Teenbeat: The Beach Boy's rounded off

Melting, heat stroke affected post this week.

In 1974 Capitol started a series two lp compilations that purported to gather together in themes the beach boys 1962-1970 output in eye catching artwork, starting with Endless Summer.

A issue with the first two the use of fake stereo versions of songs although commecially they did sell rather well.

Come 1982 they finished it off with Sunshine Dream that did get cleaner sounding copies of the songs and took us across the 1966-70 period taking in Pet Sounds, Smiley Sile, Wild Honey, Friends and 20/20 their last studio album for Capitol. 

This one was inexplicably not released in the UK so many were unaware of just what it had to offer although like the second one the artwork was by Roy Kohara and somewhat kitsch and cheap looking. 

This is a good companion to Endless Summer  which I have newer better sounding version of. 

Warm memories

 

It's a hot one, the weather that is having just taken stock of record that felt warm to the touch off Royal Meow and put it in vertical fairly tight bit of rack to cool off while being pressed a bit flatter that it might be potentially if not.

Kind of reminds me of the time in August 1988 when I'd gone into Wolverhampton to the HMV store at the Mander Centre buying a copy of the new Five Star album only to bring it home with a bit of prominent warp!

We didn't have a HMV up here then, just lots of independents across this sprawling area. 

I gave this a bit of clean, a disc of hits - all in stereo - by the Everly Brothers, the connection between Country and the Rock and Roll era that came out here in 1975 that was got for me after borrowing a copy out of the municipal library, surviving it's years quite well.

There's been any number of compilations by that duo but this captures most of the hits you want on one disc and certainly beats a two disc volume I tried on Pickwick in the mid 80's.

Seeing things in 3D with a Bear Pt. II

 

After a cooler rather damp weekend we can get our Viewmaster out - and I believe an other has bought themselves one - and look at few more reels in 3D.

The Pink Panther was a big draw not just the classic Peter Sellers full length films but the classic animated cartoons from the 1960's and 70's we saw on tv.

I had a lot of Pink Panther merchandise as a kid and I did get this set of 7 stills from 3 classic PP Show Cartoons as that was the sort of thing I had originally with my beige one.

For many the ViewMaster is tied in with 70's and 80's childhood but viewmasters were being made into the 2,000's so here's the first of two 90's sets of reels.

Most of us can recall The Lion King, seeing the Disney film, having the songs and posters but here's a set from the film that appealed to younger viewfinder fans.

For a good number of us, Rugrats was the springboard to revisiting our past lives and deciding to bring elements back as we watch on Nickelodeon on satellite tv but unless you followed the toy catalogues back then you might not of realized  actually that was made for the viewer.

The exploration of the development of the Rugrats, the characters and tensions between the children were things we loved so to have this set is just fantastic.

bbb

vvv

Teenbeat: Rounding up the floyd

This week we on about something else.

Some artists have a big influence on popular music because they push the boundaries well out and Pink Floyd was one having a good many studio albums and a few compilations of sorts over the years covering the 1967-71 era and 1971-94.

Some have tried to be almost suites made from original songs from the individual albums, others collections of curios - the sort of thing that appeals to hardcore fans - with obscure 'b' sides and remixes, others straightforward playlists.

Recently one came out that had a number of head scratching from the artwork with is very lazy to just why they bothered.

8 tracks is an odd name as that's precisely how many tracks we have and three of them One Of These Days Wish You Were Here and Another Brick In The Wall are duplicated with 1981's A Collection of Great Dance Songs and that featured a re-recording of Money, a U.S. Single for contractual reasons.

So just do we get?

The big one is Pigs On The Wing which was split on the lp and cassette versions but a whole 8 track program with an exclusive Snowy White solo that we never had before and why some of us kept our Columbia 8 track tape around.

Another Brick In The Wall is the whole Pt II version not an an edit of lp and the II singles version which is welcome as is Comfortably Numb one of the essential tracks from The Wall plus Time from Dark Side of the Moon.

Wot's...Uh the Deal makes an appearance from 1972's Obscured By Clouds, the album that broke them on U.S. Underground FM Radio.

The segues are handled well gently moving into each track so it's a good compilation but it needed to be programmed to compliment "Great Dance Songs" by using When Tigers Broke Free from 1982, Another One of My Turns (b side of Another Brick In The Wall) and Take It Back from Division Bell so the sets act as a retrospective with the odd twist.

What we had was nice but it needed more thought and definitely a much better cover.

Beano Summer Special 2026

Last week was badd...very bad for the super hot drying up conditions we endured as we went over 30 degrees and felt by Thursday night really off so Friday's cooler temperatures, fresh breeze and even some thunder was welcome.

And that was Spring!

Now this month we enter Summer officially where you might it expect it to be warm, where in the past we looked to Summer Vacations and no school for seven or so weeks before we got crazy, stomping our feet saying "I'm bored!" 

Okay, you could play with your Chromebook, Tablet or Smartphone all day which isn't that good for for other reasons, run about like crazy playing weird games which is what I did with mates or read a comic or book.

That's where summer special comic editions with more pages came in coupled with puzzle books that remain big with modern children.

While the world of children's comics and magazines has changed a lot in forty odd years - and not necessarily for the better - The Beano Summer Special, today styled as a Summer Activity Special remains available and is out...NOW!

This years plot revolves around the notion the Beanotown children think they’ve bagged the perfect getaway, a dream holiday to a seaside caravan park in Beanotown-on-Sea. 

However this is Beanotown so of course nothing is what it seems! Their hoped for R & R (rest and recreation) turns out to be more like run-down and rotten - and the weirdness doesn’t stop there. Something fishy is happening both at the seaside and back home… and the kids are determined to uncover the truth!

Packed with mysteries, mayhem, jokes and puzzles it takes you back to those times even if the world is very much the modern one with enough to keep you occupied indoors or out and doesn't require a connection nor recharging.

With this weeks weather recharging is what I need!

I loved rope climbing and exploring.

Teenbeat: Rediscovering...The Osmonds

Phew! What a scorcher,eh?

Definitely weather for thinner tops and skirts here as I'm melting in the heat, windows wide open with a glass of milk at my side.

Seeing it was the bank holiday I played a double lp I haven't touched in good few years although the contents are well known to me, going back to my early childhood and the records I heard on the radio.

They were the records, over two paws worth issued by the Utah, United States family group The Osmonds in their various permutations, whole group, solo and duos and this Greatest Hits set from 1977 has them all from One Bad Apple sounding more like the Jackson Five, the hard rock Crazy Horses and the perfect timeless pop of Love Me For a Reason a favourite from '74.

It also captured Jimmy's take on the music hall composition Long Haired Lover from Liverpool but for me more critically Marie Osmonds Paper Roses and Morningside of the Mountain, highlight her gifts in country music which I was rather exposed to and Donny's solo recordings like The Twelve of Never and Puppy Love.

It came well packaged with lots of pictures and even more on the paper inner sleeves so it was certainly well put together in the way some of these packages aren't.

It got a clean up and played for the memories, a useful appendage to the 1972,3 and 4 Now Yearbook Records.
 

A lost local station

Areas have quite a bit history and one village in this conurbation certainly is one that within living memory had coal mines although later on people transferred to mines in nearby Biddulph or Holditch, near Newcastle Under Lyme.

Coal had to got out to where it was needed - the vast potteries and steelworks of our region - so the North Staffordshire Railway Company built a spur for it where it was on the "Loop Line" an overground local train network covering most of the area  to which many of us feel ought to be reinstated given the appalling peak hour road traffic here.

The line was opened by the North Staffordshire Railway on 9 October 1848 but the station at Mow Cop did not open until the beginning of January 1849 and closed in 1964 under the "Beeching Cuts together with Scholar Green station.

It was immortalised that year in the song Slow Train by Flanders and Swann.

Until 2002 the signal box pictured while not in use was still "in situ" but is now preserved privately within the former industrial village.

The trains still go past it from Stoke Station just outside the city in Stoke itself through Congleton on towards Manchester in the North of England.

Rather like here, bits of our industrial past can - just - be spotted while ours is literally beneath ground with dramatic subsidence in spots.