Panda Go Panda!

Originally released back in May 2009 I missed getting this dvd until prompted buy discussion in chat and a too good to be true offer by Amazon.
This is the acclaimed produced Hayao Miyazaki first ever production from 1972 which wasn't seen outside of Japan .
Cheerful Mimiko has a very strange family for a little girl - a Panda for her Papa, and his son, Panny, calls her Mom! Join this happy family and their many adventures! When Panny follows Mimiko to school, he must pretend to be a teddy bear so Mimiko won't get into trouble, but everyone wants a cute Panda! Despite his efforts to behave, Panny causes trouble in the school kitchen, and now the whole school is after Panny! Then, Panny makes a new friend, Tiny, a baby tiger who's wandered off from the circus. Getting Tiny back to his mom becomes the first adventure, but after a hard rain, the whole town is flooded and Mimiko, Papa Panda and Panny must rescue Tiny and other animals from the trapped circus train
I think the panda's awful cute.

Evangelion2.22 You Can (NOT) Advance & Trigun

Arriving shortly through my mailbox is this Neon Genesis Evangelion 2.22 which is the second part of the re-visualization using contemporary CGI of the original series made in long movie form.

The explosive new story sees brutal action and primal emotion clash as a group of young pilots manoeuvre their towering, cyborg Eva Units into combat against a deadly and disturbing enemy.

In the battle to prevent the apocalyptic Third Impact, Shinji and Rei were forced to carry humanity's hopes on their shoulders as through the onslaught of the bizarre, monstrous Angels escalates, both find their burden shared by two new Eva pilots, the fiery Asuka and the mysterious Mari. In this thrilling new experience for fans of giant robot destruction, the young pilots fight desperately to save mankind - and struggle to save themselves.

Up on the dvd player today and probably for next week and a half is this Trigun which my best friend raved over so I thought I'd a get a copy.]

In essence Set in the distant future on a desert planet, the anime follows Vash The Stampede who has a $60,000,000,000 reward on his head for destroying numerous towns, although he is yet to end a human life.

Hits!

The Hits Album otherwise know as The Hits was a series of albums in a similar vain to the Now series started in 1984 by CBS and WEA records in the UK that run to ten numbered editions, then had a few restarts and eventually fizzled out by the naughties.
Both CBS and Warner (WEA) had contributed tracks to the Now series but generally they didn't not include US acts possibly for contractual reasons and sought to capitalize on the UK markets fascination with compilations of chart hits by establishing their own series.
My brother bought a few of the earlier ones that I taped and to which the recordings have long gone and I bought Hits 8 and 9 myself at the time as there was very little overlap between them and the NOW series.The cassettes of the first three versions had the main artwork on a double case to the left and a list of artists feature toward the right as the lps used pictures that would not of worked scaled down.
What I am doing is slowly restoring some of those HITS albums I had on tape aiming to complete the series to HITS 9 making entries about each volume on this page as I go along.
HITS1. In part a Greatest Hits of 1984 but with other songs added like Alphaville's Big In Japan.
HITS2 . This two disc set is in some respects a Now4B as a number of tracks that came out on the Now Dance album at the same time in 12" versions appear here in their standard mixes with all the main chart hits added such as Close (To The Edit), I Want To Know What Love is, 1999, A New England and Since Yesterday amongst others.
HITS3
HITS4 A selection of hits from early 1986 from the likes of the Bangles, Madonna, Pet Shop Boys (single mix of West End Girls) and The Damned
HITS5: Taking in the later half of '86 we're treated to such gems as You Can Call Me Al, Walk Like An Egyptian, Thorn In My Side, Anotherloverholeinyohead, Rage Hard and Julian Cope's classic World shut Your Mouth
HITS6
HITS7
This one covered chart hits in the second half of 1987 by Prince and Fleetwood Mac as well as being the first to come out on double compact disc which is what my brother bought
HITS8 A selection of hits from the Summer of '88 when Acid House was all the rave
HITS9 Hits from the second half of 1988.
To be completed.

Summertime

It's summer. The time I tend to visit the park to play or explore nearby meadowlands watching the butterflies while keeping out of the way of wasps.

I have a swing a home that I like to use a lot for an hour or so at a time cos it's so relaxing just swaying back and forth in the a breeze with your lemonade at arms reach.

The other thing about summer is Summer Specials of your comics and thankfully the Beano has gone back to issuing one rather than the mash up of comic and celebratory magazine that was BeanoMax a few years back.

It comes with stickers, pranks to pull  and of course summer stories featuring the likes of Dennis The Menace, The Bash Street Kids and Minnie The Minx.

It's a childhood ritual I always love.

Duran Duran lps

This is a all new post for my followers about a band I pretty much grew up with in high school and to whom I have many many recordings by on singles, lp albums and compacts discs.

Japanese Mini lps:
These were a cross between a full length album and a 12 inch single that were issued in lp style jackets in Japan often with a lyric sheet:
Nite Romantics - note this one plays at 45 RPM like a (UK) 12" single but has 4 tracks including Fame a cover of the David Bowie number Planet Earth and Girls on Film.

Carnival - five track album of remixes including My Own Way, Rio, Hungry like the Wolf and Hold Back The Rain (I like the guitar work on that track). Note it is different than the US and Dutch versions of the same title.

Tiger! Tiger! comprises of the 12" mixes of the singles from Seven and the Ragged Tiger plus 12" of Is There Something I Should Know.

There was 2cd set that has these versions on issued in Japan in 1991.

Duran Duran (S/T):
I have two versions because I was Durannie as we who followed them rabidly called ourselves back in the day.
The first was my original 1981 UK lp on EMI which has 9 tracks including To The Shore.
The second is the re-packaged 1983 version for Japan that added the Is There Something I Should Know single to the start of the original 9 track album taking it to 10 tracks. It's very quiet as Japanese vinyl always was and sounds great.

Rio:
Again 2 versions:
The 1982 original UK one
The 2009 re-mastered lp that has two discs of which the first is from the original UK version and the second that plays at 45 Rpm has unique to America versions from their third and final lp version meaning you can play this as the Americans heard it or in it's UK configuration.
It arrived today!!!
The sound quality is marvellous with deep bass clear transients and is very quiet.

Seven and the Ragged Tiger: I have just the UK 1983 edition of this, a often maligned album by them taking in The Reflex, New Moon On Monday which I had the lyrics from smash hits magazine blu-tacked on the bedroom wall and Union Of The Snake.

I never got Arena - the live album that is a kinda of sound track to the sci-fi concert video - on vinyl as this was as I mentioned on the Now post was an era of format change and my first exposure to Arena was via the Capitol/EMI XDR cassette tape and then a few years later the Japanese pressed compact disc.

The Beach Boys: Today & Summer Days

 Well peoples the initiated do know I've always had a strong liking for the Beach Boys a band who notwithstanding being American -Californian to be exact - developed a strong following in the UK to the point that by the late 1960's they were more popular there than 'at home'!

 

I was raised on British versions of the "Best of the Beach Boys " compilations in their crazy mixture of mono, true stereo and Duophonic (fake) stereo from an early age and started slowly buying individual albums from my mid teens although at that time a Stones or Beatles album got the nod as I as low on my allowances back then.

That had something to do with the patchy nature of some of these early beach boy albums some having obvious filler such as Denny's Drums from "Shut Down Vol:2", Our Favorite Recording Sessions on "All Summer Long" or "Bull session with Big Daddy" on this album, "Today!" but there are too many examples of their song writing abilities, harmonization and Brian Wilson's production abilities not to stay with a few hit bound compilations.

In fact this album issued early 1965 is really at the point when the themes became more adult exploring much more about emotions and relationships than the previous album which was still teen fun in the sun songs with cars - a Californian necessity and obsession - and the complex arrangements that blossomed on Pet Sounds began (It has been said much of side two was the dummy run for that album).

The hit 45's leap out at you and it's telling that they're all on side one, the cover of Do You Wanna Dance, When I Grow Up (to be a Man) which questions of the interests and obsessions of youth can be maintained in adult life and finally Dance Dance Dance which is as close to the older themes this album gets with its invocation of teen life, coming in from school and blasting out the radio flat out.

Guess we've all done that, eh?

Side two is where the fun starts, with Brian pouring his heart out writing very grown up songs about love such as "Please Let Me Wonder" and "She Knows Me Too Well".

My previous exposure to this album in it's entirety was a UK Duophonic stereo version on album - I should note it was mixed to real stereo but seemingly Brian Wilson objected to this stereo re-mix and had it trashed oblivious to the fact it would be tricked into fake stereo anyway by Capitol sounding less good - and the mono cd which is part of a 2 lp on cd set with Summer Days neither issue of which is entirely satisfactory as sound quality goes.

This was re-issued in mono in full by Capitol in the States in 2009 in the "From the vaults" lp re-issue series on 180 gram vinyl from higher than cd resolution files transferred from the analogue tapes and I was able to win a near mint copy very cheaply recently to add to my collection.

In my opinion this album hasn't sounded better. Recommended.

Capitol at the same time decided to re-issue this album, Today's follow up in it's "From the vaults" series but goofed with the front and rear jacket art as they used that from the Duophonic version whereas this lp is actually mono and many audio fans run a mile from any kind of fake stereo which is unfortunate cos they see the cover and it like 'Ugh!'

The usual opinion on this this album is it's a a step back from side two of Today returning more to the fun in the sun subject matter of girls, beaches, and summer but this is to ignore the sophistication in the arrangements most noticeably on California Girls, the instrumental Summer Means New Love, the heavy I'm Bugged At My ol' Man' and the acapella And Your Dream Comes True.

In reality Capitol wanted a album for Summer, the Beach boys needed a album to tour behind and Brian Wilson had to rustle up something so while it's true to say the spirit of this album is in the past most noticeably on Amusement Parks USA with the carnival barker interjecting in the song not unlike County Fair from Surfin' Safari, the quality of the arrangements and the playing more than make up for it.

The sound on this lp is probably the best I've heard it as there's plenty of bass and a tendency toward peakiness and over bright strings that can be heard in otherwise great copies such as the UK 1978 mono re-issue are well tamed , allowing the vocals to cut through.

The card insert has colour versions of the rear album photographs that I'm sure were not issued here in the UK at the time.

It just seems a pity care wasn't taken to issue the correct mono front and rear covers of thsi otherwise well worthwhile re-issue.