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Octave Records Releases Nightmares by Country/A...

Octave Records has released Nightmares by country/Americana/rock band Gasoline Lollipops, a record that weaves roots music influences, intimate confessional songwriting and the raw power of rock and roll into a deeply moving...

Around the World In 80 Lathes, Part 18

When it comes to the preservation of vintage technology, the demographics show a significant age bias. It is a rapidly aging population that is primarily interested in such things, as...

Resolute

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....

Pilgrimage to Sturgis, Part 26

  After a delightful breakfast, Evelyn had to rush off to work. As we parted, she urged me to spend some time visiting the Minneapolis Institute of Art on Third...

Talking With Larry Jaffee of Making Vinyl, Part...

Copper contributor Larry Jaffee is the co-founder of Making Vinyl, an industry organization dedicated to fostering cooperation among those in the record-manufacturing industry. Larry is also the author of Record Store Day: The...

Back to My Reel-to-Reel Roots, Part 20: (Not) L...

At the risk of courting lawsuits from retired octogenarians, I find myself unable to resist attacking the easiest of targets: record labels. To be more precise, the major labels circa...

Listening With Dog's Ears

Written by Frank Doris They don’t make ’em like this anymore: an early Garrard AT6 turntable (thanks Ken Kessler for identifying this model).   Another view of the AT6. Photos...

The Evolution of In-Ear Monitors

They have become ubiquitous on concert stages from clubs and churches to theaters and stadiums. They have become so popular that some people prefer them over conventional headphones, and they...

Women Who Rock: Some of My Favorites

There is a common misconception that men dominate the rock scene. It’s not true. Women have long co-dominated the rock scene. The real issue is that they simply aren’t properly...

The Harlequins: A Cincinnati Band Has Plenty to...

In 1984, On July 4th weekend, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band made their second stop on the “Born in the U.S.A.” tour. It had begun with three dates...

Play it Again, Steinway: the Spirio Player Piano

A few months back, I was hanging out with Ed Gilmore at Gilmore’s Sound Advice auditioning the Steinway Lyngdorf Model D, a digital all-in-one system with powered speakers and a central processor to accommodate...

More CES History, and Technomania

In my early years of attending CES in the 1990s, I would take the redeye home from Las Vegas. That would prevent the loss of a full day flying back...

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...

Grupo Rebolú's Afro-Colombian Breakthrough

Mi Herencia (My Heritage) Broadens Latin Roots Music You may have an earlier example, but for me, ever since Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo teamed up with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie on “Manteca”...

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...

Big Sky

The Manhattan skyline, July 4, 2022, taken from Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It’s always an impressive sight, and the sky complementing it was particularly spectacular on this evening.

Kitty Wells: Queen of Country Music

Before there was Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, there was Kitty Wells. The singer was the first woman to become a major star in country music, and only the third...

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater: Glo...

Music history textbooks usually bring up Giovanni Battista Pergolesi in the context of his contributions to comic opera, which influenced Mozart. But his religious works, particularly his setting of the Stabat...

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...

Sitting Down and Listening

We are pleased to say that audio reviewer and photographer Howard Kneller has launched a YouTube channel called “The Listening Chair.” Howard is a regular contributor to Copper and his work has...

Around the World In 80 Lathes, Part 17

In the previous episode (Issue 166), we looked at the work of Flo Kaufmann of FloKaSon in Switzerland, the man who decided to preserve the Neumann disk recording legacy by keeping vintage Neumann lathes...

A Hard Day's Night

Eico Eico

An Eico HF-81 integrated amplifier. With restoration, this unassuming circa 1960s component can sound excellent.   Eico HF-81 rear view showing its EL84 output tubes, generating a mighty 14 watts...

Talking With Larry Jaffee of Making Vinyl, Part...

Copper contributor Larry Jaffee is the co-founder of Making Vinyl, an industry organization dedicated to fostering cooperation among those in the record-manufacturing industry. Larry is also the author of Record Store Day: The Most...

Pilgrimage to Sturgis, Part 25

“Ever been married, Evelyn?” I asked her over breakfast. “Yeah, for about a year. I was 19 and he was 25. He had a red Camaro convertible. In retrospect, I...

Audio Art in NYC: Devon Turnbull’s Listening Ex...

While browsing around Steve Guttenberg’s The Audiophiliac channel on YouTube, I came across several videos featuring Devon Turnbull, a multi-talented audio engineer and former clothing and graphic designer and graffiti artist, who...

Richie Furay: Buffalo Springfield and Poco Foun...

In the promotional trailer for the forthcoming documentary on the life of musician Richie Furay, narrator Cameron Crowe says, “unlike his bandmates and those he influenced who attained international stardom...

Memoirs

Writing memoirs is a strange process. I have written 60-plus stories, but two things happened to curtail my writing. First, I have almost run out of stories to tell. (After...

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...

When Domestic Bliss is an Audio Miss

When you walk into my apartment you stroll past the art in the foyer, and a dining room table, and enter the living room. (It’s the photo above.) Look around....

Experimental Musician Billy Yfantis Explores In...

Recently, I caught up with virtual space traveler, traverser of the celestial world, musician, and author Billy Yfantis. He’s an experimental musician who has released five albums, the latest being The...

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,...

Back to My Reel-to-Reel Roots, Part 19: Reports...

(Please note that this installment relates directly to the previous column, published in Issue 166.) Having established that my comparison between the Tuchel and the four-banana-sockets line-level outputs on the Nagra IV-S...

AES Europe Spring 2022, Part Three

(Copper Issue 166 featured coverage of AES Europe Spring 2022 presentations that included a look at the intricacies of tuning high-performance audio systems for automobiles; a study on the changes in how consumers...

Hooked on Earworms

“An earworm is a song or melody that keeps repeating in one’s mind.” Merriam-Webster Earworms can be found in many of the pieces and songs you enjoy listening to: all you...

Bottled Up

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...

Paul Butterfield: Rockin’ the Blues

Have harmonica, will rock. That could have been Paul Butterfield’s slogan. Blues is at the root of rock and roll, but Butterfield’s commitment to the two genres benefited both equally....

Toshiko Akiyoshi: Founder of Big Band’s Rebirth

When one thinks of women in the big band era, it’s normal to picture a female singer backed up by an all-male band. That’s one reason Toshiko Akiyoshi is so...

Play It Like You Mean It

Charlie Parker said, “If you don’t live it, it won’t come out your horn.” Well, Bird nailed it in describing the tight thunder that emanates from the long horns these...

Play It Like You Mean It

Charlie Parker said, “If you don’t live it, it won’t come out your horn.” Well, Bird nailed it in describing the tight thunder that emanates from the long horns these...

Saturday Night in San Francisco on 180-Gram LP ...

In the mid-seventies, Al Di Meola was a young, hotshot jazz fusion guitarist with Chick Corea and Return to Forever. But he’d also developed a deep understanding of Latin music,...

XTC: Steven Wilson Remix/Remasters on CD and Bl...

This follow-up to Part One in Issue 165 covers the last of the currently-available Steven Wilson XTC catalog album remix/remasters in 2-disc CD/Blu-ray sets — well, almost. I’m still missing the pseudo-XTC...

Around the World In 80 Lathes, Part 16

It has been quite a while since 1989, when professional disk mastering system manufacturing came to an end. To be precise, it has been 33 years, during which the world...

Summer Concerts: Who to See and Where?

After an almost two-year continuous drought, it’s quite invigorating to see live music back with a vengeance. Certainly, live streaming was helpful in filling the void, but there’s a different...