Copper
Lemons Rally: Rust Belt Ramble, Part Three
Day Three: “Steel City, Oil City, Silo City” Good morning! It’s the last day of the Rust Belt Ramble. This is the day of mixed emotions. On one hand, you’re...
The Colors of Music: Synesthetic Artist Sees an...
In Issue 170, Melissa McCracken shared with our readership the fascinating experience of creating her artwork as a synesthetic. Here’s an excerpt from Part One of our interview: Melissa McCracken: Synesthesia is a...
Diagnosing Audiophilia
Patient: Dr. Krebs, I think I have acute audiophilia. Dr. Krebs: Sounds serious. What are your symptoms? Patient: A lack of sound clarity with some distortion. Both my audio system...
Confessions of a CD Addict, Circa 1986
File under “what comes around, goes around.” I wrote the following unpublished piece in 1986, found unexpectedly after going through old computer files. The deja vu of my music consumption...
My Retail Customers: Of Chalk and Cheese
Working in retail perhaps may better be thought of as a portal to another world, another dimension of possibilities and unexpected outcomes. I thought it would be fun to share...
Lemons Rally: Rust Belt Ramble, Part Two
Day Two: “Big Bucket, Big Bridges, Big Tree, Big Day” A big day indeed, as we would travel through parts of three states today. As it turned out, the bulk...
Musical Roots: A Trip Around the World
The Musical Instrument Museum (MIM), located in Phoenix, Arizona, is the foremost musical instrument museum in the world with 350 exhibits, 200 of which are country-specific. I described it in a previous Copper article (Issue 168),...
Thieves, Golden Boys, and Trust in the Retail S...
Some of you may have read in my previous articles that part of my background originates in musical instrument retailing. As a result of my experience, one of my catchphrases...
Back on the Lemons Rally, Part One
“Lemons Rally is not a race!” Rallymaster Jeff barked out our rally instructions at the driver’s meeting around 8:00 am on the Friday that marked the beginning of the Rust Belt...
Stepping Out of the Limelight
Many stories have been written about sidemen who became stars once they got their chance in the spotlight: Glen Campbell (the Wrecking Crew and the Beach Boys), Sheryl Crow (Michael...
The Musical Instrument Museum: A National Treasure
Jeff Weiner has been a volunteer museum guide/docent at Phoenix, Arizona’s Musical Instrument Museum for the last five years. Some of the content of this article has been adapted from...
Pet Sounds: My Dogs Explained by Album Titles
Emma is ready for her close-up. “There is no you,” Trent Reznor sang. “There is only me.” Trent is a self-absorbed individual who intuitively understood our first dog, Emma....
Vinyl and the World’s Best Stereo System
Many of us prefer to listen to vinyl over other formats because it produces that je ne sais quoi, a mysteriously gripping and engaging effect which, for many listeners, seems...
The A&M Records Story, Part Six: The 1980s ...
The transition from the 1980s to the 1990s would be a bittersweet moment. In 1989, Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss sold A&M Records, the largest independent record label ever, to...
Where To Buy (High-Quality) Classical Downloads
With the recent resurgence of interest in vinyl, we are seeing the slow return of dedicated record stores. But let’s be honest: it’s still very much a niche market and...
Why I Quit Buying New Vinyl
Vinyl is a medium which my opinion is torn on. I like the sound, the experience, the large cover art, and the ability to read the liner notes without a...
Cats and Dogs…Well, Mostly Cats (Part Two)
(Cat haters might want to hit the “Next” button, but if you do, you’ll miss a new photo of Otis, my neighbor’s Golden Retriever, formerly the cutest puppy, with three...
Getting the Most from an A/V Receiver: Yamaha’s...
In Part One (Issue 166), we briefly covered some of the highlights of the Yamaha Web Editor SetUp online utility, which is designed to get the best sonic performance from an Yamaha...
The Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society...
I first met Sunil Merchant at T.H.E. Show in 2021, an audio show that took place in Long Beach, California (as it did in June 2022, and I’ll be reporting...
Reconsider Baby: Elvis, the Movie
Among other things, Elvis Presley invented the rock ’n’ roll comeback. Up until 1968, ”coming back” from a career break barely existed in the new style since most fell short,...
The Exotic Sounds of Madagascar
Most people’s knowledge of Madagascar comes from nature documentaries or Disney’s series of loopy animated movies. But Copper readers may also be intrigued by the music of Madagascar, which is every bit...
Getting the Most From an A/V Receiver: Yamaha’s...
Yamaha has recently released a slew of A/V receivers in their higher-end AVENTAGE range, with upgraded power transformers, amplifier circuits and many other features. Some of them offer powerful sound-tailoring capabilities, such as...
The History of A&M Records, Part Five
The 1980s proved to be even more successful for A&M Records than previous decades. (Previous articles appeared in Issue 160, Issue 161, Issue 162 and Issue 165.) In the late 1970s Illegal Records, a small independent...
Favorite Venues, Part Three: Madison Square Garden
After completing my relocation back to the East Coast, I was in closer proximity to my brother and we had the opportunity to commiserate more often, usually on the front...
My Favorite Venues, Part Two: Colorado
In my article “My Favorite Venues, Part One” (Issue 164), we explored some of the larger venues on the Front Range of Colorado. While there were occasional jazz acts, these concert locales...
John Cooper Clarke: Bard of the People
Poets are not exactly part of mainstream culture these days. I’m only familiar with a few headliners from the last 3,000 years: Homer, Geoffrey Chaucer, Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, and...
Cats and Dogs…Well, Mostly Cats (Part One)
(Cat haters might want to hit the “Next” button, but if you do, you’ll miss a photo of Otis, my neighbor’s Golden Retriever puppy, a serious candidate for the world’s...
The Secret History of Tribute Albums, Part Two
The news occasionally carries a story about the World’s Worst Record Collection. The journalistic ball gets rolling when a blood clot of ancient LPs is offered to a record shop...
Rallying With Lemons, Part Two
In the first half of this travelogue of the 2022 Rocky Mountain Breakdown Lemons Rally (see my article in Issue 163), we passed through Colorado and New Mexico, and arrived in...
Bascom H. King: In Memoriam
With reminisces by Paul McGowan and Frank Doris The late Bascom H. King, who passed away last May at age 84 from complications of pneumonia, was not as well-known a...
My Favorite Venues, Part One: Colorado
In my article, “My First Speakers” (Issue 158), I touched on the beginning of promoter Chuck Morris’ career as the booking agent at Tulagi. It’s now time to further develop that theme, as...
The Secret History of Tribute Albums, Part One
Are there two Americas? Are they red versus blue, conservative vs. liberal, conspiracy-minded vs. reality-based? The answer is yes, but the divide is not along these lines. The two Americas...
Rallying With Lemons, Part One
I’ve liked cars back since my days as a youngster and have been involved in various activities most of us perform with our cars – commuting, road trips, maintenance, detailing,...
Customer Relationship Management: Give it Some ...
Almost 20 years ago, my family and I took over a guitar shop business. It was a fantastic opportunity and represented some of the most rewarding, fun and enjoyable experiences...
Live Versus Recorded Music
I went to a rock concert a couple of weeks ago. This was only my second such show since the pandemic began (not counting a few bar gigs involving local...
Gazing Back Into the Abyss
This past May 2 marked the ninth anniversary of thrash metal guitarist Jeff Hanneman’s (1964 – 2013) passing at age 49. He was a founding member of Slayer, which formed...
A Pre-Entry-Level Analog MP3 Killer
This is the first in a series of semi-serious reviews – unabashedly replete with unsubstantiated speculations, hyperbole, unverified assumptions, conjectures and barely logical conclusions. But first, a story: In the...
Hearing Loss - Now It’s Getting Personal
After recently interviewing Scott Newnam of Audio Advice (Issue 161 and Issue 160), I reflected on the answers to one of the questions I had asked him: What question do audiophiles very...
The A&M Records Story, Part Three
Our last installment (Issue 161) found A&M in transition, moving away from the vocal and instrumental pop and vocal sounds into some British rock and domestic rock and folk acts, as well...
The A&M Records Story, Part Two
In our last article (Issue 160), I presented some of A&M Records’ earliest recordings beginning in 1962, featuring the breezy California pop and instrumental music styles they ultimately became associated with. (A&M...
The Year Was 1977
In 1976, I began using an engagement calendar as a sort of shorthand diary to keep track of the things I’d done and people I’d met and been with –...
The Global Supply of Vacuum Tubes: What Happens...
Several weeks back, Jay Jay French discussed in his article, “Nero Fiddles while Rome…” (Issue 158), that the atrocities still taking place in Ukraine make our pastime of audio seem frivolous in...
Three Days with Frank Sinatra, Part Three: The ...
I’m sure it was pizza and ice cream that soothed my ego the day after Frank and Barbara abandoned me in the parking lot of Christina’s school. I learned to...
The Audiophile’s Opinion, Or, Why You Should Jo...
Many years back, along with about a dozen fellow audio club members, I attended a product demonstration at a well-known high-end audio writer’s home that made me question my sanity....
Uncle Influencer
I recently watched the Ben Affleck and George Clooney film adaption of J.R. Moehringer’s memoir The Tender Bar. It’s a coming-of-age story during the 1970s and 1980 about young J.R., whose...
La Música de Puerto Rico
By the time this article comes out, I will have returned from my annual trip to Puerto Rico. My mother, a senior, retired to a condominium my parents bought in...
10 More Great Music Documentaries
A lot of people turned to binge watching during the pandemic lockdowns. Although I wasn’t binging, I did take the opportunity to check out a number of documentaries about bands,...
The Day the Music Died
Dear intrepid reader: I’m sure when you first saw the title of this article, you naturally assumed I would work Don McLean’s song of the same name into it. Sorry,...
Three Days With Frank Sinatra, Part Two: Gradua...
It had been a year since I saw Frank Sinatra last. (Part One of this series appears in Issue 158.) The sauce-making story got plenty of mileage and I felt like...
Three Days with Frank Sinatra, Part One
Bill and Judy Green hosted parties for the Who’s Who of the day’s society pages. I recognized most of the people who regularly attended, not only from TV and movies...