In your dreams

I love music and often nursed ideas of being in a band with all the disciplines of band practise that go with it.

I never quite go the hang of playing guitar properly and graduated toward the Xylophone but if I'd of stuck with the guitar, this is how I'd love to have practised.

It's just so kawaii.

I am expecting a record this morning as one measure of my interest in music is the number of records and cds around the house - some several hundred - although I try to avoid duplicates in the way some might have regular and deluxe editions, mono and stereo copies and speciality issues by labels like Rhino Hifi, Mobile Fidelity, Analogue Productions and Speakers Corner. 

At the record sharp end...

Way back in 2013 I wrote  a bit about how for those of us who use turntables that use removable (SME) type headshells we could have a easy to fit and install cartridge for getting the music on our records  to our amplifiers phono input so we could enjoy and did produce an update in 2016 but we're nine years on and things are a bit different.

There's always been some controversy in audio circles regarding the best cartridges and styli to use over the decades, the earliest being from the days of horn gramophones covering the shape of the stylus, what it is made from, to  the sort of cartridge it is attached to and so on.

Sometimes it is clear one is better overall such as moving magnet cartridge sounds better and causes less wear than a crystal one to your records but on other occasions its been "swings and roundabouts" depending on what you prioritized such as the moving magnets ease of replacing the stylus over the potential advantages of the moving coil although that has to be re-tipped by an expert (or you use a part exchange scheme to get a new one each time).

While more advanced stylus shapes can by being a  closer fit to the record grove wall, sounding better  for tracing the grove more accurately, some find the demands of keeping a record spotless clean to avoid more obvious noise from debris a challenge.

That is one reason I've decided to go slightly backwards and explore one of the best  regular eliptical stylus fitted cartridges, the Nagaoka MP 110 whose tracking is better than most in its price range.

For a good number of years Nagaoka of Japan had no official importer in the UK but that has changed over some 18 or so months, so they are back on sale with proper dealer support.

As purchased, it was pre-mounted into a SME style headshell to screw into my turntables arm so all the fiddly wiring was done for me and I'm looking forward to giving this ago alongside my  Ortofon Concorde 20 and 30 higher spec but more demanding .

I expect it to sound slightly warmer and with a tadge less extreme high frequencies.

Pre Halloween edition

For most people Halloween has been and and gone although I'll be off at the weekend so I don't think they'll be an entry here on Friday as I'm gonna be rather busy getting sorted ready for an early morning start.

There weren't so  many little people at the door on Saturday dressed up looking for candy although the weather was more reasonable than last years so I have some spare candy and I believe at least another one of us had the same experience. Around here I know the families of them well.

That kind of leads us into a kind of a theme because of one of things about about that weekend is about re-acquainted  with people you love having fun, the weekend despite some problems with pulled a  leg muscle and badly jarring my neck yesterday also was about that but in a different way as I encountered a few people I hadn't seen for a while.

 

Piano music is a favourite of mine either solo or in the form of a concerto with other instruments typically a full orchestra and Beethoven wrote a set of five such concertos for piano and orchestra which remain hugely popular even today.

This is the third in series of I have that were recorded around 1961-3 for the first time in stereo by the acclaimed pianist Wilhelm Kempff with accompaniment from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by  Ferdinand Leitner.

The whole set came on four lps, and this like the others is an original  with the "Tulip" logo on the record label.

Given they are over sixty years old, I gave them a very thorough cleaning to remove anything that in that time had worked its way into the groove which helps as there are a good many very quiet passages that don't like any intrusions of dirt and other debris.

That's the rear and it does also show the more usual thick spine with title wasn't commonplace back then as this doesn't have nor do Decca albums of the same era although I have to say the more modern spines with titles are much easier when hunting for your recordings when in racks.

As for the playing, the orchestra is a full on with modern instruments that won't impress those who favour using replicas of eighteenth century instruments but the playing especially the piano just sweep you along in their romanticism which to me is most apt as you just focus on the playing.

It's a set that although there have been a number of great modern accounts  that may offer modern musical scholarship and digital recording you just find yourself very much coming back to.

Revisiting an old book

There are things you may have and do feel like revisiting such as books you had for an awful long time and today I'm writing about one.

A good many years back was the internet was becoming more a thing and I first got online I learned from sites I visited not just a bit more about upcoming releases and some variants of Beatles albums but also of books that went more into the history the Band and their Singles and Albums together with marketing.

One name I learned about was the American Bruce Spizer who did write and I eventually got his more useful supplement to 2004's Capitol Albums Volume One box set which had more of the facts, figures and story of these albums than the official enclosed booklet.

Some years ago I bought a few in a kind of paper back form the first editions of a new series of books he wrote around specific albums and one I recently re-read was The Beatles Finally Let It Be, the title being a pun based upon just how long and how many attempts that sessions that ended up as the Let It Be album and its accompanying movie it book until they were "let be" and released.

In it for example you learn of Magic Alex who saw himself as an electronics wizard inventor who appeared to the ear of John Lennon and his plan to build for them the bestest recording studio around with 72 tracks in a world where most had only 8.

That plan effected the recording of this album they only found a 8 track system riddled with so much hum and noise it was simply not fit for purpose, a building where there was no provision for cabling from studio to control room to recording consoles and where the was so little screening of noises such as that from the boiler, it had to be turned off whenever they were recording.

He also inexplicably had eight speakers, one per track where you only needed two for stereo mixing.

Magic Alex was really way out of his depth lacking real knowledge but John believed him even though he was close enough to people who worked and even owned, as George Martin their producer did, studios and knew just what was really needed and possible.

That fascinating little story one of several showed just how gullible the four beatles, not least John were back then handing over vast sums of money to people who knew little but how to gain their money.

It was fun re-reading this volume.

A Little Knight Music

 

This weekend looking for something to watch on tv as you do I where I came by a feature Gladys Knight & The Pips on the BBC being shown on BBC1 that brought back some memories.

For me Gladys Knight began around 1972 as I beginning to hear new music for myself, listening to the radio, watching what were all too brief music shows on tv and even venturing out with my parents and siblings to that  institution called "The Record Store" to buy new music.

I think - cos it's a mighty long time ago - the first album I heard by her and her band The Pips was Greatest Hits and the first I remember getting myself because it was an import was the British compilation Help Me Make It Through The Night which was issued in 1973 which I still own followed by that first Buddah album 'Imagination'.

Of late I've gotten around to collecting the five cd series issued by Motown UK in 2006 that features 10 albums by Gladys knight and the pips spread with two albums per cd.
It's not like I'm unfamiliar with some of these titles as I have lps of them some in mono as issued by Tamla-Motown in the UK and so the stereo is new to me although I'd of preferred to have mono for the earlier albums as it's that nothing in centre, with all else hard left and hard right stuff that is so distracting especially on headphones.

Following a period whilst signed to two labels releasing the 45's Letter Full Of Tears and Every Beat Of My Heart re-recorded for their Motown Greatest Hits album, they signed up in 1965 to Motown, recognizing the talent but it's fair to say Berry Gordy didn't really know what to do with them.

 

Everybody Needs Love issued in 1967 was their first Motown album and is a mixture of songs written for them and covers showing from the get go the call and response Gospel infused style they were to become famous for.The Tittle track, Take Me In Your Arms (and love me) ans well as they take on I heard It Through The Grapevine. 

The first cd couples this with Feelin' Bluesy from 1968 which is all covers as Berry Gordy didn't want then muscling on the Supremes territory but this nonetheless proved to be great vehicle for displaying Gladys voice on tracks like It Should Of been Me (Yvonne Fair had a top 5 UK hits with this in 1976) and The End Of Our Road.

The second disc in the series sees Silk 'N Soul issued in 1968 and is another covers but they were teamed with Norman Whitfield who just put another of a twist to enable the material to become theirs.with songs such as The Look Of Love, I Wish It Would Rain and Every little Bit Hurts.
1969 saw the issue of the second album on this cd, Nitty Gritty, a rousing piece of psychedelic Soul that contains not only the title track, a re-interpretation of Cloud Nine and Didn't You Know You have to Cry Sometime.

Disc three is a gem containing the If You Were My Woman and Standing Ovation albums from 1971.
The first album is a mixture of songs written for the group such as the title track and I don't Want To do Wrong as well as covers such as Let It Be and One Less Bell To Answer.
Standing Ovation was an album of covers - the group felt very much pushed back and were to leave for Buddah Records soon - but among the covers includes their sensual remake of Help Me Make It Through The Night and Make Me The Woman Go Home To written for by Clay McMurray

Birthday thoughts

There was a birthday that was mentioned on the regular blog cos of course with everything around the  funeral last year couldn't happen, both for emotional reasons, people not being in the frame of mind to celebrate anything apart from there being literally no space for cards as the window and fireplace were taken up with bereavement cards.

There were a number of presents such as the latest Now Millennium set that builds on the original two cd per year series of 1998/9 but with a booklet inside that does talk about the year and the music which was a reason for getting cos in general I din't bother too much with "The Charts" then just buying cds by artists I liked.

Time has a habit of moving on and at this point details from then beyond Crazy Frog are starting to get a bit hazy with me so having a sample of hits and key facts helps to keep my recollection of that period better being before I started blogging as I only had the internet around 2004 for local government work based reasons makes sense not least with some of my memory issues.

The other thing was a few more records in a speciality so-called "audiophile" record re-issue series being issued to mark the 75th year of Atlantic Records part these days of the mighty Warner Records group where they are recut from either the original tapes or the next best thing if that couldn't be done to very high standards and at 45 rpm to give the music more space in the groove to move (and be heard).

That usually means what was a single record now becomes two, the weight per disc tends around 180 grams rather than under 120 in 80's and 70's and in high quality jackets with stiff card.

They were just great presents.

Teenbeat: the Mamas and the Papa's

It's almost a cliché to say the nineteen-sixties produced some of the most memorable popular music of the modern era and growing in the era afterward I was very much in that shadow cast by it cos if your folks and relations didn't have it, then often it was played on the radio.
One trend  amongst many was the fusion between folk music and the emergent rock in the middle of that decade which you see with the Byrds, Bob Dylan and naturally Simon and Garfunkel.

 

A popular sound often leads to others getting on on the genre and the other essential act you really need to listen to was the Mama's and Papa's who through a career that only spanned from nineteen sixty-five through nineteen sixty-eight, releasing seventeen 45's and five albums.

They comprised of John and Michelle Phillips, Denny Doherty  and Cass Elliot and were signed to Dunhill records in 1965 .

The combination of close harmony singing and relatively sparse instrumentation coupled with the dreamy quality of the songs lyrics is a core reason these productions stand out among many others.

Imagine not hearing such songs as Monday Monday, California Dreamin' that summarized that era, Dedicated To The One I Love, Creeque Alley and Dream A Little Dream Of Me before they made their separate ways? To anyone around it would be unthinkable and even when I was growing up, their records were always played on oldies but goldies shows on the radio which trust me I heard a lot of being ill during my childhood and reliant on the radio to cheer me up, it was was left for me to listen to.

Their have been a number of compilation albums of their music issued over the years as while there's a bit of me that loves the original studio lp jackets, in truth their always was a bit of filler on those albums and like many sixties albums seldom run much beyond a half hour or so making a well compiled compilation a sensible option.

The strength of two thousand and five's Mama's and Papa's Gold  is it offers many of the songs from the individual albums in addition to the hit 45's on two well filled compact discs avoiding the mistake of including solo recordings that featured on the nineteen ninety-one Creeque Alley package so there's a clear focus and it can act as good alternative to a full set of albums.

Best of all, this is an inexpensive double in Universal Musics Chronicles series negating any need to consider single cd sets completely.

Recommended

May Edition

So the White Rabbits have been around overnight and we're into Mae, oops May now so it's the first post of the Month and Monday is in the UK May Day so I might as well write the entry ready for today.

Seeing that Hello Kitty Colouring books had been mentioned elsewhere my thoughts went to something else such as pretty messenger style bags, cases and so on and yes a plushie to take away with you although I wouldn't miss out on taking a dolly with me anyway for company and playing with.

Going back a bit in time Saturday Morning cartoons were what we got up for between all the fuss about when we setting out to get the shopping done very much in tow with Mommy who always held my hand to keep me safe as I get lost and aren't good with road sense (still aren't either).

This American series was one I loved for the personalities, girlish appeal and yes, simple enjoyable beat music you could sing along to imagining yourself playing the tambourines with no MC rapper or keyboard in sight. 

I used to record their songs on a small spool tape recorder from the television to play in the days before we had video recorders.

Pretty much the Catgirl band too!

Back then as now any part of helping me move forward benefited from making sure I had a very sore bottom as much as any instruction by itself ever would.

Going for a spin

 

Girls of a certain age will get this totally, knowing the lp record jackets they are holding although the discs are North American albums not issued over here but we are in a a students flat, enjoying a party.

There is something very sociable in music being a shared thing between a group of people which people talk about, play in each others company and maybe go to live performances together.

Now one beauty of the lp - this is being typed as I'm actually playing records right now - is the bigger tapestry for album art and ease of reading any notes which are common place on Jazz and Classical recordings concerning the compositions and performances you are hearing.

I find when I am not well, which sadly isn't uncommon to play something brings back pleasanter memories apart from being soothing if one takes suitable precautions to avoid loud volumes.

My record deck has an auto off which means if I drift of to sleep it will stop and lift the arm back up so needle and record isn't harmed although compact disc is more "idiot proof" apart from potentially program lengths before needing to be changed over.

How or what you may collect is personal - I have popular compilations that are ideal for putting on when radio may be playing stuff you don't like  or for just drifting back in time to outside of artists in popular music and Composers for Jazz and Classical but having something you can touch and play is just magical.

,

Music - can it take you to adultland?

 

I was reading a popular and usually pretty sensible Tumblr blog when I came by a post which was supposed to been all about of coming out of a regressed little headspace to re-enter a adult one which was interesting.

The first thing is with me if you hand not realized I'm not regressed in the sense in which I enter a younger headspace from having been in an adult one because actually I'm always like this.

It's more about to what extent I mask it to the point I just have a meltdown cos some of you can't handle it.

The bigger thing was they were were talking about steps to take to get back into this adult state of mind and one they suggested was playing music you associated with that role and like I was thinking "Uh-huh?"

Look, I know a fair bit about music, did it at school, collect recordings by many artists in different genres and have been know to blog elsewhere about it but is there really such a thing thing as music you associate with being adult?

I was listening to symphonies and solo piano music at the age 8 starting to have a bit of a record collection as that girl, like most of you I heard my folks favourites some of which I liked and some I didn't but all this music takes me back to my childhood.

If you heard a song of your parents that they liked to play doesn't that actually take you back in that time?

To me that's always been the thing. Music takes you back.

I get it that you may need to do somethings like run your own finances and work if you're capable of it so you can't just stay at home playing with your barbies but the idea that there is music that somehow catapults you back to doing adult stuff I find very hard going.

Remaking the past

As I remarked several posts ago to be mentally in the space of a schoolgirl isn't to say you permanently just do lessons and wear school attire such as a formal school uniform all day long because in that life you had other things too.

It's an element of the whole adult schoolgirl thing that does put me off in someways because while to them there's the fantasy element it's neither based on the whole reality of that time and for me it's that having age dysphoria I am that child still whatever my birth age may say.

For me then outside of things like formal uniform when doing lessons or 'in your best' with a caregiver wearing more casual attire like shorter skirts  such as skater skirts but with knee and ankle socks rather than tights in the way that you did back then makes more sense.

Life (and why this blog is as it is)

After last week's past in present post, I felt like writing a bit more around what being this girl means and why it is this blog is the way it is.

Given this Covid thing we're going through has cut a hole through what normally would be happening around this part of the year, I feel it's a good idea to remind ourselves about it.

 I am somewhat more visual but in may respects this illustration sums a whole chunk of it up really well and in case you were curious some people can see "the music" in record grooves.

The first thing is we all dressed differently, showing that how we feel expressing our inner sense of being is different, I veer more toward the girl on the far left, others in this context might choose a party dress. It's all good!

We are all having fun, sharing chit-chat, sucking our Pop through straws. That sharing is what we do when at meets playing with each other and letting each other play individually with our dolls, stuffies and other toys. I am grateful my little/middle friends let me share things as it means a lot allowing us to build our friendships. 

There is music playing that we are sharing. It may be my home stereo component system is more technically 'better' than their phonograph, which I had a similar model when I was in my tweens but it is being used to share music, to enjoy it's playing so we have our records out.

That's the function of music in my life and there are 'places' I share it; it's not about the 'hifi', it's about the joy of listening to it which is why on this blog I do write about it, tossed in with the dolls, stuffies and other cute stuff.

There is also grown up supervision about keeping everything safe and ensuring we behave because it's easy for things to get out of hand and you mightn't see it and I sure don't!

The biggest thing in all of this is just innocuous fun!

May Day weekend thoughts

Monday was literally a damp squib because I had planned to go for quite a long walk out but we had showers thought the day so I only managed a short walk and even then I just avoided getting drenched by the skin of my teeth.
Instead I spent just over an hour cleaning records, yes those big round black things you put on your phonograph as couple of cherished discs had been bugging the heck out of me as no amount of cleaning with carbon brush could remove whatever it was that was causing it to get stuck at a couple of spots when playing which was very frustrating.
A few others had  static charge that attracted anything such as fur, dust or hair within seconds of coming out.
Thankfully all of that got dealt with as they've all come up as good as new having sat at a table doing it as the last time I tried doing it standing up I hurt my lower back.
I also been straightening up my bookshelves, doing a bit of an inventory so at least I know what I have which helps to avoid buying the same thing twice although there's nothing wrong with upgrading to better copy when it comes to older books.
Seeing we've entered May and summer won't be long, I've just got my summer comic special editions organized to land in the mail as soon as they're published part of a childhood ritual that inner kid me still loves.
We also had a royal baby!

Ten

Do not adjust your computer peoples for what we have here is almost a deadringer for me at ten with the right shaped face, hair and so on as I ought to remember 10 as by this point we'd moved to a school that was very much 20th century, with more land so we did stuff.

The uniform needless to say is wrong needing a red sweater and the socks were meant to be white  but it's so close my head has gone back in that year!  Stuff we did include basic gardening and plant growing which was nice considering we were in the countryside, we had some science kit and even a proper school library now.Naturally we played Rounders still.

Oh goody gumdrops, there's a book we read with a very important moral  plus a good heart and isn't Mary looking so pretty in that dress? It was always a favourite of mine by the Authoress Frances H. Burnett, who was born in England but moved to the United States of America at 16 years of age and recently I re-read it. I vividly recall at 10 our class reading Emil and the Detectives as our teacher would read it aloud and we'd follow him.

Of course in this era, there was another kind of reading we did and I'd bet $5CAD I had and read this annual back in the day as a number of you probably did as well.
Great things about ten included being able to watch and understand more complex movies, having a bit more personal freedom as well could playout by ourselves so long as we we back on time for supper, being able to play more board games (no Playstation or X box then) and the music of which I listened to included stuff by Queen, Mud, lots of Motown and Phillysoul, Slade and the Tartan Terrors (aka The Rollers) that we talked about at recess.

The interests of Jo

To me being this Junior does involve more than just recreating say school or just wearing tween fashions but the whole 'being' which includes having age relevant interests such as playing and hobbies which for me includes taking pictures, walking in the countryside and playing music including collecting recording by composers and artists.
I'd dearly love to be able to sow and make my own clothes but my physical disabilities get in the way of it.

Zanadu

One of favourite movies of all time is a modern day musical from 1980 called Zanadu that featured Olivia Newton-John with music by her, the Electric Light Orchestra and the Tubes.
It has a  good recreation of a 40's big band which something I grew up listening to on record.
Although panned by critics I loved it for the skating songs and feel good factor as it lodged in my head as part of the soundtrack of summer vacation in 1980 so here's an image from it: