"Samson are a three-piece band based in South London and are currently seeking management and, presumably, gigs... they describe themselves as a high energy Rock/Boogie band who play mostly original material. If anyone's interested, contact..."
Buzz new bands special (Jan)

"This effect is now available in pedal form so the 'chorus' effect can be obtained through any amp..."
Roland CE-1 pedal review (Jan)

"Resist the temptation to powerhouse into the drum solo with all guns blazing — you'll have to keep it up for six or seven minutes..."
Andrew McCulloch on drums (Jan)

"It's so pleasant to sit down and blow on an instrument that feels 'together' in its design and operation — something which you discover almost as a vibe..."
Robin Lumley on the Pari portable organ (March)

"Here's your chance to get upfront with the Rockeyboard slung around your neck..."
Ad (March)

"I am fed up with musicians who are preaching at me all the time constantly saying 'Punk' is the new direction. My argument is not with the type of music but with the plebs who play it. The only power chords those tits know are the ones that plug their amps in."
Letter (Feb)

"The Starmaker. He's a child of science. He's a child of music. And he lives in every Fender... He's the reason every Fender designer is an engineer and a musician both. 'Engineers' we call them."
Fender Ad(Feb)

"Hitchin New Wave band The Fur Coughs deserve a mention, if only for their name..."
Buzz new bands section (March)

"Using a ¼" tape machine we can achieve echo delay — in other words the delay starts some time after the original sound. The effect can be demonstrated onomatopaeically thus: BANGbangbangbangbang bang: which is a sound plus its immediately following echo. And the delayed echo would then be as follows: BANG bangbangbangbangbang."
Robin Lumley on recording (April)

"If you are trying to live by subsistence farming, I offer the following abridged patent specification for an Acetylene-powered amplifier. I feel sure that with slight modifications it could be made to work with bottled gas."
Stephen Delft goes rural (April)

"Turn on to yourself..."
Ad for headphone amplifier (J^n)

"Grappeli asked me to take Django's place, but I decided to develop my own style..."
Bert Weedon (May)

"It's a lifetime's work to get a sound that's pear-shaped and beautiful... never mind the technique, just put the beats in the right place and tuck the notes right in so that people feel it in their stomach. Straighten your arm, that's the best tip I could give a bass player. Get down the bottom end of the instrument..."
Herbie Flowers takes a shortcut to good bass playing (May)

"The Jen Cry Baby gives you that wild Eastern 'sitar' sound, Funky bass guitar, groovier Blues, makes your guitar really growl. Phase Shifter moves into another dimension..."
Ad (Jan)

"For the '80s it has to be Phoenix amps!"
Ad (Jan)

"This is the one — truly the guitar of tomorrow! Yes, the Bunker 'Supernova '..."
Ad (March)

"The Octave Cat SRM synthesizer — now with two note memory..."
Ad (March)

"I hate the Fender Rhodes, I just want to puke every time I see one."
Jimmy Destri (April)

"Hopefully Nick will soon cease the production duties..."
LP review of 'Jesus of Cool' by Ian White (May)

"Nick Lowe is once more in charge of production and the sonorous drum sound is superb..."
David Lawrenson disagrees on the next pages' Elvis Costello This Year's Model review.

"Rodents have been known to die in front of my amps."
Ted Nugent (May)

"Chappels are riding on the crest of the 'Thamesbeat' sound, having supplied The Pleasers with two Ibanez guitars..."
Trade News (May)

"You couldn't pull any chicks at a Brinsley Schwartz gig. We used to get these intense, bearded liberals who would come up and say 'tell me the lyrical content of some of your songs. Is it sort of a collusion of a Japanese community up in Seattle, or is it more of a cross-collateralisation of the pollutionary Chuck Berry feel of the mid-Sixties?' I didn't know what they were talking about."
Nick Lowe again (August)

"Just before Django died he asked his son Joey — by the way he had perfect pitch too — to lean over to him and he said listen, don't ever play the guitar. You'll never be as good as your father.'"

Les Paul (August)

"I suppose it's rather inevitable that mention of Wimbledon conjures up visions of tennis and the Wombles..."
RG Jones studio review (Sept)

"Within a few years video discs and tapes will be on sale in every high street record shop."
Video feature (July)

"It just sounds pretty crummy' Brian James, ex-Damned.
'I don't think I'd have one'"
Dave Flett, ex-Manfred Mann — both testing a Custom Sound amp in a blindfold test (July)

"Tom Newman is a rebel who has only recently taken to wearing shoes"
Paul Brett talks to Tom Newman (July)

"I work 16-track, I never work anything else and I very rarely fill them all up."
Glyn Johns (June)

"Solid state technology is moving at an extreme speed and one day an extremely complex musical computer will reduce so much in size that your own digital effects system will be the size of your amp! You will need an incredible knowledge of programming to use it to the full."
Stan Wilson predicts (May)

"The Clone Theory pedal effect — a new device for self-multiplication"
Electro-Harmonix Ad (June)

"The SDS3 Drum Synthesizer gives you effortless heavy drums"
Very early ad for Simmons (then Musicaid) drums (Nov)

"These two presets, labelled Cosmic and Telstar, sounded more like intergalactic farm machinery..."
Robin Lumley reviews the Elka Solist 505 (August)

"At first sight the Prophet-5 looks like a lengthened Mini-Moog but don't try and pull up the control panel, it's fixed down!"
Robin Lumley sees the Sequential Circuits classic for the first time (Nov)

"IM: Did you hear Deep Purple's drummer, Ian Paice? Narada Michael Walden: I like him. Bad, bad foot. He had a foot that wouldn't quit. I threatened to kill him, too. I love Ian."
(Nov)

"Roundwound strings are really good. Except they go off when they get gobbed on. After a couple of gigs they get really shitty."
Jean Jacques Burnel (Dec)

"Many bands phone up. When you ask them what type of music they play they say 'we do all our own material'. Now this is a 'no-no' when it comes to entertaining the man in the street. You have to play music that the customer wants to hear. This is difficult to get across to a band that is orientated towards making records."
Jack Fallon of the Cana variety agency (August)

"The equipment at the studio includes a highly sophisticated machine whereby six synthesizers can be played simultaneously."
David Vorhaus's Kaldeidophon studio, a pre-MIDI breakthrough (Nov)