giving! Circa 1960s.   Does it come with snake oil spindle lubricant? Circa 1950s.   We’ll take this over the The Yule Log. And in vintage 1959...

Zen and the Art of Criticism

Issue 126TWISTED SYSTEMS

Who hasn’t walked out of a show, turned to a friend and said, “that really sucked,” or, “that was amazing!” Everyone has the capacity to be a critic. My recent...

A World Without Keith Jarrett

Issue 126MUSIC AUDIO AND OTHER ILLNESSES

“I even have dreams where I am as messed up as I really am – I’ve found myself trying to play in my dreams, but it’s just like real life.”...

Dave Alvin – From An Old Guitar: Rare and Unrel...

Issue 126WAYNE'S WORDS

You’re driving through the New Mexico desert in the dark. Your teeth are grinding, though the buzz of the blue meth or whatever you were on has long worn off...

Hey Joe Covers: Crime or Sublime?

Issue 126COMPLETE RECOVERY

The first time I heard Jimi Hendrix’s recording of “Hey Joe” was in English class at Shelter Rock Junior High School, an institute of higher learning where students dissected both...

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

Issue 126DEEP DIVE

In the last installment, I discussed the most quoted test measurement in audio, total harmonic distortion ((THD), and its correlation with sound quality. Once upon a time, audio magazines mostly...

Beck: Where He's At

Issue 126OFF THE CHARTS

Let’s talk lo-fi. Not on the listening end, of course, but as an approach in the recording studio. Singer-songwriter Beck is a pioneer of this strategy that lets the listener...

Whatever Happened to Honk, Bonk, Boing and Blomp?

Issue 126DEEP DIVE

While doing her Stripsody, performer Cathy Berberian expressed herself by making vocal sounds like woo woo, stomp, boing. blomp, honk, bonk, thud, ouch, ugh, brrrrr, pant and achoo. She wasn't...

Audio Research: Making the Music Glow

Issue 126BOOK REVIEW

If I had to bet on it, I’d say 99 percent of Copper readers are familiar with Audio Research Corporation (ARC) and its creator, William Z. Johnson, as Audio Research is one...

When Jerry and The Big Man Almost Busted This C...

Issue 126EUREKA MOMENTS

This past March Round Records released GarciaLive Volume 13. The Grateful Dead’s output over the prior twelve months had already been prolific so it was surprising to see another Jerry Garcia-related...

Hit the Board, Jack

Issue 126FEATURED

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...

Those Christmas Movies

Issue 126MUSIC TO MY EARS

I don’t live my life by many rules. Basically, I have two. First, treat others as you would like to be treated. Second, don’t store super glue next to the...

Vertical Tracking Angle Meets Stylus Rake Angle...

Issue 126REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE

In Issue 125, J.I. covered the mechanical aspects of record cutting with respect to stylus rake angle (SRA) and vertical tracking angle (VTA). The series concludes with a further examination...

Bach’s Goldberg Variations

Issue 126SOMETHING OLD / SOMETHING NEW

According to an anecdote in an 1802 biography of J.S. Bach, the maestro had a harpsichord student named Johann Gottfried Goldberg who worked for a certain Count Kaiserling, an insomniac....

Christmas Songs Worth Listening To

Issue 126FEATURED

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...

Steve Guttenberg: the Audiophiliac, Part Two

Issue 126FRANKLY SPEAKING

In Part One of this interview (Issue 125) we talked about Steve’s first memory of listening to music, his careers as a projectionist and an audio salesperson, and how he...

A Holiday Gala

Issue 126PARTING SHOT

The 2018 Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society annual gala. A reminder of times past, and times to come. Bob Levi (in the black coat, standing, on the left)...

Rossini (Bel Canto Part 2)

Issue 126TOO MUCH TCHAIKOVSKY

Here’s a question that should be a softball: who was Europe’s single most influential musician in the early 19th century? Was it Beethoven? After all, we had hoped to celebrate...

Two Big Hits...and a Definite Strikeout!

Issue 126TO BE DETERMINED

Smashing Pumpkins – Cyr Smashing Pumpkins was one of my favorite bands of the nineties; Gish and Siamese Dream are still in regular rotation in my listening room and in my car, and are among...

Johnny "Guitar" Watson: A Real Mother for Ya

Issue 126TRUE-LIFE ROCK TALES

In 1980 I find myself working on another bus tour in Europe. Jim Kellem of CMA (Creative Management Associates, later ICM Partners) calls and says that an acquaintance of his...