Copper


10-4, Good Neighbor

Issue 95Opening Salvo

Welcome to Copper #95! This is being written on October 4th---or 10/4, in US notation. That made me recall one of my former lives, many years and many pounds ago: I was...

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Going to Hong Kong

Issue 95QUIBBLES AND BITS

British Land Forces, Hong Kong29th August, 1949 Hello Jock, Trying to keep a promise. I thought now would be as good a time as ever. Firstly because we are just about...

Drive, He Said Part 4

Issue 95VINTAGE WHINE

In previous installments of Vintage Whine, we’ve looked at belt-drive turntables, idler-drive turntables, and direct drive tables. This column deals with the unclassifiable, the weird, the mixed-genre, the “what the hell...

Where I Am, Part 2

AND OTHER ILLNESSESAUDIOIssue 95MUSIC

Picking up the story from Issue 87: a lot of water has gone by the bridge in the meantime. But someone in the forum asked for prayers, which motivated me to...

Four Hits, One Miss

Issue 95TO BE DETERMINED

Iggy Pop – Free I have a fairly esteemed level of admiration for Iggy Pop; his work with the Stooges helped make him a punk icon. And working with Bowie over the...

The Adventures of Jeff Beck: Second Movement

Issue 95MUSIC TO MY EARS

December 1965 found the Yardbirds recording an album in America at the studios of Chess and Sun. For these blokes from Britain that must’ve been cool as hell. Beck was about to...

Screws, Machine Tools, and the Invention of Sou...

Issue 95REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE

How are the ancient Egyptians, Archimedes, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Henry Maudslay related to sound recording? There are inventions that make us wonder how anyone could have come up with...

Miles Davis: Eight Great Tracks

Issue 95TRADING EIGHTS

Here’s something you don’t hear every day: Miles Davis has a new album! Yes, the great trumpeter has been dead since 1991, but his record Rubberband was just released this September. And...

Ear Candy

Issue 95TOO MUCH TCHAIKOVSKY

Of the four strictly definable parameters of any musical sound—pitch, duration, loudness, and timbre—the last of these, also called color, may be hardest to define or describe. Think about it: a tone...

Getting to the Bottom of Things

Issue 95THE AUDIO CYNIC

I recently had the opportunity to spend an afternoon listening to records with a reviewer. In addition to an absolutely ridiculous record collection, he had an extraordinarily-resolving system. If I...

Leon Russell

Issue 95OFF THE CHARTS

One of his best-known songs was named after a science fiction novel. He sang while wearing a top hat and shades, and he sported a long, scraggly beard. His sound...

Second Verse, (Sorta) Same As the First

Issue 95TRUE-LIFE RADIO TALES

As senior year approached, I started sending out audition tapes to stations much larger than any which would have me—but my visits to WFIL had set my sights way too...

Cuba

Issue 95MUSIC'AL NOTES

The colorful buildings in the narrow streets of Old Havana beckoned us. The ever-present music drew us into the courtyard. Hypnotized we sat down and let the sounds wash over...