Ravel sacd set

The post that got waylaid would be a good subtitle for todays offering because it was going to come last week but unfortunately events intervened and that was it. 

The French had a way with classical music taking over after the romantic period and the bombast of Wagner, taking things down to a smaller more intimate scale with lush orchestration which can be seen in music of Debussy and Ravel.

There are a couple of connections which is that in the main Debussy work at and for the piano and it was Ravel who worked on the orchestrated versions.

The other is in this recording which was part of series Jean Martinon conducted with the Orchestre de Paris which covered both composers and to which I have their Debussy on two sets of two standard cds.

This set of four super audio cds contains the finest complete series of this music from the over popular Bolero,the Ma Mére I'Oye ballet, Daphnis et Chloe, Une barque sur L'océan, his concertos and Pavane pour une infante défunte originally recorded for SQ quadraphonic surround sound in 1974.

This was re-issued at the beginning of 2021 from the original analogue tapes by Warner Japan who own British Emi and Emi Angels recordings in conjunction with Tower Records in a set limited to just 800 of which mine is no 173

The transfer to super audio cd is excellent sounding very fresh and open and like all the disc s in this series has a layer that plays on regular cd playing equipment.

While it wasn't cheap, I really enjoyed listening to it.

Rollermania II - Updates

 

The last time I posted about the Bay City Rollers on this blog was way back in the early days which is a long time which is why this post is being made the way I did back then and  a fair bit has happened in that time.

The first thing to update this blog on is that we had the deaths of two long term members of the group and another who was only a member for a relatively brief period which means in practical terms the likelihood of any kind of meaningful Rollers act on tour have gone with Eric Faulkner ill and Derek Longmuir and Stuart "Woody" Wood otherwise preoccupied.

One July 2nd at 6 am 2018 it was announced that Alan Longmuir, the bass player who left in early 1976 feeling at the ripe old age of 26 he was too old to be in the band had died.

Ian Mitchell who was from Northern Ireland stepped into Alan's shoes in 1976 playing on the Love Me Like I Love You single from April that year and the Dedication album that was recorded in Canada, died in early September of 2020 aged 62 and who outside of the BCR was a important part of the group Rosetta Stone.

Last Thursday, April 23rd, it was announced Les McKeown who joined the band in early 1974 remaining with them until 1978's Strangers In The Wind album not being happy about the group moving in a more new wave direction and launching a solo career.

He had stepped in as lead singer replacing Nobby Clark and two early singles were re-recorded for the Rollin' album of 1974 with his vocals.

As the old century moved in to the new, he performed with a version of the rollers with some success and kept in contact with former band mates not least in trying to resolve the scandal of grossly underpaid record royalties that hand left many members with little to show for their fame and the consequences of being ripped off by Tom Paton, their manager for good measure.

If some of us were fans of other members of the band at the time, we'd all acknowledge Les was the big heart throb of the group, universally popular, happy to meet fans.

The Bay City Rollers played a part in breaking the barrier for Scottish popular music to be successful all over the world, selling some 120 million records worldwide. 

To get the appeal at the time as we experienced it  you have to remember this.

You would deck yourself from head to foot with Tartan attire often hand sown with scarves wrapped tightly around your wrists, you'd scream and hug your television on each and every time they were on.

If you were lucky you'd go roller-spotting hoping to catch a glance of any band member, whilst out and try desperately to get hold of one.

You bought each and every record they issued the minute it was, buying the magazines featuring them, the annuals and as much of the merchandise they issued. 

You collected newspaper cuttings too.

Back in 1975 much of the slick multimedia promotion of today simply didn't exist nor did the technology such as cellphones and the internet so we didn't have ringtones and screens to download.

They were your all embracing passion and for most of us romantic interest rolled in one. I was obsessed with Stuart 'Woody' Wood!

The music of our older siblings was progressive rock that had songs that could last for a whole album side arranged in suites often lasting for more then seven minutes with lyrics that required older more poetic reading skills with cryptic metaphors than those of us aged between 7 and 14 had.

It was too long for us.

We liked guitar based songs that lasted three minutes that were about things in our world not sword and sorcery that made us feel good and that we could huddle in corners singing while having fashions we'd copy.  

It was our music, not our siblings or parents.

That music was and is tied to our childhood which resonates strong in some of us.

If that was the backdrop and soundtrack of our formative childhood years you well get how with Les's death it seems as if a page in past is over.

The band may in effect be no more as thing we can see but we have the music and memories that were a part of lives then and will remember it they way we know they would of wanted us to. With gladness.

My autistic brain with Interventions

 

This is how one side of my autism is very much, given to two polar opposites at any one point not able to switch and blend between each state in the way that for most people you can  so I can from not being 'there' to so obsessed I may not come away from an activity even if there are more pressing things that I need to do.

 

I have crippling levels of generalized and social anxiety that literally prevent me from leaving the house or trying anything new or different to the point I'll put tons of effort into fighting any routine change apart from being prone to depression.

Sometimes I need to be 'carried' so I make that move and go out for a walk or try something new with support so I move forward dealing with my problems rather than stalling, wasting energy that I often don't have.

1980 revisited

As we make our way through the month it is usually the case the final preparations are made for the production of  this years Beano and Dandy Summer Specials ready to go to the shops or today be ordered online from around late May.

Last year I did write a bit around Dandy and Beano Comic Library editions and Summer Specials and as it happens it's what would be the third anniversary on Tumblr.

Recently I repurchased this, the 1980 Summer Special which was something I bought while away in what was in hindsight to be quite a significant year.

1980 was year where exams loomed across this month and May and with it the widening age dysphoria gap between how I was on the inside and how chronological aged me was being seen by others.

It was across this period that I started to wear much of my older clothes not least shorts, long socks and having discovered it, my younger brothers former cub scout uniform when not "borrowing" skirts.

This was the summer I refused to wear long trousers while away on hols wearing either an old denim pair or some ultra short blue shorts so every single family picture shows what on the surface was a young boy, a slightly more mature looking ten or eleven year old as I was less developed physically and rather thin.

Thus it was him that read things like that years summer special Pup Parade, the strip based on the lives of the Bash Street Kid's dogs on the beach and in our accommodation.

Around this time I was still reading comics so issues like April 26th's was a memorable one and an indication of how things were across this period was the fifteen year old going on ten was still playing now having moved on a year (by chronological age) played with that glove puppet even if I could talk about The Jam and Mrs Thatcher's government going on to have afternoon tea with the latter at No. 10. 

I had decided by that point in my life I was not a "young man" nor associated with the term "teenager" but really still that boy in Juniors even if I went to "big school" and started to study for a few more examinations the next year.

So it was as got to the tail end of 1980 that what was now a boy in law who could leave school was still living in most respects as a ten year old with the same house rules, dressed the same would get things like that years Beano Book (it wasn't an annual until later) even if he studied the Constitution and system of Government at school getting the best exam result of the group the next year.

As far as that year book went Gnasher and Dennis were as football mad as us sticking our PE shorts on during midday recess for game on the school fields and Gnasher's teeth dead set on biting the bums of Dennis's opponents as we has in the Summer Special.

1980 was the year the short-lived  spin off Bash Street Kids annual  started as many of us were into Adam Ant and Grange Hill.

Cuthbert was forever the class swat and teachers pet as much as teacher was like mine that year still legally able to swing that cane in our direction and boys like me who got to sit outside the form teachers office were often teased about just what might happen later.  

You took stuff like that in your stride and I was more than capable of dishing it back later!

That was 1980 and why revisiting the Summer Special brought everything back.

Now That's What I Call Music CD Part 4

The last time we visited the topic of the re-issue on cd of the early 'classic' now albums of the 80's was August 7th when we had Now 6 which was rather out of sync seasonally to when that originally came out.

We are now at the point in the series where some of the tracks did have a cd release in 1986 as by that point cd sales had picked up with heavy promotion, it was becoming possible to buy a separate cd player for about £200 or less and purchasers of all in one systems often had the option of getting a heavily discounted matching player so they could upgrade and add cd replay too.

The price of the discs themselves though was an issue to youngsters and casual pop fans so while fans bought releases by that years top acts on cd such as the Pet Shop Boys, Queen, Madonna and Genesis in big numbers, the kind of person who handed over £7.99 for that season's NOW or HITS compilation wouldn't of paid £22 for the cd version.

Now 7 was issued in the Summer of 1986 so some of that years early hits ended up on the HITS lp/tape around the spring and was strictly lp and tape only with the quirky last minute addition of Queen's A Kind of Magic that necessitated the hasty white hype sticker as this wasn't listed on the jacket.

This album originally had 33 tracks on it but when you look at the rear of the cd you'll soon spot there was only 30.

Now 7 does strangely omit three songs, On My Own by Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald and (Bang Zoom) Let's Go Go by The Real Roxanne with Hitman Howie Tee plus the unmissable Absolute Beginners by David Bowie from the film of the same name.

Just why that should be is anyone's guess as Absolutely Beginners made the millennium series NOW 1986 as well as Bowie's own Best of 1980-87 in 1998.

During that transitional period we were  fortunate that seven of the original 33 tracks did come out on the compilation cd NOW '86 issued November 1986 much advertised at the time in Q Magazine, What Cd and LM (anyone remember that five issue wonder???) with 8 from Now 8 which had a single 18 track cd issue.

The seven songs that are:

A Kind of Magic 4'23

Absolute Beginners 5'36

West End Girls 3'55

Lessons In Love 4'00

On My Own 4'41

Let's Go All The Way 3'57

I've emboldened two of missing tracks so if you own this early cd you need to hang on to (or for some of you buy) this cd which charted at #65 as a cd only release to put a couple of omissions right.

As well they used the album version of Nu Shooz's I Can't Wait rather than the common single version normally used and there appears little reason to use an edit of Billy Ocean's When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going which they did.

While it is good a cd version exists, the three missing tracks and some version issues does take the shine of it

By November of 1986, it was plain cd was here to stay so the Now team issued the NOW '86 round up of hits but because of concerns around the price point only compiled a single cd version of NOW 8 with just 17 tracks with some of the others on NOW '86. 

The Autumn and early Winter had a wide variety of charting singles and some worthy entries fell off the cd wagon so having a cd version of an album where 25 of the 32 tracks had a cd issue at the time is a must.

The Wizard is a track missed for being the "new" Top of the Pops theme of the mid to late 80's and was part of the original Now 8 on record and tape versions now reinstated as was Big Country's One Great Thing from their album The Seer.

On this version there are a few differences in the versions but compared to previous issues in this series more attempt has been made to get it something like right,

The following songs differ from the original 1986 double LP:

Genesis – In Too Deep (Album version used instead of 7″ mix which was on Now 8 LP and CD)

Grace Jones – I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Perfect For You) (Album version used instead of 7″ mix which was on Now 8 LP and CD)

Janet Jackson – What Have You Done For Me Lately? (LP Edit from Design Of Decade used instead of 7″ mix which was on Now 8 LP)

Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush – Don’t Give Up (The version included here is 5:57 which is shorter than both the LP and 12″ mixes but longer than the 5:41 7″ mix that was on Now 8 LP and CD).

On the whole I would say this was one of the best of the series and we'll see how NOW 9 turns out.

Scouting onwards

That was always one the things about being me, the first Age Dysphoric signs were the trying on of my youngest siblings Cub uniform after he'd left it and unlike most others hadn't transferred to Scouts (aka Boy Scouts) at around ten and a half when I was around fifteen and sixteen going on ten.

It was stashed away bits in draw and the shirt in the deepest recesses of  a joint wardrobe that whenever I could I'd wear as at that time it wasn't much bigger than a well built twelve year old if that.

I felt happier being something I'd of rather had been being my real developmental age than the teenager I wasn't in any other way except age still stuck in 74/75.

Had I of been invested back in '72 into Brownies I'd of transferred to Girl Guides although you could say mentally I'd of been the youngest guide in the pack probably looking more like this which I do really like the look of.

Self development and mental discipline were things I needed and were looking for at the time as I struggled with motivating myself and being organized apart from needing to create a good circle of friends and learn new skills.

Imagine a twelve or thirteen year old Tammy at camp, having to share with others, take turns doing various chores, mastering new skills learning more about hurself?

That would of been brilliant! 

The outdoor life was one I enjoyed even if chunks were not lived through the Scout Association during that era by through boarding school activities and the odd weekend hike.

It was no accident that scouting became the big thing during the Coronavirus pandemic keeping me on the straight and narrow, helping my mental health because it met my needs for adventure, learning new things and developing self discipline