March 2026
When I was 12, I formed a band with a couple of friends who, like me, had been playing music for a year or so. We played songs that had been on the radio over the previous few years, songs every kid just starting a band in 1968 would play. “Gloria,” by the Shadows of Knight—we hadn’t heard Them’s original version. “In the Midnight Hour,” by Wilson Pickett.
Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada’s National Research Council can be found through this link.
February 2026
David Mott, baritone saxophone master and former head of the music department at York University in Toronto, Canada, once told me that the best musicians play without ego. By creating an unmediated flow of ideas, artists like John Coltrane channel something approaching the divine. Pianist Keith Jarrett certainly belongs in that category.
February 2026
Mark Howard’s name appears in the credits of a lot of records you probably own. He’s worked as a recording and mixing engineer on albums by Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Marianne Faithfull, Rickie Lee Jones, Chris Whitley, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris . . . and the list continues. On many of those albums, he was working with producer Daniel Lanois. He was the engineer on a couple of Lanois’s own albums as well.
January 2026
The first time I heard of Steven Wilson was when I received a copy of Porcupine Tree’s seventh album, In Absentia, for review in 2003. Wilson was the group’s leader, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He also produced the band’s albums and has served in that role for other musicians as well.
December 2025
Last month, SoundStage! Xperience posted part one of my list of LPs that I think are worth hearing. The records on my list aren’t as popular as others that get heavy airplay or show up in articles in classic rock mags, and they didn’t necessarily sell many copies. But I like them and think they deserve more notice than they often receive. Here are my remaining recommendations, to round out my list to ten.
November 2025
In September, I wrote a piece about ten LPs that would make a good start toward building a record collection. Those albums are all well-known and highly regarded, and I chose them because they deserve to be in any good record collection.
October 2025
The second week in June was a tough one for anyone who grew up in the late 1960s. Two great musicians and troubled souls, Brian Wilson and Sly Stone, died within days of each other at age 82. Both were Californians, although Sly was born in Texas. His family moved to the Bay Area soon after he was born. Brian was born in southern California and spent his life there.
September 2025
My publisher here at the SoundStage! Network, Doug Schneider, has given me free rein for the nearly 24 years I’ve written for him. Brave man. A few weeks back he sent me an idea for a column: “Ten Great Albums to Start Your Record Collection With.” I responded, “By genre?” To be honest, I was hoping to get three columns out of the idea—one for rock, one for jazz, and one for soul/R&B.
July 2025
Last month’s print edition of The Atlantic included a noteworthy article by Spencer Kornhaber, a staff writer for the magazine. The piece, entitled “Is This the Worst-Ever Era of American Pop Culture?,” also appeared on the magazine’s website. Kornhaber’s article included conversations he’d had with several critics about the state of contemporary culture. He took a lengthy look at the visual arts and made a few quick references to film and television, but the bulk of the article was about pop music.
June 2025
Earlier this spring, SoundStage! Access editor Dennis Burger set up a video chat with a few SoundStage! Network writers to discuss phono preamps. Thom Moon, Jason Thorpe, and I shared our opinions about the advantages of phono preamps over the phono stages included in an integrated amp, preamp, or receiver. We also discussed the phono preamps we liked and why we preferred them over others. Our preferences were subjective, of course.
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