Early Christmas's

 Christmas is really more for children and for me personally pretty much belongs as past relived ritual and that's what I'm looking at today.

There always was a decorated Christmas Tree back then while dad or an uncle would play with me leaving the women to take care of any girls or babies which was the norm back then but anyway I liked the attention!

We had scalaxtrics sets that roared around the track at speed.

I often had dress up sets usally superheroes like Batman, Robin or Spiderman and my younger brother had an astronaut set with helmet that we enacted their moves in.

Sometimes you'd get something a bit more special like an adventure set with compass, torch, watch and camers to document that first adventure.

A memory for of junior christmas was playing with young boy cousins usally fairly safe things like car based stories that'd we'd feature our new toy cars in and our parents hoped we'd learn to handle a bit of responsibility.

The Choir Boy

Christmas with me means carol services and choir schools who provide the singers at places such as King's which I watched from boyhood with my folks beneath those cassocks are fine everyday schoolboys of the sort who love fun and jokes as much as parts of that life are more serious.

2003 Review

Today I'm just jotting down a few thoughts around the year here.

After the implosion of ITV Digital in early May of last year, I went back to Sky Television and that 45cm rugby ball shaped satellite dish because of two problems namely poor reception of the now Freeview digital service and the need for a replacement set of paid channels since ITV digital went.

That meant getting Eurosport and Sky Sports for the footy which I had previously and children's programming from Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and the new dedicated BBC CBeebies and CBBC channels as most adult oreientated channels do nothing for me.

My likes are very much child-like in the way they still were ten years ago, watching Anthea Turner and the gang on Blue Peter just like I did then and by extention I did from around very late 1969/70.

Unlike 2002, in so far as music went vast chunks did not really connect at all with me, nothing much came out that I could get into except the Bluetones Luxembourg album which was noticably shorter than the previous three albums, a Suede compilation and completing my Stones remasters series from late last year.

When it comes to work this year had on the face of it started off on a bit of a high as an offer had been made to do some external training at work. I've never had an issue with training or even education in its broader sense but this was a course taking in being able to do presentations, knowledge around disability issues and legislation and communications skills.

The idea had been really about equipping staff to deliver external training to a very high standard but for me at least it was more about finding more of myself and exploring the idea of a change of direction as I feel underused as a resource and very alienated toward the management system that had changed beyond all recognition since I first joined.

I've enjoyed the lectures, working on projects and am sure I'll get a good result when the whole thing is marked

As to what the upcoming year brings I don't know but I sense I wish to make some changes to my life.

Cricket

Cricket was something I heard a lot about in the era of Geoff Boycott although apart from playing the simplified "French Cricket" variant with my younger brother on hols in t shirts and short games shorts, I never did cricket.

The Two Mark's at boarding school were massively into it though memorizing the daily scores, watching by permission bits of the Test Matches on the common room tv during breaks or putting the radio onto BBC Radio Four test match special to catch up in that pre-internet era.

Where the magic was

 

This was really more the kind of school look I coveted in my teens, a boy at a Prep School with a slightly old fashioned uniform that looked really smart where no one would just assume I'm a pintsized adult just seen as a boy who was at least in some ways maturing.

Boarding school life it must be said did suit me having everything at hand all term around, clubs, activities, mates to play with and all that so the Harry Potter series of books are right up my alley in heaps of ways.

I even enjoyed learning some elementary magic!

Shaving

 Strange as it may sound, some topic just were never even spoken of growing up.

Take shaving for instance, something pretty much every boy would be aware of the moment the first soft impressions of a moustache and fuzz around the chin spurted around fourteen or fifteen.

In most housholds you'd expect some sort of conversation about shaving not least as schools usually have "clean shaven" policies you'd be expected to keep to, some one to one tuition on shaving techniques and at the very least to had been bought your first personal shaving kit.

Strangely enough that never happened with me being only given a electric shaver form own use at the age of twenty.

It was almost as if you didn't see the changes you were going through.

These days I have a Braun foil shaver I change the foils on regulary.

The pull of the past

I don't know why but I picked up from Argos the all new catalogue from a mail order company just started up called Additions, something I've never really bothered with in the past.

Past for some reason seems to be the word because I've been staring at a grey pair of shorts for over an hour who looking at myself in the mirror as it looks a bit like a part of a posh schools uniform and I keep on thinking about what it was like.

This is like it, about 9 inch inside leg and being fairly slim I can get into the sizes for "bigger boys".

 There's just something comfortable to me being like I was at junior school wearing a uniform, being told what to do I just feel good about.

I want it even though I'm not sure quite where I'm going to wear them so I filled out the order form and attached a cheque anyway.

Early 1986

In April of 1986 I was listening to this single hoping to get the album it's from if I can make up my own mind as to what format I want it in having gotten a cd player recently and if the cd is is available as stuff just comes and goes in our local store.

What I like about it is the harmonies that reminds me of how we used to sing at school and also  what the lyric is about.

Somedays I go through phases of not really knowing what I want and why I want it which wasn't so bad in the past as I'd talk it through with my school friends who'd help me clarify my thoughts but of course a good number like Andy and Mark are no longer there.

What's triggered this whole thing off is listening this lunchtime time to  a Radio Show called The Old Record Club presented on the U.K's Radio One by the presenter Jimmy Saville from January of that year. 

He presents it in a "Triple Top Ten" format looking at three years charts per week, this week 1982, 1976 and 1971 where he plays and talks about the records.

I'm finding it is bring back my memories  of those years that had been buried, years I spent in school with friends and feel my childhood matters to me for the first time.

I even took my Kodak Disk camera out and photograph some of the places that mattered to me back then.

Post script for 2012.

The presenter was unmasked for offences against children, full details being available online in all the usual sites something feel I strongly about, however this show he presented did help me to piece together my past inspiring me to deal with unresolved issues in a way few other things did so for me this memory remains a good one.

Beethoven's piano sonatas

 

It's getting into cooler part of Autumn now so I'm playing records a bit with the heating on a little and that includes box sets such as this one that has been with me since childhood.

Pollini was and is a wizard pianist who first came to my attention with his 1960 account of Chopin's first piano concerto and then this 1977 box set that gathered three seperate lp issues up that had won major awards for the playing.

Rather than print the individual sleeves there's a colour booklet that outlines all the works, notes on each work and full colour pictures, saving space and looking really attractive.

This remains a great set that has been issued on two cds and will be played in the next few days a disc at a time.

Frustrated

You know I hate 2003

I feel so frustrated in a post that leaves me feeling I'm going nowhere fast with no real progression and detached from much of the life of organization I work for like I'd sooner work womehere that has a social side to it, the way firms used to be.

Like in my first job in 1984 during the dinner hour we played French Cricket in part of the stores with management approval as we were just youngsters wanting to releases our stresses and strains.

I'd sooner go back to 1983 where I of looked more like this or 1973 were we did our school work, played out, got whackings from time to time but just felt free from the stresses and strains I'm feeling right now as a supposed effing adult who doesn't feel he belongs.

Just gimme a pill to do that, will ya?
 

Take Six by Bob Dylan on cd

Bob Dylan in this, the modern era began with hearing about the Five Lp Biograph digitally re-mastered box set in late 1985 when the lp record and tape era was facing its challenge from the Compact Disc and that issue was compiled with the original mediums in mind.

I did not get the cd version which reshuffled it into three cds until 1997 in freshly mastered form which takes hits, deep album cuts and rarities when it replaced my much played Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits tape I bought in 1981.

Currently a number of things are going on such as the re-issue of catalogues on a better sounding form of Compact Disc called the Super Audio CD and last year I bought many of the Rolling Stones issues and on September 16 this year Bob Dylan had some sixteen titles issued in this format.

I borrowed many of his albums in the late 1970's and early 1980's buying the odd title such as The Times They Are Changing from 1964 on record in 1982 although that went in a record purge in the late 1980's.

One I still had was the TC8 eight track tape of Highway 61 Revisited from 1965 although I no longer own a player for it like I did in 1981 and so this was one of a small number of these discs I bought in the last few weeks.

It has has the single Like A Rolling Stone on it.

The discs look like this, similar to that of the original lps indicating if they are stereo or also have surround sound mixes like the days of Quadraphonic audio in the mid 1970's I remember well.

Unlike some these play on regular cd players too for having two layers.

Blonde On Blonde issued in 1966 was the first rock double studio album including  the hit singles Rainy Day Women, I Want You and Just Like A Woman.

This is a new mix, believe it or not there have been a number of different stereo mixes over the years and this is better than the 1990's Gold Columbia Mastersound cd I used to own.

I don't apologize for liking Country based music and this album with input from Johnny Cash featuring the hit single Lay Lady lay from 1969 is a favourite, sounding really rich in this issue.

Dylan in the early 1970's seemed to lose his way with double compilations and just the odd single making any real interest but 1974's Planet Waves reuniting him with The Band to which the sessions known as The Basement Tapes from late 1967 were to be issued the next year was a well deserved return to form.

1975 also saw a masterpiece, possibly his best 70's album in the form of Blood On The Tracks that featured such songs as Tangled Up In Blue and a Simple Twist Of Fate.

This was always a favourite of mine.

Finally, Dylan controversially "got saved" and embraced Christianity and this heavily influenced a series of three albums, of which this is to me the easiest to get into.

The original 1978 mix was somewhat murky but has been remixed for this super audio cd to great effect featuring the singles Baby Stop Crying and Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)

These discs come in digipak form rather like those Rolling Stones ones and sound great on my regular cd player.

I don't know if I will get a Super Audio cd player, for one thing they tend to be expensive but until then I can enjoy them.

Christmas 1985

Among some socks and gloves from my aunts  I had for Christmas was this, the new Simple Minds album which is more a stadium rock affair with the current single Alive And Kicking which I got on Chrome cassette (Blogger update converted to cd in the 90's) and

The debut lp by Britain's family R&B act Five Star featuring their singles All Fall Down  and System Addict.

I watch the Top of the Pop's special and Queen's speech with my parents while my brothers come who aren't fazed be seeing me play as it might as well of been 1975 except for different news and that.

Autumn 1985 revisited

In Mid November I went out with my brother on the train to Manchester, a city in England's North-west famed for its soccer and entertainment stars to do  a bit of sight-seeing and shopping.

I have a lot of issues around trains, anxiety over getting in the right one, fears about opening the door to get off and the whole thing around them as I was made to visit and go them as a child against my will.

Anyway we made our way to Manchester Piccadilly and strolled around China Town and Piccadilly Gardens and then aimed for the Arndale Centre a large mall complex to visit some clothes shops and music stores as we both like music and we saw two new stores open up.

This is one album I bought new, Elton's new one with current 45 Nikita and being the new Compact Disc they've added the non album  Act Of War single to it.

 I also insisted on going to a big toy store too cos I love those places and in truth I feel much more comfortable surrounded by things from my childhood.

The day is good coming back with some records and a teddy.

Back in October that year we went out on a trip to NewcastleUnder Lyme and I was able to replace my original America MCA lp of the 1978 A Single Man lp, the home of Part Time Love and A Song For Guy with the new Compact Disc version made in West Germany. 

I like this format a lot but I think it will take me a good while to build up the sort of collection I have already on Lp record and tape not least because of the high prices these discs cost even for albums that have been out for years and to which the tape and record versions are already discounted.

When it comes to records I tape them on my Akia cassette deck buying tapes in multi-paks or at Amateur Radio Rallies where among radio stuff discounted stock is sold off.

The Live Aid Scrapbook (July 1985)

The Iconic cover of Smash Hits magazine, the bi weekly we all read with Bob Geldof one of two its main movers Midge Ure of Ultravox being the other at the podium  in Wembley, England.

We watched and listened to the show coming from Wembley and Philadelphia, USA to the early hours of the morning seeing some amazing performances, phoning in money to help the starving in Ethiopia.

Trying to stay awake, operating our Betamax VCR, punching the controls on my Tandberg stereo open reel deck and a cassette deck simultaneously was a co-ordination challenge but it was worth it.

Favourite acts performances:
Queen "Global jukebox"
Bryan Adams in Philly
Tom Petty
Duran Duran and Powerstation
Thompson Twins with Madonna
Elton John
Phil Collins.

Late Summer Hols 2003

I'm away again before I start studying for a course in a few weeks time at work and today I caught a bus to Caernarfon - the 5X - from where I'm staying to visit the Castle built by King Edward.

I find vacationing very peaceful with the idea of packing and unpacking reminding me of the rituals of the boarding school I attended and indeed seeing the local school children in their uniforms brings it all back to me.

We visited the shops, a tea room and had a meal out although later on he had to fight off the Seagulls after your Ice Creams and other food.

Boyhood life

Boyhood for me was always tough having more than enough physical challenges just getting through the day before you took in the crazy, nay almost insane things boys like me do.

Just playing a full game of football took a lot out of me not being strong and being very unstable on your feet where often I'd fall down and have to get myself off covered in mud, dust myself and get back to playing just like any other boy

It was somewhat late in the day when the much promised playground that our parents were told we'd have actually materialized as the deveopers wanted to stick yet more houses on it but it was always hard going keeping up with the other boys whither we played here or where our somewhat tough and very physical games .

For me one memory of boyhood was and remains the number of times I was told to stand in a corner, facing the wall in front of my classmates because I hadn't followed the rules or had been 'a silly boy' after a spanking.

Even if it wasn't followed up by anything else you felt the shame of having to miss out on whatever was going on and be made an example of.

There was never exception to the routine and rules boys followed just for me, disabled me just had to hack it just the same in in trough it probably did me more good whatever I might of thought at the time.

Early 1985 recalled

I might of left school in 1983 but it said a lot that I still watched tv shows like Grange Hill in 1985 with the Head Mistress Mrs McCluskey Jackanory and Blue Peter rather than transitioning to programming for young adults.

It's indeed ironic I had a significant birthday in March that subjectively wasn't other than buying and lugging a high quality used cassette deck back on a bus after a day at a MSC Training Centre trying to find what I was good at.

If 1984 consolidated the hit compilation lp in the form of the Now That's What I Call Music series the arrival in the last months of the HITS series from the rival record companies CBS and WEA saw them get a new double compilation out before NOW with HITS 2 which featured many of my favourite songs of this era

I'm tuned to the radio in February to a show on Signal radio here where over two hours the play specially extended versions of songs released on 12 singles and one they played was this from the Big Bam Boom! album I got just after Christmas that featured the first hit from it Out Of Touch.

Listening to the radio's always been a great comfort for me not least when not so many years ago I was often poorly and also at school as the played the chart run downs talking about our likes and dislikes. I still clutch my plushies as I sing along to the songs as it just feels good.

Tv shows and stuff

Some personalities loomed big in my childhood, usally connected to things like the radio or tv either as presenters or people who fronted shows on them like the Master of Ceremonies of a Circus show or old time Music Hall type show.

Back in the seventies and eighties you couldn't escape the likes of Jimmy Saville OBE with his own radio shows, co presenting many editions of Top Of The Pops that featured your favourite artists with their new hit singles and Jim'll Fix It which vied with It's A Knockout for forth and fifth place respectively for favourite shows on tv back then.

The top three were Blue Peter which still is my favourite all time show, followed by Tomorrow's World the science lead show which showed new developments and their potential applications and Jackanory.
 

Being in class

 

In a lot of ways this could of been me in third or forth form with that more angular face with soft fresh skin in class that a bit more of a upper juniors feel to it than that of most secondary schools with small class size.

Compared to some schools the work as more at our own individual level such as in English Language we have worksheet we progress at at our own pace which suits me as I struggle with spelling, word usage and that as I'm behind my years but other things are harder because it's whole class chalk and talk teaching such as Maths which I struggle with even struggling to write down what we're doing.

In early 1985 I was diagnosed as dyslexic, something my school utterly failed to and really everything I'd experienced around learning made more sense.

Learning by doing suits me much better.

Two by ABC

While I plan on making a series of year on year posts to cover the gap from when I started this blog and everything that happened before, today I'll look at two things that featured in their respective years.

ABC's The Lexicon Of Love was a fantastic combination of well observed sometimes cynical lyrics around relationships, rich arrangements including strings by Anne Dudley that reached cinematic levels to a  contemporary synth pop beat.

It was the home to the singles "Tears Are Not Enough"," Poison Arrow", "The Look Of Love" and "All Of My Heart".

The cd version sounded very flat and lacking in tonal colour  compared to my well worn tape so I have now the original British record version bought while away from a used record shop that just leaps out from the speakers at you.

The follow up album Beauty Stab from 1983 with the song S.O.S. strippe dthat back to a guitar sound that didn't really connect with fans while 1985's How To Be A Zillionaire saw the band as almost a cameo starring in a cartoon creation that sold poorly in the UK although I liked the songs "Be Near Me", "Vanity Kills" and "How To Be A Millionaire".

1987 saw a sort of return to the vision of Lexicon Of Love with its themes and lush arrangements even if the beat was more post Prince and Jam&Lewis that showed in songs like "When Smokey Sings" which sold well and "King Without A Crown".

The cd had a couple of extra tracks and two 12" mixes but given my liking of I did get the American promotional lp which does sound fuller.

Having these two classic 80's albums on vinyl is such great fun!

Autumn 1984 Recollections

We begin this late 1984 recollection looking a bit at Christmas  and a few things I had then.

It's been a couple of months since the album and its lead single Wild Boys  were released which I've been enjoying on the then new XDR cassette that sound really good and bought the 7 and 12" 45's of the single too.

Cassettes had started to gain better artwork matching more of recordsfrom than a single front image and a typewritten credits.

I also had Hysteria the current Human League album that year.

The tv we watched was little different than it had been over Christmas with Noel Edmonds and Mike Smith doing a hospital ward based show, a comedy program, Christmas Top Of The Pops and naturally the Queen's speech.

 

There's blockbuster film but this year there was a couple of Duran Duran specials we watched.

On 29 December we watched and recorded on our fairly recently aquired Betamax video recorder the show As The Lights Go Down which is a full length concert produced by England's Central television in the Midlands from the concerts partially used in the Arena album.

Outside of reading Giles and the Christmas Beano I had this book by the Conservative Politician  Francis Pym looking at governance and current affairs.

I had some vouchers and money for Christmas so I can buy more stuff next year.

In early September this year returned from summer vacation in a static caravan visiting Portmadog, Wales, looking at trains not my idea mind but Dads and Mommy and I reckon he drives us all mad with them as we prefer to see buildings and visit the shops. 

I listened to some albums such as Billy Idol's Rebel Yell, Sports by Huey Lewis and the Footloose soundtrack and visited a lovely record shop called Cob Records.

Officially it's been 14 months since I've left school but I really don't feel I've left it emotionally or psychologically at all.

I still have the folders containing rapidly written by hand notes with diagrams and some of the books we used for our last two years subjects  stored in an old chest.

Summer Sounds '84 - The American Heartbeat

 Writing the entry on the Seventh with its picture of my original portable radio cassette-recorder reminded me of something I played rather a lot back then.

When it came to buying records back in early to mid 1984 I was juggling between buying seven and twelve inch singles, getting new albums by artists I liked and catching up getting the albums a couldn't afford a few years before to which in a old school exercise book I'd written down the titles and artists.

I had bought some compilations and did buy the then new Now That's What I Call Music series of doubles with chart hits to which we were up to Now 3 at this point whwn I saw this tv promoted compilation.

It was a selection of the Adult Orientated Rock I'd liked for a number of years including that crucial 80-82 period from people like Journey, Toto and Survivor, a new hit by Wang Chung I liked and some mid 70's classics like Carry On Wayward Son by the brilliant Kansas.

I bought this from Replay Records in the major town in the northern part of the city region, Tunstall and copied it to TDK SA-X tape which I then played on that radio cassette recorder all summer together with Billy Idol's Rebel Yell and the pre-recorded tape of Footloose.

Unlike the tape player the record is still with me.

Suede and the 1990's

Around the mid 1990's I was working here in North Staffordshire in City Engineers and in the Criminal Justice System and the availablity of decent lunch breaks coupled with being in the two main centres meant I could easily spend time in record stores and even hang out with students and so it was I got into Suede.

What they had going for them was in Brett Anderson, a vocalist with the theatrical styling of David Bowie both on stage and in his vocal delivery and this their 1993 debut included 1992's Metal Mickey and March 1993's Animal Nitrate singles I had seen on Top of the Pops and on MTV as we'd got satellite tv then.

I first heard Dog Man Star in October 1994 at our city centre HMV store being blasted over the instore music system with the lead off single We Are The Pigs plus Heroine, The Wild Ones and The Two of Us.

It was more immediate as an album but had a good number of more reflective numbers.

Coming Up from September 1996 was a more overtly commercial album in some respects that garnered no less than five singles such as the reflective album closer Saturday Night, Lazy,Trash, and Star Crazy that picked up on celebratory culture, fashion, the post acid house rave scene and chav culture.

They were and are great reflections of that time in British life as the last vestigages of the Stiff Upper Lip left and before the early internet changed things so much.

I liked this period as much as it was different to when I grew up because to me everything burst out in fully saturated colour and we all expressed our individual selves much more.

Early 1984 recalled

New Years Eve was like it normally is, loud with bangs and Auld Lang Syne and before you know it you're into the year written about by George Orwell of whom I read most of his novels of in my teens.

Radio still plays a big part in my life, mainly Radio One and Signal Radio and that figured in March when it was my birthday so things like the banning of Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Relax is a big deal with me although I'm infactuated with Wonderland by Big Country having bought the twelve inch single of it.

I also bought Living In Oz an album by Rick Springfield which contained three american hits I liked.

Finally  arriving boxed from the catalogue company, my very own Boom Box made by Pioneer came in time although this one has less boom than most I have to say reproducing my cassette of Seven and The Ragged Tiger, the current Duran Duran album well.

It has a  AM/FM stereo radio unit, fully functional tape recorder that handles most tapes including the more recent Metal Oxide ones and Dolby noise reduction. 

As well it uses two speakers - one being a tweeter for the high notes - for each channel, a pair of RCA in and outs for use with home systems and a headphone jack.

I record concerts and chart shows a lot and this makes it easier.

One of  best friends at school had one a bit like this last year before we all left in the Summer and I really liked it. I wonder how they're all getting on?