The Best of George Harrison with a blast of Ringo Starr

This week we look at a couple of budget lps that I bought a short a while back.

This was always a favourite album of mine during the 70's and early 80's having gone through tape and record editions.

Here's a bit of time capsule:

In late 1967 the Beatles establish "Apple" a 'do anything we think is groovy' company and one of its' first divisions is records from late 1968 onward their releases are on their very own label. In time they add a variety of other artists usually people they encountered professionally and after the demise of the Beatles as a recording group, the individual beatles issue sole recordings all on Apple.

Fast forward to late 1975 and the Apple is winding down with most of the labels acts resigned to other more mainstream labels and the surviving Beatles have lost their interest in the label.

Ringo establishes his own label with its own distribution arrangements, John Lennon decided he wants to spend time outside music becoming a house-husband, George has established Dark Horse records and Paul has signed to Capitol/Parlophone directly.

In this closing down process Apple decided to issue compilations by John, George and Ringo around 1975 thru '76.

John and Ringo's were fairly straight forward collections of singles and the odd album track but George's was very different.

Maybe it was marketing getting cold feet but for this the Best of George Harrison issued in 1976 somebody decided they need a sides-worth of Beatle tracks to sell it, something ruffled George and his fans no end.

Be that is it may, what that side actually does is show the lyrical, philosophical and musical developmental of George who in the understandable fascination with Lennon and McCartney sometimes gets overlooked for his contributions.

In Something and If I Needed Someone he examines the depth of relationships, Think For Yourself is a rallying call for free thought and in While my Guitar Gently Weeps remains a classy blues number.

The second side may of been a disappointment quantity-wise, but it has some of my favourites 45's from the early 70's such as My Sweet Lord, Bangladesh-the band aid style single if its day - Give Me Love and What Is Life from the acclaimed All Things Must Pass triple album.

I used to own the Parlophone first issue lp as cut by NickW but recently picked up this later reissue with a different sleeve - the US sleeve showed a more 'Cosmic' George - cut by Harry Moss on one side (-3' HTM' side 1 -2 Side 2) that sounds much better.

This was Ringo's that also concentrates on that commercial successful 1970-74 period in the same series of Music For Pleasure re-issues that included studio albums by John Lennon.

For people like me who loved those singles as child in the early 70's this album with better new artwork but keeping the original mastering is just great for songs like It Don't Come Easy and Photograph.

Recovering Sissy Gurl

 

We're heading very much toward the spring now so there are a number of upcoming animes and cd releases schedules that I intend to buy and write reviews of here on  my blog apart from other interests.

It was my birthday a few days ago so I had a birthday spanking!

I do wear school type uniform a lot because when you're very much child-adult me with a permanently on child's mindset it just feels  more me, it also is hard wearing and less fussy being easy for me to put on and look after properly.

This is a picture of a porcelain doll I've had since my teens called Debbie.

She was bought for me from a doll fair near Macclesfield and she's been with me no matter where I've been living ever since. I like the blouse and dress she's wearing.

A sissy gurl like me wears skirts, pretty panties, cute socks and has dolls.

It's that that makes me a jane girl/sissy and by extension this blog what it is about.

Presentational shifts

Hockey was and remains a big passion of mine be it Field or Ice stemming from my youth although I'd need to play in a disabled team cos with my physical disabilities it just wouldn't work any other way and actually I did play wheelchair sports growing up with cerebal palsy. Hockey, netball and rounders were the big ones with me.

When I play sports this is how I want to present from now on in girls skorts or netball skirts.

Well it had to happen I guess. Yes I came round to the view I could look drop dead gorgeous in a imitation leather mini skirt!

Not so mini that it would look kind of cheap on me I went for a more discrete 17 inches in length with two pockets zipping up round the back, it would classy teamed with tights and a casual top.

For good measure it's lined too making for comfort where wearing for extending periods.

I don't have to just wear school and sports related feminine attire any more.

Wondering Son

Just showing on Crunchyroll is this series Wondering Son which is about a boy who has strong longing to dress as a girl. 

The synopsis of the anime is like this: 

Shuichi Nitori is a relatively normal child – a good student, a good friend, quiet and reserved. With a slight build and feminine interests, they find themselves at odds with the world around them. 

Nitori was assigned male at birth, but identifies as female. Yoshino Takatsuki, on the other hand is tall, a tomboy, with their own similar counterpart desires. 

They were assigned female, but wish to live as a man. 

After sharing such secrets between themselves upon meeting in the fifth grade, they quickly become firm friends. Commence queer transgender drama and teenage hijinks.

The anime covers the who area of gender identity and it's social importance.

Twists on looks

 Continuing the posts about looks

I have been know to wear tights both at work and at hometime but somehow wearing this sort of skirt  looks that bit more cute with socks so I did some investigations both online, in real life carefully observing what choices girls made and also seeing what my local market had as I live just outside a market town and often the local knicker man has stuff cheap.

The conclusion I came to was wearing long sock either just to knee height to over the knee worked best and as it happened they were really easy to find.

These over the knee socks actually match the charcoal grey of the skirt really well and wear together instantly transform me to a school girl

I have quite a few white and black and white over the knee socks as it was so I added these pastel pink ones with a embossed heart design being so quintessentially girlish as well as a similar white pair.

Note how this takes us back to the image I posted a long while back about how I saw myself as a child? The grey skirt, candy colour long socks and that are all there and when you chat with me then that's the LSG schoolgirl I resemble.

Amazing isn't it? 

Kiss

Work is afoot on the Kiss vinyl collection since it got trimmed in the late 80's and early 90's although I've always loved the band and have many of their albums on compact disc. The combination of the album art, sound and nostalgia of the moments when you got the new album and put it on your phonograph all point to a reason to tackle this part of my vinyl project this year.

The core left was:

Alive II -  US Original with the Evolution of Kiss booklet and thick gatefold cover featuring a stage shot.

Double Platinum - US Original in foil jacket and full inserts.

Dynasty - Italian LP

This was replaced by an US original with the poster, original inner sleeve and Kiss Army mechandising leaflet.

The original colour inner design.

Original mechandise leaflet and full colour poster with no pinholes or blu-tack marks.

Unmasked - Italian lp (no poster)

In 2014 the whole Kiss Catalogue was re-issued in remastered form on vinyl and I got a new copy of Unmasked. This included the poster!

Music from The Elder (UK) 

A concept album that introduced us to the late Eric Carr on drums and saw a new Fox make up scheme for him devised for concerts and promotional material and home to the singles I and A World Without Heroes.

Kiss Killers UK (stone mint)

Creatures Of The Night UK CANL 4.

Replacements for ether lost originals or cassette editions:

Dressed To Kill 1975 UK original with some wear to sleeve but Excellent condition vinyl with "Bogart" label

Destroyer US with Kiss Army inner sleeve

Although only VG+ graded apart from a few crackles through Beth this plays really well and sounds much better than any European lp issue I've ever heard.

Rock and Roll Over US copy has stickers and insert but is a bit noisy. 

Love Gun (no gun or merchandise leaflet) US copy.

My copy is a regular Casablanca pressing but for the Columbia Record Club which was a mail order discount club very popular at the time.

It has the same STERLING stamper as the regular shop sale version coming out the same press but has this stamp to denote ist is a "Club Issue".

For some reason the 1982 UK PolyGram re-issue and the first cd issue have a grainy sound with poor high frequency extension but the US original doesn't.

Such measures are common on "Club issues" to ensure discount copies were not being put in regular sales and also to make it easy for them to not be taken as part exchange.

My original copy was bought around March of 1983 although it was a good few years older being a sealed deleted stock item with a small corner triangular cut but sealed,

It has this original merchandising leaflet for Kiss Army products and membership included.

ln addition it had a comic style Love Gun you could push out the card insert, fold and produce your own that would make a loud Bang!

While it is frustrating not have a copy with everything your original did, many of these bits were lost y owners at the time being used as intended and so copies with them are a lot more expensive and in the end it is the music and the inner with the bands logo written on green marble that matters more.

A model with a difference

 

One person whose gotten the eye of many fashion commentators at this years London Fashion Show is Andrej Pejic a 19 year old model originating from Serbia, Europe and raised in Australia.

He's modelled wedding dresses for Jean Paul Gaultier as well as many others.

What I find interesting about him is he identifies with the male social gender but is very happy to model both male and female clothing unlike others who were what the Americans call Cross dressers or those who were born biologically male but who transitioned.

It just shows how different ways of expression can co-exist.