THE BLUES BAND: Rock Goes To College (CD+DVD)

Keele University, United Kingdom, 22nd May, 1980. Rock Goes To College was a BBC series that first ran between 1978 and 1981 on British television. Upcoming rock bands were showcased, and it was broadcast ‘live’ from small venues at University, Polytechnic and College halls, where tickets were often given free to students, ensuring a full […]

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CHARLES MINGUS: Passions Of A Man: The Complete Atlantic Recordings (6CD + Book) Box Set. Track list shown here

The greatest bassist leader jazz has ever known, Charles Mingus, with his spirited playing and spontaneity, always kept his ears and fingers on the pulse. The albums this giant of music recorded for Atlantic between 1956 and 1961 are rightly considered his best. This lavish collection of the jazz legend’s entire mid-’50s to early ’60s […]

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BENCHMARK MEDIA: AHB2 Stereo Power Amplifier This little unit will change the way you look and listen to amplifiers.

      Review And Images By Greg Weaver My first taste of this remarkable new amplifier came earlier this year in April at Chicago’s AXPONA where I discovered it driving a newly redesigned Studio Electric Pasadena loudspeaker, also bearing the Benchmark trademark. Now called the SMS1, the Pasadena’s crossover had been reworked by Benchmark, […]

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JOHN LEE HOOKER: The Real Blues’ Live in Houston 1979

Emporio Records EMPRCD 805 There isn’t a great deal left to be written about albums by John Le Hooker so settling down to listen to this selection of seven tunes, all Hooker songs with the exception of Curtis Mayfield’s ‘It Serves You Right to Suffer’ felt a little predictable. And it’s a recording of a […]

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Quill

The fascinating story of the man who invented stereo (and pioneered TV and radar too)

Rich Trenholm writes: When you’re rocking out to your favourite music, or surround sound has slapped you in the heart of your favourite movie, you know how important stereo sound is. And it’s all thanks to Alan Blumlein, the 20th-century pioneer of various technologies who was inspired to invent stereo after a trip to the […]

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