Integrating being LSG

 2011 shaped up to be the year where that age old conundrum of mine of being a little sissy gurl having some feminine traits not least liking to wear skirts at times together with the whole thing about me seeing myself as still a ten year old in a tartan skirt who loves to play rather than the adult started to get squared.

Work cannot be helped but when I come home, rather like when I was at school, I can just get a drink and a biscuit and then start playing even if sadly it is by myself until it's time for tea and ultimately bed of course with my teddy bear.

Equally while it matters to be informed about what is going on, in general I really don't need to watch the news so often so I can watch things like Discovery Kids and CBBC the recent BBC channel that has children's shows like I used to watch rather than more adult shows with just the odd music or documentary show which is what we did back then anyway even though with this Digital Switchover now complete in this tv region we have more channels than the through I grew up with.

There's nowt wrong with being a little sissy gurl, enjoying being more a child still and having that life.

The Kinks are Well Respected Men!

Well it's almost an annual ritual here that every year as we approach the Christmas season, a expensive box set arrives for me to buy, starve the cat for a few weeks or something a bit like that and this year is no exception.

The Kinks are quite simply one of the most important British groups of the 60's who took R&B, created the heavy metal riff with You Really Got Me and pioneered social comment in popular music with albums like Face To Face as well as The Village Green Preservation Society exploring the British way of life and inspiring countless acts ever since.

Entitled the Kinks In Mono, this set comprises of the seven UK albums of the period plus two discs of mono collectible versions plus a disc with four of their EP recordings on it, housed in a mini lp style sleeve, gatefolded with credits and fresh photographs on the inner folds.

The first three albums -Kinks, Kinda Kinks and The Kinks Kontroversy - are R&B albums with a high number of originals such as Stop Your Sobbing,Tired Of Waiting and Till The End Of The Day leading to the band being adopted by the 'Mods'.

From 1966's Face To Face onward Ray Davis's introspective song writing comes to the for with such classics as Dandy (a massive hit for Herman's Hermits in the States), Sunny Afternoon, David Watts as covered by The Jam, Death of a Clown, the impossibly perfect Waterloo Sunset, Starstruck (from Village Green Preservation Society) and Victoria from 'Arthur'.

The EP disc takes in four UK EP's (Kinksize session, Kinksize Hits, Kwyet Kinks and Dedicated Kinks) with Louie Louie, All Day and All Of The Night, A Well Respected Man, Dedicated Follower of Fashion and Set Me Free while the Mono Kollectables has singles mixes, b sides and the mono Lola and Apeman singles.

The mastering for is very good, a little louder than the early Kinks discs from mid 1980's but with plenty of contrast between the loudest and softest volumes and much improved on the 1998 re-issues with Village Green having a brand new mastering exclusive to this set.

For the money I think it's worth it, lacking a set of Kinks albums on cd.

At the bottom there are some picture one of the discs in the box and another of the book which is like the Pop Annuals Radio Luxembourg and Thank Your Lucky stars had out back then telling the Kinks story.

It's no weighty tomb of knowledge never mind a set of lyrics so you'll go whistle if that's what you want but as a slightly goofy period like introduction to the band it serves well being a fun read.

Malory Towers Forever

 

As I think I've mentioned  the odd time to my friends I've been re-reading Malory Towers, the classic story of a all girls high school on the coast of Cornwall, South-west England directly overlooking the sea as written by Enid Blyton.

As with a number of novels back then due to the whole issue of boys being picked on for reading books popular with girls you just had to "borrow" a copy, read it out of sight of other boys and never mention it.

That meant I was late getting my own copies to enjoy reading  and so far in I've just finished the Fifth volume.

Her books were a big part of my childhood that I loved mainly for their sense of innocent adventure, well observed characters and moral tales interwoven into the narrative.

I mixed them in with things like the Jennings  and Just Williams as a gripping yarn of a story is just that where you're a boy who loves stories like this.

With Malory Towers we see the world of this  boarding school which is a Castle like building with four wings, mainly through the eyes of Darrell, a first year boarder aged 12 getting to grips with induction procedures, new school rules, making new friends who as the series progresses we learn all about, their strong points and well their failings and learning to take on more responsibilities for themselves.

Each wing has inter-house competitions and for some sports their are coveted matches with other schools, the values of giving your all for your team and team mates, honour and being a gracious winner are write right through.

We also have escapades, ill thought out actions like going awl to perform and becoming so ill we can't sing, playing tricks on teachers and even some serious stuff like poison-pen letters not to mention theft.

For some such stories were (possible are even) a fantasy -a school life in childhood never experienced but preferable to the one they had - but to me much of this was very much like the reality apart from the poison-pen letter bits.

Newsflash: I did play tricks on people back then!

You could say it was really a guide cluing me in to what I was to experience making the transition from day school easier. 

I hope to re-read a few more of her series in the upcoming year.

The Beach Boys: SMiLE with Wild Honey

Well after all the gloom of the last few weeks which is still rumbling around us, I felt like talking about something that would make some of us SMILE, Namely the fact this Beach Boys album or perhaps more accurately "The SMiLE Sessions" have after 44 years finally come out in an authorized form.

There's that much and sometimes one-sided stuff written about smile that I don't feel like going into it but in essence it was a projected follow up to the Pet Sounds album of 1966 involving collaboration between Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks dashing off fragments of music and lyric and stitching them together as a kind of audio collage a process that would involve many fragments per song.

The year 1966 it has to be remembered was one of the most important in popular music with many lyrical, musical and technological innovations all coming together revolutionizing what was thought of as low class transitory music for kids and making it into high art with such albums as Blonde on Blonde, Revolver, Paisley Sage Rosemary & Thyme and singles like Good Vibrations.

Good Vibrations really was the stating point for this album - listen closely and you'll here all the edits and overdubs - with Brian Wilson in the studio conducting session musicians making all the backing fragments ready for the beach Boys to return from touring to add their voices.

At the same time there was much interest in what was going on with even a news team filming Brian at work at Leonard Bernstein's bequest and yet these sessions never officially saw the light of day until now.

The first thing to say about the sessions and what has been issued is it's as far away from fun in the sun car and beach songs as you could ever get very few number lend themselves to the concerts you had back then with instrumentals like Holidays and even Wind Chimes as beautiful as they are to hear anew in their original form being too challenging for the concert audience of the day.

This lead to some friction between the touring band and Brian and was a bigger issue for Capitol Records who required a record to sell with potential big hits on it and Brian launched a royalties dispute with Capitol to upping the stakes.

Brian also had his demons - it's testimony to how he is today he's happy to even talk about this period - and the competition between him and the Beatles, the disagreements in the band over the session material, the fractiousness relationship with Capitol took a heavy toll on his nerviness and increasingly erratic state of mind and so the the project got put on the high shelf 90% completed with dozens of snippets left.

Parts were re-used, songs featured in other albums Surfs Up from the 1971 album of the same name, Cabin-Essense on 20/20 and re-recordings on that half hearted replacement Smily Smile like Vege-Tables and Wind Chimes and Heroes and Villains (a favourite).

I bought the two lp version with bonus tracks on side 4 because for me at least I don't have a use nay a need to be able to re-assemble any number of fragments to make my own version as Brian's version based on approximation of 2004 he did as a solo project is good enough for me.

It's also true I appreciate greatly the physical product so something as tactile as an lp sleeve with a beautiful colour art book and easy to read lyrics is appreciated and what's more this 180 gram lp pressed here in Europe sounds superb with no one click or pop.

I also find the small gap when you change discs over helps giving you time to take in the compositional delights.

After September 1967's under produced Smiley Smile using bits from the SMiLE sessions that just totally confused people just three months later Wild Honey emerged as a group only Motown R&B influenced set.

Short on playing time this back to basic set was a major improvement during this turbulent era that was well respected in the UK but regarded by Hippy S.F. centric America as "Irrelevant".

In 2017 treated to a true stereo remix rather than than the mono and fake stereo many of had during the 70's and 80's this album which is the home of the Darlin' and Wild Honey singles and energetic How She Boogalooed It this sounds fantastic.

Curiously while the sleeve pays homage to that whole transition from mono to stereo only records being issued no where on front does it state it is the true stereo mix!

*Updated by Tammy 2017*

Past Winters

 

We're entering Winter, the start very much of the cold season where some grown ups would push extra thick layers at you not least when like me you are a disabled gurl and thought by some to be more vulnerable to the cold.

At the time I was little old fashioned having a liking for Duffle Coats usually grey or green as my last one was with big fat fasteners and a hood for school but to be honest I never got that cold.

Actually I often went out in shorts and long socks back then, never feeling cold at all even if it had been snowing watching the other boys sledding down the bank.

The Autumn is a magical time of carpets made of orangey red leaves that look all the better for natural sunlight so I like to walk about this time of year, taking photo's enjoying it before the Winter comes in.

Walking along the path that lead to my school whose building has been repurposed since with its tall trees brings back lost of golden memories such as those I experienced in October.