Picnic 2025

 

Well I did get away this weekend although the best laid plans of Mice were rather turned on their heads not by the taxi that was dead on time but by the startling discovery upon arrival at the train station my train, the only valid journey on the ticket, was one hour and 8 minutes delayed that really messed up my arrangements. 

A word with the Avanti West Coast person on platform, approaching from a diplomatic niceties angle than four letter word coated rant secured a result - talking with the guard of of London North Western trains go me accepted on their train, a telephone call to the person due to pick me up from a different station the one I was now on my way to 

I caught a cab to their place, texted them and duely waited. 

This was as well as the original train was cancelled later on!

After a quick  tidying up, we settled down Faggots and Pies before settling down to watch a bit of tv.

Saturday was when it was all going to happen as we'd planned for a leisurely drive to Buckinghamshire but having had breakfast, picked up picnic food such as pies from the local butchers but no sooner than we'd left their we encountered tailback traffic from outer Wolverhampton, through Stourbridge to Pedmore before getting to Hagley and the approach to the M5.

Over forty-five minutes to get just under ten miles!!!

Fortunately a few roadworks and diversions aside  we did arrive on time, actually we got there before the host did.

An enjoyable time was spend talking about various things, the tenth anniversary of the of Lillian our common friend, as we eat and had drinks as Mr Paul, Sammy and few others fly a kite and Dizzy want around chasing toys and meeting other dogs.

It got a bit windy, a good job we erected two windbrakes, but by half three temperatures had started to drop so apart from holding my skirt so it didn't balloon up, we were starting to feel chilly so we said our goodbyes before making our way back for fish cake and chips.

Sunday was affected as it was the start of British Summer Time so all the clocks and my watch needed setting and we lost an hour. 

I was up at just past seven, fixed some breakfast  and made plans to be out to drop me off at Wolverhampton station and undertake a few things of their own.

Thanks Sammy for the event and Jennifer for arrangements.

Restoring the word the way it always was

The past,eh?

What a place to visit from the days of Google+ social media some of us would maintain done right with control over who sees what posts  in groups you create kept apart and a still feature rich Blogger never mind a good choice of active forums.

One thing that bugged me then was limited spell checker language options as most British ones seemed to be based on the Collins dictionary and American ones always used Websters ignoring those britishers who used the OED and Canadians to which neither really work.

Even Microsoft's "Canadian" wasn't that reliable more modified American so if as at the time I was using Firefox as a browser you looked for extensions and one Google+ person in my T circle recommended a great Can-E one.

That lasted a while until the internal gubbins of Firefox underwent major changes and a host of Apps including that were banished.

Well after a long wait at the curb, it's been recompiled for modern Firefox and that has been installed into the Windows machine while I figure out the language options on the Chromebook and reset that so Encyclopedia isn't underlined and auto corrected out of existence as I ride out on new tires.
 

Mid mad march entry

Moving towards the middle of the month and plans are being made for a short trip away at the end of the month while spring is definitely in full effect with lots of things coming up such as catkins and daffodils and small birds such as robins being about.

Interestingly since the week before and the period after Camp I have been getting up a good deal earlier  by at least a good hour which isn't just a matter of things such as bright mornings although at the end of the month that finger turning ritual of setting every clock and watch to Daylight Saving aka British Summer Time Begins where we kid ourselves the night is so much brighter.

It's not a trick I fall for but when official time is altered you can't live as if it hasn't really as transport goes to it - railways being what moved the UK to a standardized time in the first place - and shows on the radio and tv are listed to that too.

No it's something that has been talked about in the context of high school children,  namely the tendency to check before bed and then having taken a device to bed to start waking up around three and rationalize looking around the likes of news sites saying I'll just have a quick look and soon a few hours goes by and maybe you crash to sleep.

Then you wake up quite a bit later as you've hit deep sleep later than you would of so you start the day late having had less sleep.

Given my spoon issues anyway it's not good so I'm keeping the electrics downstairs at night.

Perhaps I need old school parenting?

Birthday edition

 

Well it was my birthday last week so thanks to the EB, GT and LGC Discord group for your kind birthday wishes.

There was some money to pay for some presents such as a triple lp set and a few things coming as there were some delays.

 

I got this five cd  set of albums by the great Jazz player John Coltrane to replace a poor sounding set I have for a good number of years having been brought up on Jazz, playing dads records during school hols.

I did have this recent recording of William Walton's Violin Concerto with the Sinfonia of London conducted by John Wilson which is really well played.

I also had some white chocolate.

Now Yearbook Vault 1980

We last tackled the new now yearbook Vault series in early October when we bought and reviewed the 1984 edition as I felt this by offering American only hits and Bubbling Under UK hits did offer something that would slot in with my original Now 2,3 and 4 and Hits and Hits II compilation albums bought back then.

Well they returned last Friday not with the previous two years but a three lp version of a set devoted to 1980 which is a under represented period with compilations here so looking at the tracklist, I decided to buy this one.
 

 

Record 1 kicks off with established superstars with big U.S, hits: Bruce Springsteen (with ‘Hungry Heart’ from the great The River album), Billy Joel (with ‘You May Be Right’) and Blondie with ‘The Hardest Part’ that was a single in the U.S. but not in the U.K. 

New-wave with a retro feel from The Ramones, The Revillos and The B-52’s lead into singles before the hits came for Echo & The Bunnymen and The Teardrop Explodes.

Fipping over the side for disco-pop from Donna Summer with ‘Sunset People’ and Shalamar with ‘Right In The Socket’ ahead of the fusion of soul & jazz from The Manhattan Transfer, and the superb collaboration between Wilton Felder and Bobby Womack on ‘Inherit The Wind’. 

Jazz influenced pop from Level 42 who we were to hear more from in 1982 leads to chilled soul from Brenda Russell with her timeless track ‘In The Thick Of It’ and finishing with the unmistakable vocals of Joan Armatrading.

Synth-driven pop would become the dominant genre in the charts over 1981 which is featured on Record 2 celebrates some of the formative singles of the genre from Sparks and John Foxx alongside Ultravox, The Human League and Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark who would be among the most successful groups of the next five years. 

More synth-pop from The Buggles and New Musik follows whilst the disc draws to its close with The Tourists with ‘Don’t Say I Told You So’.

Turning over to the second side we open with ‘Dance Stance’ from Dexys Midnight Runners  that was the single that came a few months before ‘Geno’ took them to #1. 

Great guitar pop from Squeeze and XTC leads into The Clash, ahead of reggae and ska from Junior Murvin and The Bodysnatchers, and hugely influential early hip-hop from Kurtis Blow with ‘The Breaks’.

Record 3 begins with the ballad ‘Sartorial Eloquence’ from Elton John followed by more huge musical icons such as Paul Simon (‘Late In The Evening’), Linda Ronstadt (‘Hurt So Bad’) and Carly Simon (‘Jesse’). Robert Palmer, Bill Nelson and The Cars with Touch And Go complete the side with new-wave classics .

Turning the record over over on the flip side shows stellar vocals from Pat Benatar and Journey kick off an explosive line up of 1980’s rock from Saxon, Girlschool, UFO and the debut single from Iron Maiden. Phil Lynott features with his first solo hit ‘Dear Miss Lonely Hearts’, whilst the final word is given to the legendary ZZ Top – they were 4 years away from a U.K. chart single, but ‘Cheap Sunglasses’ hit the U.S. chart in 1980.

 Although we have the Now Yearbook 80 lp, two lps of Extras and a few original complations this brings otherwise missing American favourites and the early singles of acts we were to hear more of in one nice package. Recommended.

LG Winter Camp 2025

It was an odd kind of a week that was running very much on its own alternate time which started with travelling by Transport For Wales trains to Leominster, Herefordshire to be picked up ready to complete the journey to a new venue in the South-west of England.

After a while I got the hang of hearing Welsh and English station names being announced even if they were in England and their welsh versions are seldom used and the journey towards Bristol and the Seven was quite smooth compared to other venues.

Talking of Wales, we went on the Welsh side of the Wye to Tintern Abbey near Chepstow which is a ruin undertaking as can be evidenced from the scaffolding renovation works part structural and part to restore elements lost in previous attempts.

It's pretty big, very much self contained settlement although finding it took a bit of doing as the signing wasn't obvious.

We called in the cafe adjacent to it for a bite to eat as it had been a good while since we'd eaten and I had a "White Monk's Breakfast" which was the local form of the traditional a full bacon and egg "English" fried breakfast that was extremely good.
 

 When we got to the Eleventh Century manor house we were staying at we did explore the extensive grounds there were a lot of snowdrops and daffodils out looking towards the local fields and hills.

 I did mention the time seemed different and it was cos it was CatMas (Christmas) and everything was centred around that so we had a tree that was decorated.

Santa came with presents and a Christmas box on CatMas eve.

There were arts and crafts sessions that included making decorations such as chains, things for the tree such as my CatMas one, making place mats for CatMas dinner and so on that was fun.

We did Home Economics, making Mince pies, decorating Ginger biscuits with seasonal art, cup cakes and even making our very own Pizzas from dough so with a great issue with cheese mine was tomato, turkey and ham.

We held games with a twist on musical chairs, quiz's, landing a jelly object on a CatMas tree target and getting a pin on the top of the donkey. The team I was part of came second in the General Knowledge quiz.
 

Catering was by us and we had a traditional very tasty CatMas Dinner with Christmas pudding  and turkey, ham and salad with chips Boxing day meal. Well we had plenty of turkey and ham so you might as well us it which our parents always did!

On the way we called a cross of gift shop, delicatessen, butchers and restaurant before making our way back to the Midlands which for me meant a stop over at a friends before catching the train back home.

Thanks to Karla and Caroline for organizing  the structure and big chunk of the catering, others who provided party food and a delicious cottage pie and for everyone for making it a super child-like time.

 

Teenbeat: The final version of Second Album

In March of 1979, an album entered my then meagre collection, a birthday present from the local independent store in the northern district of the city whose looks and track selection never really left even in the days when it just was no longer available in any format.

 

The collage style cover, bold coloured title and a great tag line on the rear top of the jacket just screamed Beatlemania as America fell for them in a package that mixed covers, new to america originals and a couple of newly recorded tracks that were to come on a British extended play 7 inch record.

 

My first copy with an Apple label went being replaced in 1986 by a Purple capitol copy as I learned this and the other albums I grew up on were to be replaced by UK versions coming on compact disc too and hurried up being "last chance" copies for posterity.

After a long period where they were ignored as if they never existed they've  been reissued accepted as part of the legacy hence last years issue of the 1964 Capitol Albums in mono, a good number of which were bought.

 I decided to get a near mint  american stereo edition in the short lived 1980's rainbow rim label to go with my Canadian issues of the era probably as good as this record ever sounded, one I've always wanted.

This came this week while I'm away and I'm delighted.

Rabbit holes

 

Rabbit holes? 

How many times does it feel we've been going down them only to find there no way out unless we make a clean break or have what some might call a blinding realization of where they are and how far that is from really where they want to be.

The thought was very much with me for a good few months looking at one blog which much of what had inspired it had gone and to the extent that was enjoyable, perhaps you were stuck down that hole not seeing where you could be instead and it was really crowding out much you could.

Thus I have spent a bit of time reworking it, bring some more light into it, redoing the odd post  apart from altering the direction of recent posts bring it more in line with what I find more interesting and fulfilling.

Next week I'll be away so there will most probably be won't be a post next Monday as there's a lot to do before thinking about writing blogs and  setting to auto publish but rather like CatMas one can catch up later, working a week behind and eventually catch up.

Teenbeat: The return of Off The Wall

This week as I recover from a few marks from the fire, we are going back very much to two years of entries on this blog, 2010 that had an overview of Michael Jackson's career and later in 2022, when we looked at vinyl and specifically his 1982 album Thriller.

 

Michael as a solo artist had solo albums before then, his solo career being guided by Motown initially from just over two years of the Jackson Five recording with Got To Be There and concluding with his forgotten Forever, Michael album of the summer of 1975 of which one track, the re-issued in 1981 One day In My Life is a standout track.

The Jacksons sans Jermaine moved from Motown to Epic Records in 1976 looking for greater control over their output and image reactivating their popularity but Michael was coming of age and wished to present himself to market as an adult.

A lot of effort was spent on building up to what would be his grown up solo debut bringing in session musicians, songwriters like Rod Templeton of the UK's Heatwave and the late Quincey Jones to arrange and produce the sessions.

Off The Wall was its title and off the charts was the reaction to it, bringing in a contemporary mix of soul and funk in a slick fusion in 1979.

Like many I had that record, a U.K. first pressing which contained four classic singles, Rock With You, Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough, She's Out Of My Life, a beautiful ballad and the title track, all of which graced the UK charts from September of 1979 through the Summer of 1980.

The album has been out in most formats somewhere around the World, cassette, 8 track cartridge, compact disc, minidisc and in more recent years digital downloads of various file formats.

In January of this year, it came out in very different form, two records in a deluxe packaging cut at 45 rpm, the speed the majority of British 12 inch singles are cut on very high quality vinyl.
 

You might wonder why you might do that and basically it is it allows for more of the high and especially low notes to be cut as they take up a lot of vinyl space and so are often reduced to fit everything in at the regular 33 1/3rd rpm speed.

Funk music often has a lot of bass but cutting at 45 rpm also improves the clarity of that bass plus it aids high frequencies as we get toward the centre of the disc where they can lose detail or even sound distorted.

Thus for this issue the two original lp sides are split into four and to help the high notes Off The wall is placed on the third disc at the start rather than cramming it at the end of the second side.

All the original lyrics and credits are contained in a booklet.
 

Having obtained my copy, I find it has better detail, smoother but keeping the attack we all loved on tracks like Burn This Disco Out.

In late 2022 Thriller got a special version which was tied into a promotion by Michael Jackson's estate and Sony Music that I did get.

That and probably wanting to keep the price lower I suspect explains why that was cut at 33 1/3rd  on one disc which although I still feel sounds better than any version I'd ever owned having had lp, tape and compact disc, would of benefited from a two disc 45 rpm edition

There are Super Audio cd versions available but having heard the sacd of Off The Wall I would say the vinyl mastering is better overall.

It is possible other solo albums recorded for Epic/Sony Records such as Bad might be released although that was an all digital recording but as anyone who has heard what Mobile Fidelity has done with Dire Straits Brothers In Arms on both vinyl and sacd would say, even early digital recordings can be made to sound fuller and more realistic.

End of month Internet update

 

Well unlike the 2000's  at least my internet isn't dial up and isn't dropping in and out like a round of guests at CatMas although computing is less desk top with separate keyboard, mouse, display and base unit  and more Chromebook which is more me outside of more speciality uses.

More turn on, instant boot up and on with the job.

It's much faster even over Wifi with download speeds of just a smidgen under 52mbps depending on how good your devices wifi set up is and rather less flaky although not using the providers DNS server (BT/EE) and switching to Googles works better which was something I had to do to the new machine as with CatMas rush I forgot that and finding some sites weren't loading quite right.

Don't however try phoning as unless you ring my cellphone as while I can ring you, should I fail and you try ringing back you won't get through as all the protocol stuff since this switchover for the phone hasn't been completed in sixteen days and all you get is messages on the cellphone to say there's still more work to be finalized.

Well, I ain't daft, I already know that.

Thus for when I go away I have enter a number for a unofficial phone (cough cough) that plugs via a socket to modem of its own as I can't be assured this will be fixed in time.

Things that do help

We are here this week although at some point last weeks entry will get posted having been written to go.

Thoughts it had to be said had been elsewhere of late not least with the internet business but something to go in the bag not before time is this Goebel.

It's a very attractive double compact mirror that opens upon pressing on the button at the bottom and pulling up.

As my previous mirror was  single hello Kitty one this really is an improvement on that and came with a soft cloth for keeping the surfaces clean.

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.