Teenbeat: January 2025 round up

 Well it is Internet Free Saturday.

A mess up being polite by the people responsible means we have no internet or much else today so today we are going to look a couple of things one being Now Yearbook, who having given us the main 1977 volume which we brought the three Lp version last year have released the Extra on three cds.

An annoyance with the otherwise excellent series is we don’t get at the time vinyl editions of the Extras, just as with the 1980-84 portion two boxes of one set of extras that are close but not identical to the corresponding cd issues.

The cd features some sixty-two songs taking in Queen’s Good Old-fashioned Lover Boy from the Queen EP, the last Rubettes single to trouble the charts Baby I Know and it’s era mates the Bay City Rollers with It’s A Game with a good helping of the New wave from the Stranglers, Jam and Boomtown Rats plus Disco from Shalamar, Diana Ross, Tavares and many of the supremely talent Philadelphia International acts like Billy Paul.

Pop was well served by The Brotherhood of Man, classic rock as we call it today by Thin Lizzy and Status Quo and an ever present Donna Summer.

I do hope much of this makes its way lp in due course.

The other thing has been rediscovering my Mariah Carey albums mainly from the 90’s which I’d bought on compact disc and minidisc and original dvd of Glitter, the much maligned film based on the story of a young female singer that caused issues for her and put something of a cloud over her then unassailable career.

Teenbeat: More stereo explosions from the past

What was billed as a major snow storm was really rather a damp squid here at the weekend so all the preparation was really rather wasted with a centimetre of snow at the most but something it did do was give me the opportunity to listen to the latest in a series of special cds for collectors.

The stereo explosion series of cds was a new series started a few years ago by the enterprising Eric Records company in Oshawa, On., Canada who specialize in finding and re-issuing original hit recordings that in an era where albums are more coveted the single version which is often different is hard to find new.

There was a period in the United States especially where such records were tossed out as singles especially mono single mixes were seen as "old hat" and not worth spending money on storing.

A lot of research and time finding them even if sometimes a clean original record may be the only available option would be undertaken and they'd issue compilations of them for collectors and presenters of vintage chart shows.

The Stereo Explosion series follows the same concept they would try to find the stereo single and using modern techniques of using artificial intelligence in audio extract individual elements within a recording that wasn't issued in stereo and remix that to stereo.

We had got up to Volume 10 in 2023 and just before CatMas, Volumes 11 and 12 were issued.

Volume 11 is more the mid 1950's to early 1963 period covering rock and roll as shown by the Elvis Presley selections, early R&B/Soul from Sam Cooke, Gladys Knight and classic pop fromthe Crystals and Chiffons.

A tidal wave swept the American charts from the end of December 1963 wiping out much of what had gone before and it was British and this selection from  mainly 1964 and 5 captures many of these sounds although the likes of the Beatles aren't covered.

There's no problem finding anything by them on cds!

Singles in the UK often weren't on albums, were often only mixed into mono for playing on Radio Luxembourg and inexpensive portable record players and so seldom have a true stereo mix...until now.

This just imagine my delight to hear the seriously brilliant Yardbirds perform For Your Love, Bits And Pieces by the DC5, Please Don't Go by Them and I Can't Explain by the Who in very credible clean sounding stereo.

Recordings that influenced the next wave of American acts and actually Berry Gordy of Motown really rated the production and beat of those early DC5 songs.

Also included are the awesome Animals, Manchester's Hermans Hermits and those Swinging Blue Jeans with the infectious Hippy Hippy Shake.

The out of this world Telstar produced by the amazing Joe Meek appears sounding really fresh with the second mix a generation higher than the one used for the single sounding clearer than ever.

For those of us who love pop hits of the 50's and 60's these discs are just great for the songs, memories now in stereo sound.

Review and Xmas 2024

 

Twenty Twenty Four,eh? 

Does anyone know where it really went and indeed where as we go through the outro into Twenty Twenty Five where we'll end up?

This blog has being going, like ages sometimes going more down one set of interests and then the other  but one thing was we achieved some 2,000 posts, all original, made over a variety of different computers from the legend that was "Treacle, the slowest thing out there in the west to the death of the old Windows laptop to the adoption of using Chromebooks to do most things including blog posts on.

One arrival late last year was this Asus Chromebook Plus which had better processors and more ram for dealing with social media and BIG photo galleries apart from online in browser games which has helped matters somewhat not least for having backlight keys.

Some sad trends continued such as the declined usage of GT, sad cos I struggle with few very long continuous threads rather than themed threads on a layer of sub forums and some Tumblrs dropping off as trying to find tumblrs that are around littles fashion, age regression and really SFW can be hard going. 

I'm working through developing looks that I feel comfortable in a variety of settings as some which may be fine for others just don't it for me or are unpractical when it comes to either putting on, fastening  or being carried in the case across railway platforms before taking lifts.

Some of my older ankle socks were showing some signs of wear and tear so I did have for CatMas three of these of cotton calf length socks that will work with most things apart from just below the knee with patterns for a more sophisticated look while being close to the appeal of pelerine school type socks.

Music has always played a part in my life and 2024 did see a few more records being added, some from the The Original Source series of Classical re-issues cut from the original four and eight track tapes directly rather than copies and selected reissues from people like Analogue Productions.

I did get a good number of the mono reissues of the Beatles American albums from 1964 and some books about them for CatMas.

The Now Yearbook series kept going although generally on record I haven't bothered with the post 1982 issues but we did continue with the 1970's issues with 1977 and I expect as we get into the the New Year there will be issues from 1970-72 and 1975-76 which I will be buying.

Part of is tactile and nostalgia based, handling and lowering the stylus brings back the memories of playing the compilations of the day the is the music itself which I love listening to.

We did get away rather more than the previous year sometimes for a weekend, other times for a good few days for clean non kink connected fun just being your younger self, playing games, going out places and given we look after our food connected needs, helping out.

Plans are afoot to go away for the first quarter of the year and tentative ideas are being mooted for weekends too which should be fun.

Comics play a part too from the Beano to modern offerings such the Phoenix with more modern characters as do colouring books when the hands are up to it, getting absorbed in something relaxing either at home or away.

Christmas edition

 By the time you read this I should be back from being away for a pre christmas get together playing games, competitions such as a version of the hit BBC show Pointless and a meal together,

Things have been hotting up here with visits, errands with CatMas cards, last minute organizing and so on but I did dig out a few favourite records to play in the gaps apart from cds of Carols from Kings as well I love a carol or two.

There will be a pause until at least after Boxing Day this year although I'm not quite show this year what the next post will be here.

All that remains is to wish you all a Happy Christmas and all the best for 2025.

kk

Moving towards the day

One more week before we go on the CatMas pause here as not much Tm will happen until after we've actually got through the christmas period with things like cards to write, preparations to be with friends just before Christmas week - bit of a first with me - and the inevitable visits although to be fair CatMas with Mom doesn't seem the same.

This weekend scouts will be out ho-ho-ho with Mr Claus although due to leadership recruitment issues the local Brownies folded a few years back, more's the pity  so they won't but in GirlGuiding there is a actually a Christmas badge and this is one from that bleak period in 2020 that I'm sure really helped.

As ever, across the area the signs are all though from candy canes, reindeer's of many sizes, post boxes for santa to leave his presents and many elves.

The official trees are are up, the council tree on a green presently soggy lung, one by the CoE church and this the one we the community raised funds for as it is where it can be used for carols and other gatherings, all illuminated and decorated.

I might just add this is first post on the new Chromebook since it arrived last week and was set up.

Replacing ones Chromebook

Friday it must be said wasn't a good day beyond even the mini tornado we had in the morning tearing up trees and blocking roads off.

I had problems with one cellphone sim provider, a laptop that died as the gales raged around me with no prior warning and the trackbar went on my Chromebook. Trying to control it with a mouse on your lap isn't so easy.

That the three things in a day your mothers always caution you of saying the pattern to be complete before things can get better

So after sorting out the laptop - ordered from the supplier of the last one a good decade ago - we got on to the task of looking for a brand new chromebook maybe something a bit beyond the basic educational models.

I found an Asus Cx3402CB with an interesting back story of being bought, opened once only for owner to find it wasn't a Windows notebook that seemingly he wanted (I wouldn't get one unless it was a fully spec'd and featured laptop).

This one he was selling this which had everything a Chromebook Plus had outside of the AI I was less bothered about such as 8gb of ram to fight sites like Tumblr and Reddit with with their ridiculously massive continuous feeds of photographs each far bigger than the screen needs to display clearly really driving your hardware trying to keep it all loading smoothly and some 256gb of solid state memory.

It is a bit bigger too, 14 inches rather than the usual 11  to 12.5 inch which helps the peepers read the text with less eyestrain.

It was all there with less than one hour use, wiped, for a massive discount and setting up is as easy as entering your Wifi stuff,  adding your account and you're done.

Another advantage of being bigger is a bit more space between the keys so it helps cross that rubicon between Chromebook and MacOs or Windows 11 when it comes to productivity and the bigger screen helps when using things like Pixlr to edit pictures with or working with Google Docs

We'll see how this unexpected pre-christmas present works out.

Playing again

 

Bit of a damp squid of a weekend outside, another missing cat in the neighbourhood this time white and from someone whose only just moved into the neighbourhood so the microchip details aren't up to date and a few things coming from the Swan.

So I've been playing a few Beatles records I bought ten years ago that at one place people keep on saying they never got and now they're really expensive used as they've been unobtainable for a good few years new.

Now there's always people who just get into something, an author, a series of models or whatever late in the day but a number of folks just kept putting off being them and you didn't have to buy the box set which I didn't but individually which I did a few at a time from the cheapest sources.

What I have now is a bit better, replacing cartridges and what not and while obviously these records aren't any better than when they were bought and well cared for, the quality in them shines a fair bit more from early albums like A Hard Day's Night which in the U.K. was a thirteen track album of all beatle performances and that great compilation Mono Masters that compiles single and that which sounds better than my late 1970's box set of singles.

That's great as set of artifacts but the limits in cutting seven inch records not least for inexpensive portable players to avoid jumping does show on modern high quality equipment.