An adventure?

 

Sometimes you just crave excitement, the excitement of being being on an adventure  no matter what risks and one way of doing so was reading stories  but things started to change in the nineteen seventies as people started to produce dramatized readings often with sound effects.

We used to listen to a few at school that came on cassettes which were an easier medium for us to use being slot in, press play and eject and reload the second side.

This though is a record that has specially written songs in so you can sing along to them from my collection.

I did play it this week after a bad start to last week with health issues getting totally wrapped up in  the story.

Rubber Soul revisited

Some things are less announced than signalled so when in late 2023 the expanded 1962-1966 "red" compilation came out with seven brand new remixes speculation was after the October 2022 remix of Revolver when would we see a completly remixed stereo Rubber Soul, an album that transformed rock with a mixture of folk rock and soul styles.

The years went by, other projects came such as the 2024 60th anniversary US Mono lps and we wondered where was it.

Well it is here.

This is the Japan single shm cd edition in mini lp style packaging I went for.

As with Revolver the original four tracks of the studio masters were put though A.I. aided computerized learning to seperate out the instruments, vocals and so on to in effect create a more modern multitrack whose absolute level compared to each other could be better mixed and given this album always suffered from a disjointed instruments on the left, vocals on the right mix better spread to give a more cohesive sound especially on headphones.

This I have to say sounds lovely with very open, rich vocals but the backing close to the origins but spread so there is a centre channel and many of the drums are split between left and right like modern day mixes do as a matter of course.

It keeps very much the feel of the mono but has a great stereo mix, the two have the odd difference but nothing compared to the original stereo mix done in less than an hour after the mono.

The Dandy in the late 90's

Every week come rain or shine there was one thing that British schoolchildren looked forward to and even though it is no longer with us  others are and that is the children's comic.

Back then the Beano that mirrored chunks of your world with stories about home and school life together with stories from far away lands and there was from D C Thomson as well, The Dandy, that went through several makeovers before it finally closed in December 2012.

Over the years there has been a good number of cartoonists working on it, each adding something to its iconic cartoons and often referencing when in the year it came out like this Janauary 1999 edition that links to the Christmas and New Year pantomine season we so looked forward to (oh yes we did...),

The nineties were when many comics in sea of magazines for children went full colour and glossy and this was one of last of older newsprint era, full colour on the front leading this week with Desperate Dan.

 This is a good example as any of a pre 2007's where the comic was just an update on the original concept before in an ill-advised attempt to be as edgy as Viz even though that was for older teens and young adults  they moved to a celebratory lead Dandy Extreme varient that lost more readers than it gained.

By mid 1998 the comic tried more direct reader interaction soliciting content from the readership and having a side bar to pull children rummage though the newsagents racks into buying it.

Favourite such as Winker Watson continued by drawn in a more dynamic way with slightly more modern text although they were as ever third year prep school boys.

These editions may not be the classic late 1960s's to 80's ones we fongly remember but if you were to re-read them today you'd get a lot out of them with Korky,Molly and others.

More Baa baaa good films

This weekend by which I include Friday wasn't great not least for having bad miagraine do so things will need to be shortish this week.

I did see a little and heard rather more of as I couldn't stare at the screen for long of Blue Peter which after resumption two weeks ago was something I was looking forward to not least for talking about the new Aardman Animations film, The Beast of Mossy Bottom.

This segment was done by the more questionable addition to the show in recent years, that of CBBC's Hacker T Dog, yes a puppet attempting to do a interview which lacked some of seriousness it needed for the target audience never mind me.

The film, starring Shaun the Sheep and his merry friends has exclusive cinematic release for the autumn only and was released September 18th.

This is the  third feature film based on the television series Shaun the Sheep that itself a spin-off of the Wallace & Gromit short film A Close Shave (1995). 

The plot follows Shaun as he tries to save Halloween for the residents of Mossy Bottom farm. Things take a turn for the worse when The Farmer suddenly goes missing and a mysterious beast begins roaming nearby.

Shaun and the flock race to make an antidote for the growth potion as the farm's pumpkins begin to grow uncontrollably and from that the plot takes twist and turns which not wishing to spoil the plot we won't go into.

As ever there's no dialogue as such but we can work out what's being said whatever language we speak.

Reviews so far have been very favourable and with high takings at the box office.

Souled out

The last week saw some frustration with one record damaged on arrival, its replacement not being as advertised and another cancelled as it was faulty on one side.

That got me thinking back a bit to the year 2000 where I was building up a cd collection of soul music favourites.

A few years back in the early days of the compact disc, a series of discs was issued but seemed to disappear rapidly off the market that was most desirable

That series Big Hits and Hard To Find Classics on Motown  records, did what the title suggested for once giving us a few big hits by artists poorly represented on cd and adding shed load of recordings that having appeared once on 45, only made the very hard to find compilation albums like Motown Memories or Big Hits retrospectives series all gone in todays cd world.

On July 17th the British arm of Motown put out a re-issue -  well almost a full  re-issue as Eddie Hollands Jamie couldn't be found from the original volume 2 - of the original three cds that made it possible for me and a few few others to expand our Motown on cd collections following on from the re-issue of the UK Motown Chartbusters sets and the Hitsville USA box sets.

As a number of these tracks were from albums friends had or were played on the radio I'm delighted to hear them anew minus any scratches and other wear.

1986 is the year last Friday's Now Yearbook:Vaults series is covering and this was an album issued by a key member of the soul/funk group Shalamar when he and Judy Watley left the group in 1984 following differences with their management not least not letting them record many of their own compositions.

Howard had a great voice and this was an album I was fortunate to find a mint edition copy of cheaply.

Teenbeat: Female jazz albums I like

This weeks post has a genius that goes to the early 2000's when there were a number interesting series of programs on both Sky Arts and the BBC showcasing newer artists that unless you attended many concerts and read certain magazines that may of passed you by.

Jazz and Blues tends to be ignored on the radio.

Cassandra Wilson (née Fowlkes; December 4, 1955 – September 1, 2026) was an American jazz singer, songwriter and producer from Jackson, Mississippi. 

She was one of the most successful female jazz singers and has been described by critic Gary Giddins as "a singer blessed with an unmistakable timbre and attack [who has] expanded the playing field" by incorporating blues, country, and folk music into her work. 

To gage some sense of her importance you need to be aware of the numerous awards she won, including two Grammys, and was named "America's Best Singer" by Time magazine in 2001

Beginning with Blue Light 'til Dawn from 1993, her repertoire moved towards a broad synthesis of blues, pop, jazz, world music, and country. Although she continued to perform originals and standards, she adopted songs as diverse as Robert Johnson's "Come On in My Kitchen", Joni Mitchell's "Black Crow", The Monkees' "Last Train to Clarksville", and Hank Williams's "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry".

Diana Jean Krall OC OBC (born November 16, 1964) is a Canadian jazz pianist and singer known for her contralto vocals.

She has sold more than 15 million albums worldwide, including over six million in the U.S. On December 11, 2009, Billboard magazine named her the second-greatest jazz artist of the decade (2000–2009), establishing her as one of the best-selling artists of her time.

The Very Best of Diana Krall is the first greatest hits album by Canadian singer Diana Krall, released on September 18, 2007, by Verve Records.

"The Very Best of Diana Krall collects a nice cross-section of tracks the pianist/vocalist recorded beginning with her 1996 breakthrough album, All for You, and moving through to her 2006 effort From This Moment On. 

Glad Rag Doll is her eleventh studio album which was released on October 2, 2012, by Verve Records. Produced by T Bone Burnett,he album covers mainly jazz tunes from the 1920s and 1930s, mostly from her father's collection of 78-rpm records.

A restful day

Away days can be fun and I did get away at the weekend to Llandudno, North Wales.

Tourism is people is the mantra perfectionists of the photographic or painting sort need to consider - it's why things are there - so they belong in a picturelike this threesome do with the recently restored Grand Hotel that was showing signs of neglect a few years back.

The pier itself badly damaged in storms December 2025 has been restored with new facilities making the most of its length and views out, busy on a Saturday.

The was a car and vintage bike display on by the Lifeboat Association that generated a lot of attention.

That's the full length of the Pier with a cafe and area where people fish from as the tide was coming in

Looking across the beach towards the Little Orme and Craig-y-don with children playing while people sat on the ample seating watching the day go by or perhaps recalling the days it was them playing!

Lewis Carroll is linked to Llandudno so it's no surprise there's a trail devoted to Alice In Wonderland and this rabbit that often gets a new jacket.

Tons of children had there photos taken by it as I sat watching by parents and grand parents.

*All photos taken on Sony DCS-RX 100