The week not as planned

 This week isn't as envisioned at the beginning of the year so we might as well forget all about that as that's all on a 12 month enforced hiatus and go with the world in our heads instead

Getting away for me always was about more than what was in your suitcase, it was really about having adventures and discovering more about things, people and possibly you.

More really about the sorts of things the younger side of you looked forward to  like play and exploring, arts and crafts, heck even even doing thinks like playing with paper dolls.

For me you might have a few changes of clothing and that reflected what I felt comfortable in, everybody else has their own but that's not a basis to question if really anyone "should" be there or really is "there" for is it? I'd like to think so.

School camps were fun for being about what we did together. Nothing more.

That some may have many changes and others don't can be as much a reflection of their home based opportunities or lack of if not different priorities and interests. Vive le difference!

A huddle that seems to question what you get out of it but doesn't engage with you to discover just why you keep coming back with rumours can seem more like the worst of the school playground.

Recreating that experience isn't something I'd go for. I had enough of that first time around thanks.

People can be different and are more than just how they present so really ought to be able to get along together.

Will things be different in twelve months time?

Updating the NOW's-Now Yearbook 80 on vinyl

 

This is from a series that started last year by NOW, the people behind the legendary Now That's What I Call Music series of chart hits compilations started in late 1983 but who have over decades moved into genre and other themed collections taking their cue from either seasons or as recently even PRIDE with a LGBT+ themed set.

The aim of this series is to compile the hits of a year and in the four cd set versions there comes out shortly afterwards a Extra 3 cd set that mops up anything missed off.

There has been a three lp selection from each main set issued which in the main I hadn't bothered with as I do own the original Ronco or K Tel lps that came out as much as Mr Hifi Bore goes on about thin sound and edited versions I keep for songs I don't have and just want a reminder of what they sound like having good single artist records and cds of anything I was really partial too.

There wasn't as far as I cam remember way back then a year compilation that at least was attempted with Super '81 Vol 1 & 2 and a similar set in 1982 on Ronco which did use full length versions which sounded pretty good  and after that we had the NOW lps plus from 1984 the HITS ones which take care of matters on record.

Given the lack of a vinyl 1980 hit set, I did relent and buy the 47 track lp version which comes on three silver coloured vinyl slabs not least cos I could get this for Thirty Pounds delivered which at just under a tenner per disc is close to what we paid around 1989/90 for a new single lp and arguably today is more affordable than back then.

 

Music in 1980 on the chart was a lot more varied than today (we'll side step any talk about the quality) and this set truncated of necessity on lp shows this mixing in things like disco based material such as Funky Town by Lipps Inc and the hard to forget Dance Yourself Dizzy  by the Liquid Gold with classy soul and funk such as Upside Down by the brilliant Diana Ross, Celebration by Kool and The Gang and With You I'm Born Again with other sounds.

Reggae and Ska are well represented with Baggy Trousers, Too Much Too Soon with evergreen pop such as The Winner Takes It All, Don't Stand So Close To Me and Brass In Pocket and Rock with Emotional Rescue and All Night Long.

The year brought in the synthesizer based sounds that were to dominate the next two years with such gems as I Die You Die by Gary Numan, and To Cut A Long Story Short plus the start of Ant Mania with Dog Eat Dog and gems like Blondie's Atomic and Geno by Dexy's Midnight Runners.

Strangely no edition has anything by Cliff Richard who had been "on fire" for a few years with great pop songs such as Carrie.

The year as some of us sadly recall only too well ended with John Lennon's death and his current hit of that time (Just Like) Starting Over for Geffen Records is rightly included. 

Given the current controversy over sources on vinyl releases these I am confident were from digital copies as trying to pull 47 tracks from original tape sources would be expensive apart from some labels just point blank refusing to let them out of their storage and the vinyl is not 180 gram (but that imho is just unnecessary owning many excellent sounding originals on thinner vinyl).

The only thing that matters is how it sounds.

Is this set worth it?

If holding the past in your hand together with your other favourite compilations you bought on vinyl, reliving the excitement you had back then plonking the stylus down, playing records then I'd say it is.

Recovering in the sun

 Phew, it's hot this weekend so we're on tons of ice creams and soda here.

As you can tell I'm still here, having been recovering from last weeks adventure which apart from bring back bad memories from the past knocked my confidence in being out back a far bit so it's been like starting back at the beginning working on all that stuff.

I hurt my leg Friday when I failed to get up from sitting twisting something so I'm having to rest that as I struggled with the stairs across Friday afternoon and Saturday.

That meant getting the comic annuals out and posting cds into the player as struggling with standing in certain positions to flip record sides.

You kind of wish you could go trampolining on a sunny day like this.

Still here

 

I'm rather all over place following what had prior to that been a enjoyable morning out talking with people, enjoying the sun when an occupant of a black coloured car upon seeing me having started to cross the road at an authorized crossing clearly signalling my intentions turned at speed into the road and carried on with This >\< much between his from and my body in the road without dropping speed.

I managed to dash to the curb within four seconds of being mowed down feeling horrified.

Perhaps some folk figure saving a few seconds is worth taking someones life for????

Judy Garland in stereo

 As one listens to the fruits of last weeks mauling behind the rack with where the stereo component system lies here's a disc with a difference read to load into the cd/sacd player.

One film remains a firm favourite over the years and that's The Wizard of Oz and the songs from it.

Recently a new cd came out by the young woman who stole the hearts of many with her performance of Over The Rainbow in it, Judy Garland.

All her great hits spanning four decades are one this new disc: "Over the Rainbow" (2 versions), “The Trolley Song,” “Get Happy,” “For Me and My Gal,” “By Myself,” “April Showers,” “Rock-A-Bye Your Baby,” “Ol’ Man River” and many more, including stereo duets with Barbra Streisand and Gene Kelly.

By using modern techniques of digital extraction it's now possible to create new stereo sound-stages from those old mono recordings we loved to hear.

 This truly fresh approach reinvents her studio tracks, as well as TV and film performances adding to our appreciation of her timeless performances.

Local Hero reserved.

 Late last week was exceptionally warm even this more temperate region of the UK hovering around twenty nine degrees c (this is a fahrenheit free zone) so a few things got put on the backburner as it rather messed my sleep up.

You didn't really feel like having lots of rings on cooking when you felt like eating.

Eventually an item I had ordered a while back arrived that I was pleased about.

I did mention way back around Christmas twenty nineteen about getting the first four Dire Straits albums on Super Audio cd.

Recently the hauntingly beautiful soundtrack to the Bill Forsyth film Local Hero by Mark Knopfler of that group with its pipes and Ceilidh Celtic highlands feel from 1983 was issued in that format in addition to lp.

The film is about an American oil company representative who is sent to the fictional village of Ferness on the west coast of Scotland to purchase the town and surrounding property for his company.

It features the composition Going Home which as used as a refrain in the Dire Streets double album concert release Alchemy in 1984 and the song The Way It All Goes is sung by Gerry Rafferty.

This is the very best the soundtrack has sounded being otherworldly at times.

A Saturday in June

It's a bright bit of a morning as get on with writing up this weeks blog when I have a bit less time to devote to it.

A fair chunk of that is really down to it being an Aunt's Birthday, well actually it was Thursday but they were away during that time so this occasion is going to be very much a party laid on in their honour.

That's down to it being their eightieth birthday which is significant and as they needed a lot of support with Covid as they got in the early days of the pandemic, it's a miracle we are here and of course many people couldn't have such a party in twenty twenty and twenty twenty-o ne.

It's going to be a sandwiches, salad and cake affair at cousins so we'll be going on foot as it's not far and at least the weather while windy, is warm and sunny which helps.

Just have to remember to leave space for my evening meal when we get back.