It's time for the Honeyz (Pre-blog)

It's time for the Honeyz I think because I've been playing their songs ever since reading about them in Blues and Soul magazine the 'urban' press and Trevor Nelson's Tv show The Lick and the Saturday R&B countdown on radio one.
Their songs like the recent Hit 'Finally Found' and others like Love of a lifetime, Summertime and End of the Line to me showcase the talent British R&B has as well as being songs I love singing along to or listening on the commute having copied it to MiniDisc.

Bruce Springsteen Tracks

I don't normally buy box sets as a thing not least it's not that clear if their a kind of oversized Greatest Hits collection, a rarities set or some strange mixture but this Christmas I had one that makes sense.

 Bruce Springsteen's always been a big artist with me and six years ago I replaced my record and pre-recorded cassettes of his by cds helped by a three for twenty pounds offer but Bruce always wrote and recorded more than just what came out officially.
Tracks is those songs often studio recordings but a few live recorded but not released or worked part way on and just left gathered up by him and the E Street Band some of which where recorded by others like Pink Cadillac that Natalie Cole did in 1988.
They're arranged into four well sequenced cds so they flow more like a 'proper' album and come with a long sepia booklet with full lyrics.
This has been a great present that will be treasured.

Lost Ones [Pre-blog]

I've just returned from the City Centre HMV store after watching Trevor Nelson's The Click show on MTV, the satellite based R&B show on the tv that's increasingly is the main music program I watch.
Lauryn Hill's Doo Wop (That Thing) has been topping the R&B chart for a few weeks now and I bought today the album it's from, the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, listening to coming back on the bus.

That's possible cause ever since February '97 I've had MiniDiscs that give much much of the quality of cd in a smaller more convenient  form and I now have a portable player so taking the disc out of the case I just slot it in the player.

I bought this on pre-recorded MiniDisc.
It came out a short while back, late August and it's taken this long to register with me as I'm not really a hip-hop fan, not that haven't bought the odd 12 inch before now but this feels different.
In the first instance it's a great mixture of soul, reggae and hip-hop with a churchy feel like traditional soul which I like.
It ties into something I'm feeling more of too that is theirs a album length skit starting from the school buzzer  an class registration about the meaning of love as the students discuss this, lead by their teacher. I actually wanna be back in that situation and I sure don't feel grown up at all.
The subject Lauryn sings and raps about is just that the meaning of love, what womanhood means, self respect and sacrifice even with great  fervour and passion which I feel is important and her lyrics are helping me think more about what the girl within feels.
Love this album.
Postscript: It stayed in my player for getting on for two years in heavy rotation and has been a great influence on my thinking.

Meeting by the park [Pre-blog]

Today I'm off to Brampton Park in the Town of Newcastle Under Lyme, Staffordshire connected with work reorganization for a meeting.
Sometimes it's all I seem to be in, meetings that is, but it's late spring so I'm taking my camera with me today and a couple of lenses to take some photographs of the park afterwards as I love strolling in them, feeling carefree. It's what I loved doing as a child and there are times when that's all I want.

The building itself also is lovely to go around.
I also got my portable Minidisc player just before I set off so I can play my discs on the commute or whenever I'm away saving lugging a big cd player around.

Love train [Pre-blog]

Another year on and here's something that I got

Yet another Philadelphia International issued March 2nd but where this scores is it goes to the mid 80's unlike last years 3 cd box set so we get tracks like Brandy by the O'Jay's, Nights Over Egypt by the Jones Girls and Do You Get Enough Love by Shirley Jones as well as Ain't No Stopping Us.
It also has 45 tracks across the two discs which tells you something else: Where last years box went with standard lp length versions or the extended ones, this uses single edits so that set isn't redundant and my copy is on MiniDisc which almost mirrors the slotting in tape feel of grown up with 8 track tapes in the car and home. It just lacks the booklet of the box set that's all.

Rewind to the past-The Philly Sound [Pre-blog]

It's all new and certainly here!

As you may of gathered by now  I really like music and this is the kind of music I loved as it was on the radio or being played in the car or Taxi stereo tape player travelling to school as we had this driver called Philip who really really was into what we learnt was the Sound of Philadelphia International - a soul label whose artists mixed up jazz, funk and soul into a fantastic sound and he played it to us.
At the time, we're talking the early to mid 1970's, their artists such as the O'Jays, Intruders, Lou Rawls and others were very popular and this 3 cd set issued today has 47 of them, many in their longer versions rather than the radio played edits which is just what I've been looking for over the years as it reminds me of those happy times.

USAF Mildenhall [Pre-blog]

At the crack of dawn I got up today to go to an airshow with my brother and partner to the airshow at Mildenhall, Suffolk to visit the static exhibitions and view the various air displays.
I got through 9 rolls of slide film with my Olympus OM4 and OM10 bodies with assorted marque lenses and here's a picture of one the planes we saw both static and in the air.

It was a very enjoyable day out and we had an overnight stop on the Travelodge before returning home