Copper


Every Day is Earth Day?

Issue 83Opening Salvo

Welcome to Copper #83! I rarely react to PR pronouncements with more than an eye-roll, but when a utility company known for its string of coal-fired generating plants sent out a...

Read more

Schrödinger’s Show

Issue 83THE AUDIO CYNIC

To an exhibitor at an audio show, the show simultaneously exists and does not exist. If the show is thankfully, blessedly busy, the personal and professional domain of the exhibit...

Steppenwolf

Issue 83MUSIC TO MY EARS

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs……There’s also a negative side.”...

A Conversation With “Cousin Brucie”

Issue 83TWISTED SYSTEMS

[Originally published in Goldmine magazine—Ed.] Talking Beatles, The JFK Assassination and rival DJ Murray the K…. In 1964, there were only 4 ways to connect with your rock ‘n’ roll heroes: Buying...

Taxi

Issue 83MUSIC'AL NOTES

The four of us shuffled into the doctor’s office. An old man gazed at us from behind his thick glasses. “Drop them!” He growled. “And the underpants!” We complied as...

Axpona 2019, Part 1

Issue 83FEATURED

Mid-April in Chicago once again presents us with Axpona, one of the largest audiophile shows in North America. Weather was once again an unwelcome participant in this year’s show. Various...

Lasers

Issue 83QUIBBLES AND BITS

Ever wondered how lasers work?…Wondered what it is that gives them the interesting properties they exhibit?…You have?….Good! This column’s for you. Lasers are all about electrons. Atoms are composed of a...

Pan and Perséphone

Issue 83TOO MUCH TCHAIKOVSKY

Today we begin with Mahler and his Third Symphony. Then we move on to Perséphone, a melodrama for which Igor Stravinsky composed music in 1934. Both works—and a lot of other music from...

Marian McPartland: Eight Great Tracks

Issue 83TRADING EIGHTS

Britain still had a few more months of World War I to endure when Margaret Marian Turner was born in Slough, England in 1918. By the time World War II...

Cream

Issue 83OFF THE CHARTS

While American audiences obsessed over four mop-topped Liverpudlians called the Beatles, some British rockers were becoming equally fascinated by American blues music. They studied it, learned to play it, and...

Leslie Ann Jones, Part 2

Issue 83THE COPPER INTERVIEW

[Part 1 of John’s interview with Leslie Anne Jones was featured in Issue 82.] J.S.: You have also recorded some famous virtuoso instrumental soloists, such as Miles Davis, Carlos Santana, Dave...

Mix A vs. Mix B, Redux

AND OTHER ILLNESSESAUDIOIssue 83MUSIC

In the dark, dim past, on a dark and stormy night, Bill Bottrell would rant to anyone who would listen (usually just me) about Mix A and Mix B. As...