The Red Bird, Blue Cat and Leader of the pack edition

The last few weeks have seen me revisiting a few childhood favourites when it comes to popular music.

For instance for a brief period in the mid sixties the Red Bird and Blue cat lables had some of hippest music around from a wide range of artists with a lot of close harmony girl groups such as the Dixie Cups. 

Unfortunately connected with the reasons the label shut down, many of the final mixed down 'master tapes' ended going to various odd bods as payment for debts resulting many later release in both the lp and cd eras suffering.

Recently Real Gone Music out out a cd with 20 tracks called "The Red Bird Girls for the Very first time in STEREO" newly remixed from the session floor tapes in stereo offering a new and much cleaner two channel sound on tracks such as Bessie Banks, Go Now, The AdLibs The Boy from New York City and many more.

One of the most famous groups on the label was the unforgettable Shangri-La's whose dark soap opera in two and a half minutes drama's such as Leader Of The Pack, I Can Never Go Home No More and Past, Present and Future really pushed the enveloped for what could be achieved by soundscapes.

Most of the cds of their hits suffer from poor sound quality but in 2002 England's RPM records redid the good Myrmidoms of Melodrama compilation improving on the sound and finding stereo versions of several tracks including Remember (walking in the sand) and I recently picked up a copy.

As well as regular readers know I've always loved Bobby Vees music and finally picked up the Bobby Vee singles Collection, a the cd set issued by EMI UK in 2006 covering ever a and b side cut for Liberty records by him from the late 50's through 1978 most of which appear in top quality stereo.

It's the best compilation of his material out there I'd have to say being well worth the modest cost Amazon UK are currently charging for it.

The battle to be Frilly but Sissy

Sometimes it has seemed a battle of the wills between one group of people who saw me as a transsexual and another lot who rigidly thought I ought to be more of a boy when really all I am is a sissy gurl.

All I ever wanted to do was express my feminine side as the occasion took me it might be a pair of shorts but worn more girlie or on a good many more something like a skirt and a dress and all with frilly panties, girlies knee socks or tights on while playing with girls.

Had that of happened during childhood it might of gone a bit more like this...

The gender pronoun confusion is telling in that but I'm a hur, a gurl not a Her or a Girl and a long way removed socially from a boy whatever the physical sex might be.

All I want when I'm with Littles is to be who I am.

Tammy the Sissy Gurl

Birthday classical cds

As I mentioned I had a number of classical music cds this birthday which ties very well into the adult little gurl birthday theme as it always was big part of my childhood so I'll take this entry to talk about them.

It's a very long time ago actually it would of been in my late teens actually that I first heard anything by Bruckner as his music wasn't what I'd call programmed at school in the way that say Dvorak was.

I bought a few lps on the old Vox/Turnabout label that Decca distributed at the time but when in the late 80's I was moving after a period mixing tape with lps to cd exclusively this discs left my house.

I had been on the look out for an affordable set of his symphonies for some time and following some discussion on a forum, I thought I'd look this set up.

Although recorded in the early days of stereo Eugen Jochum's spirited performance spread on nine discs each holding one symphony unlike some others such as Wands 70's set holds up well and comes in space saving box with the discs in card sleeves.

"Bernstein conducts Bernstein" Somy/Bmg 7 cd set.
Back in 1991 Sony compiled a nine cd set of all of Leonard Bernstein's works that he recorded himself which would of set you back about GBP £90 or more new.
In 2011 as part of their Masters series of box sets by Sony Music, this set was rejigged to fit on 7 discs sans notes for a very low price.

Included in it were his recordings of Candide, symphonic Dances from "West Side Story", symphonic Suite from "On The Waterfront" movie score, fancy Free, a selection from on the town, Prelude, Fudge & Riffs and heaps more.

I had the old 1986 CBS Masterwork cd with a number of these recordings on and this sounds much improved with respect to frequency range and smoothness .
It's the  kind of set you dip into at will.

Delius: Violin Sonatas 1 thru 3
Tasmin Little & Piers Lane
Conifer
This was a disc I had been interested in that originally came out at full price in 1997 having had a soft spot for English music from the early part of the twentieth century.

I have a lot of music by Elgar and while being familiar with other British composers  thanks to a decent music education  at my high school (we didn't just learn about making music and composers, we actually performed!), I got a complete set of Ralph Vaughan Williams symphonies.

The acclaimed British conductor Sir Adrian Boult was going through an 'Indian summer' late in his life and by good fortune EMI/Angel got him to make stereo recordings of works he'd previously recorded. This set with either the London Philharmonic or the New Philharmonia Orchestras remains one of the finest ever of these works.

And what works from A Sea symphony with its glorious singing through to Sinfornia antartica inspired by Scott's 1912 South Pole adventures these symphonies are amongst the finest of the last century. Originally reissued from the early 1990's onward they have placed in a boxed set for an inexpensive price -cost me £15.99  new - representing a bargain. (EMI 8  7484 2 5cds)

The Wasps is a highly effective soundscape of that insect! It really buzzes in the overture!!!

The Lark Ascending
Five Variants of Dives  & Lazarus
The Wasps-Aristophanic suite
London Philharmonic Orchestra cond Vernon Handley
CD EMX 9508 Issued in 1985 and one of the very first in Emi Eminence series to be issued on cd in 1987

Partita for Double String orchestra
Concerto for Oboe  and Strings
Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis
Fantasia on Greensleeves
Royal Liverpool Phiharmonic Orchestra cond Vernon Handley with Jonathan Small on Oboe
CD EMX 2197
1991 recording on Emi Eminence

Sibelius was a very famous Finnish composer who sadly also had a drinks problem whose  works I first encountered in the late 1980's buying on impulse a 4 cd set of his symphonies after playing to death a cd of his Tone poems such as Finlandia.

I decided to get the 1993 world premier recording of the entire music from the score set to Shakespeare's play

The Tempest
Lahti Symphony Orchestra cond Osmo Vanska
Bis  CD581

Some of us had our minds blown on American music by people like Copland, Bernstein, Gershwin, Ives, Piston and this guy called Hanson.
I got this one used from a vendor in the same town I work in:
Hanson conducts Hanson
Symphonies 1 & 3; Song of Domocracy
Hanson Eastman-Rochestra orchestra
Mercury 432 008-2
plus
Symphony no3, Elegy &  Lament for Beuwulf
Mercury 434 302-2

Finally I got two Stravinsky cds:

Symphony no1, Symphony in C

Ode

Symphony in Three Movements

Symphonies of Wind Instruments *

The Fairy's Kiss (ballet) **

Scottish National Orchestra  cond Sir Alexander Gibson * SNO with Neeme Jarvi

** Nash Essemble cond Sir Simon Rattle

Chandros CHAN 241-8 

Note: 2 cd  twofer re-issue of previous full price discs with stunning recording and playing.

Stravinsky: 

Concerto in E Flat "Dumbarton Oakes"

Concerto in D from String

Danses concertantes

Cantata on Old English texts

English chamber Orchestra cond Sir Colin Davis

London Enterprise 425 622-2

These will complement nicely my collection of his ballet scores covering his later more neo classical compositions.

Reuniformed for a Magical Day

 

We'll begin with something that may seem trivial but is kind of important.

The naturalness of feminine boys like me wearing skirts is obvious from both an aesthetic point of view we look good in skirts and also the practical fitting in well in a school uniform setting where they are hard wearing.

Today was my birthday although in truth I don't get any older really, it's just a continuous loop.

I had a new fluffy goose filled pillow and a Hello Kitty duvet and pillow cover to further transform my sleeping experience because I find it so much more relaxing in a little feminine boy headspace surround by plushies, teddy bears and HK posters whenever I sleep complete with HK sleeping attire on or need to rest during the day in uniform being poorly.

I have to say a day after having both rested and slept since petting it on, I feel more restful confirming that surrounded in this headspace I do feel smaller, having looked from the corner of too I see a little girl in her element and for me this feeling is priceless.

Also I had a Disney colouring book as thanks to the Christmas colouring a number of us did I re-connected to colouring even though I can only do a little a day with my condition, I found it relaxing, being able to switch off from groan up stuff.

I also had some reading books by Jacqueline Wilson sho I think is wonderful and these were, 'The worst thing about my sister','The Worry Website' and 'Midnight' plus the dvd of Tangled.

In this returned to the past life skirts feature so Tammy wore their grey skirt and long socks as the little sissy gurl they are.