New Tom Petty and some Rush re-issues

This week I'm looking at a brand new album on lp record just like it was when I was in my teens and a couple of cd re-issues.

Those who follow the album charts can't helped to notice Tom Petty recently topped it in the States with Hypnotic Eye that came out late July but it wasn't until last week I got my copy because it is the 140 gram German lp pressing simply cos it sounds a bit better (and has more dynamics) than the cd version plus came with a free download code for 24bit (48K) High Definition lossless digital audio and regular slightly more compressed Mp3. 

Favourites from this altogether really good comeback album are Burnt Out Town which with American Dream Plan B  and Power Drunk are good examples of Tom Petty drawing from current affairs to write spirited songs about the World we live in.

As some of you are aware, I do buy specialty reissues that offer better sound than the originals and one that recently landed my was this, the late 1989 Presto album by ace Canadian rockers, Rush that I bought when it first came out. 

I felt around the time they issued Hold Your Fire! in 1987, they were losing their way, sounding too close to bland 'Stadium  Rock' for a band who impressed me from a very early age with more complex lyrics and musicianship but This had what was missing - 'bite' in the lyrics.

It also helped some of the songs used childhood settings such as playing Rock,Paper,Scissors in Hand Over Fist and examining self deception and vanity through play in War Paint  to make their points clearly.

This copy sounded warmer and less brittle than the original.

Earlier in the year, this rather more longer Progressive rock inspired opus from 1978 was re-issued that not only completed the space fantasy story of Cygnus X1 started in 1977's A Farewell To Kings album, give us a parable on forced equality in the form of The Trees but gives us La Ville Strangliato a marathon over 9 minute totally amazing work out just showing how accomplished at playing their instruments the band really are.

 I also picked up the 2013 issue in this series of Counterparts from 1993 which includes Animate, Cut To The Chase and Cold Fire.

All three of  these discs are super audio compact discs  (sacd)  designed to give better sound on suitable players that also  have a regular cd player for the rest of us.

Beatles on Hols

August 1978 was an eventful period for me as a fourteen year old boy as we'd gone on our hols and this year we were in Aberystwyth on the north west Wales coast which is a university town.

As a teen I already had an interest in music and spent part of a morning in record shop where apart from getting my first copy of one Beatles album I learned that students liked to have them sent home so actually the shop just kept the covers for display and sent an ordered copy to you!  

It was also the week All You Need is Cash starring The Rutles was shown on the BBC.

Their were a number of trusted budget labels which for popular music included EMI's Music For Pleasure and the Pickwick group and while in a branch of W H Smiths one morning that week I spotted this album.

In the early days of the Beatles they had been recorded mainly as a backing band to Tony Sheridan a popular singer who also performed in Hamburg in the then West Germany and one song, My Bonnie was the single requested by a few early fans that lead to Brian Epstein making inquiries into them and becoming their manager. 

This was while Pete Best was the drummer before being replaced by Ringo Starr.

Those recordings had been issued a number of times but were on Contour a budget label in the Pickwick Group that had recordings from the Polydor and Philips catalogue.

They had it in stock on record, eight track cartridge a tape format that was on the wain and cassette which was non dolby and had orange labels and it was that I bought playing on a sky blue portable Prinz shoe box recorder I'd had since early 1972.

Several years ago I did get the record edition as my tape had long disappeared as apart from these being the earliest studio recordings, they despite what it says on the label are true stereo and sound amazing.

Little children and their Big Trains

Standing before the Great Hall of Steam Engines, a little boy pays homage to power of steam, the achievements of men in their glistening condition.

Every older boy and man knows this boy will return time and time again throughout his life to visit and ride on the trains as being captivated at an early age, be forms a bond with sight, sounds and smells of steam trains.

It was what happened to a four year old me.

Trains were a big thing in boyhood with me and this is practically boy folk law, a replica of Stephenson's Rocket locomotive photographed in The Great Hall of the National Railway Museum, York in 2014.

Summer 2014 Anime update

I do watch animes sometimes streaming, other times through value dvd box sets and this is an update on my current watches.

I'm slowly getting through the last 14 episodes of Fairy Tail as the series progresses  ending one arc and beginning another. 

Also I have finished watching  Is the order a rabbit? which centres around the adventures of Cocoa Hoto as she's moved to a new town and inevitably a new school where we find she has moved in with Chino Kafu at her families Rabbit House café where she takes a job to pay for her accommodation. Cocoa soon meets Rize who is also a waitress at the café and having had a military father, shows the same strongly disciplined approach although not to the exclusion of having a cutesy feminine side.

The show also stars Tippy, an Angora rabbit who sits atop of Chino's head when  not around Cocoa and we met Chiya whose family also runs a rabbit café.

The show can be caught on Crunchyroll as also for North Americans can the much anticipated redux of Sailor Moon known as Sailor Moon Crystal (UK and Europe need to go to Sailor Moon Crystal to watch that due to a licensing restriction).

August: Making things edition

The height of Summer August always played a part in the rituals of childhood being the month we tended to go away for our family holidays.

It's only in the last nine months or so I have been in the privileged position to be able to spend time with people who from a different angle spend time together to be more child like and also can accept my gender fluid feminine side.

We were away this year and amongst other things we made a Disney Princess lego kit between us and I made some new lovely memories.

In the ideal world back then I'd of been doing different sorts of makes altogether like bakes making cakes and been able to be a Brownie although there's really no reason as age dysphoric little I can't be and making up for that.

I am being taught some basic cookery skills while away to help me be the best gurl I can which will help.

Two higher quality compilations

Sat here, melting, drinking glass after glass of treated tap water in this weeks summer sun, thoughts roll back to hits from the past and that's what this short  entry is all about.

Its existence was met with some mirth at a certain music site where some patrons are incredibly elitist (you can only  like studio albums according to some and don't mention iTunes!) but it's a compilation with a difference for based upon a Time Life one, it makes a point of using the very best available sources so not only can I enjoy Schools Out that was (appropriately) a big hit during the summer vacation of '72 it also sounds terrific into the bargain. 

Ditto Manfred Mann Band's spirited version of the Springsteen song Blinded by the Light so by the time I'd past Freebird, not only was I hearing many of my favourite hits I was thinking back to those times.

 This like it's predecessor also has a TimeLife pedigree with 17 tracks from the mid 60's to Mid 80's featured in their full album versions remastered for regular and super audio cd on one disc from their original masters which typical doesn't happen with compulations as much as we love playing them.

This one gives us the best sounding For What It's Worth by the Buffalo Springfield, Running On Empty by Jackson Browne,  Pretenders Back on the Chain Gang and Daniel (the latter besting the DCC Greatest Hits version even) amongst others on a single 70 odd minute disc that just rolls on back the years.

The set keeps the original Time Life booklet notes and pictures.

While generally I don't buy compilations from specialty companies preferring single artist albums, I felt these two were worth getting for the sound.

We'll see just how popular this excursion into compilations has been for California's Audio Fidelity label.

I'm a sucker for a compilation well done just for that feeling - maybe you are too - and this is one I can recommend for the sound. 

I am and will be...Me

 

The other day I saw this and thought it was wonderful and deserving of a reprint

To me so long as you you don't hurt others you should be able to:-

Dress the way you want

Act the way you feel

Live the way you wish

Do whatever makes you happy

and finally, 

Be whoever you wish to be.

Is that too much to ask for?

I am a little sissy gurl who wears dresses and skirts that's all.