Ozzy Osbourne

 

Yesterday it was announced that Ozzy Osbourne heavy metal vocalist, major part of the pioneering group Black Sabbath and reality tv star died after a period of illness with parkinson's disease, two weeks on from the reunited for the last time concert of Black Sabbath at Villa Park, Aston, Birmingham.

It's fair to say Heavy Metal, particuary at it's more gothic end wasn't my main thing although I was well aware of their music but when I heard Paroniod issued as a single in 1980, I know I wanted it as I just loved the riff.

Mr Osbourne found playing the werewolf for the photoshoot for Bark At The Moon a sticky experience as trying to remove his hir suit took some doing but I loved this single when it came out in late 1983 taken from the album of the same name and his 1986 hit, The Ultimate Sin.

R.I.P Ozzy, you were great.

What next for The Beatles U.S.vinyl reissues?

We are approaching Easter so there is some preparation for that here and I have been continuing on with sorting some duplicate copies out and straighting some of the storage out so it's easier to finding things and is straight.

Over at a music forum, a pretty busy one actually, follow last years release of six (plus one exclusive to the boxed edition) of a series of classic mainly American beatles album from 1964 marking how that year and the "British Invasion" impacted america talk has moved to what about the other albums.

A basic fact in so far as their catalogue goes is after 1967, any UK albums were released in same form as in the U.K. in the States so there are less varients so there are limits to how how any reissue series can go with those albums being available anyway new.

Three 1965 U.S. albums are potential candidates, June 1965's Beatles VI (That's Six if you don't do roman numerals!) that featured the number 1 single Eight Day's A Week, Yes It Is (the "B" side of Ticket To Ride) and two tracks record originally for this album alone.

In the U.K. Help! was issued in September 1965 and had seven film songs and seven others on the second side while in the U.S. Capitol issued it in  gatefold sleeve with instrumentals from the film.

That would have collector appeal.

Finally Rubber Soul emerged at the end of the year but while it shared the same title as the U.K. edition, the U.S. version only uses ten songs of the fourteen and adds two more folky songs previously issued in the U.K. on that second side of Help! that it is held changes the feel of the album and some do prefer.

1966 saw two albums, Yesterday and Today, enjoyable mixture of singles held back from U.S. versions of Help! and Rubber Soul such as Yesterday, a number 1 single in September 1965 and with a highly controversial initial cover (the so-called "Butcher Cover") and Revolver that was just like the U.K. except it missed three tracks issued on Yesterday and Today.

I feel good arguments can be made for all the 1965 albums as they do offer something different to the now standardized U.K. catalogue especially on vinyl which we've not had since the late 1980's but Revolver is just the UK version minus three tracks.

You might be nostalgic for it but in the racks would you choose it?

For extra albums to me the only clear cut option is the 1970 originally U.S. only Hey Jude compilation for its cover and being the first time many of these singles had been available on a U.S. album in stereo.

Tales from the cold

Phew Aren't you glad last week is all over with from the snow to the minus four temperatures overnight that saw me in bed socks ?

We're slowly updating the electric oil filled radiators on temperature and time controls as the gas boiler is not working and it's scarcely worth doing much with all the talk of shunting you on Heat Pumps and old systems being written off.

I did have a few cds to entertain myself with and actually I found a bundle stashed by the cd player upstairs as I tend to be downstairs more since Mum's death and that's where the main hifi set up is so I give them a quick clean with IPA as markes and airborn stuff soon settle on them and stored them down here.

The Beatles discs came, two are with Mr. S. Claus late of the North Pole as they're for Crimbo and the other three are in the main collection that has The Beatles in Mono set of 10 mono lp's from 2014, I put the cats on cheaper food to pay for and a mixture of 1970's, 80's UK stereo editions and a couple of the 2012 stereo remasters where I thought they had something to offer.

There is a small portion of American discs of that handfull of titles I do like for their different selections often adding singles which the UK albums as a rule did not but having sorted the collection out in the 2000's, I can't see it changing much.

These new mono version do sound great and there is something for hearing the early recordings with the sound coming in just one direction rather than being at the extreme left and right.

Back when officially I was a boy, rather than someone who has not left being one, I did have things aranged that with the tube (Brit Eng: Valved) monoblock pair of power amplifiers and pre-amp I coud actually switch off one side and direct anything in mono to just one loudspeaker at the far end of the room for a more authentic single point sound.

These day's you're lucky if a preamp or intergrated amplifer even has a mono button to reduce the impact of any slight wear or crackles on older mono records.

That '74 feeling again

 

The more or less four yearly competition to see who makes the most rashes promises to run the government is in its final stages although a common response is to "stick it to the man" as people are fed up people promising what they don't (and maybe) can't deliver and not really answering the question when it comes how they they will pay for things.

Dad was saying he thought it might be as close as it was in 1974.

Crumbs! I remember the chaotic period only too well.

There were better memories of then though as a original ten year old and that was of watching a series of five minute cartoons by the Wombles who became a pop group and environmental champions too.

This very limited record came the other week.

It's basically a Greatest Hits album with all your favourite singles in there chronological order of release as issued on CBS Records over here with the Wellington solo track, and exclusive US single and the version of The Wombling Song used in the film Wombling Free in 1977.

That means such classics as Super Womble, Wombling Merry Christmas and Remember You're a Womble are gathered up with a essay and picture on the inner sleeve to be played and enjoyed the way we did back then.

Listening to that was pretty enjoyable as we seem to be going through another colder damp spell.

Early 1970

 Early 1970 or perhaps the transition between 1969 and 1970 is the earliest period I have clear childhood memories of from playing near the railway line at the back of our house and with the wood louse near the trees between our garden and the busy road we were told never to cross on our own.

There were comics like Sparky that my Nan who lived two houses away bought me and I'd watch with my brothers Crackajack, play school at weekends as by that point I was in Infants and Blue Peter on the hazy black and bluey-white tv that stuggled in our area a to get a good enough BBC 2.

Another show we tended to watch together and this continued for quite a period after we moved was Top Of The Pops which would be followed up on the radio on Sunday evening by the official chart rundown.

Musically it was a cross over as we had still hits from the likes of Herman's Hermits and the Dave Clark Five and the Beach Boys although a group with connections to the Beatles being on their label Badfinger had their first hit, Come And Get It that sounded very much like a Paul McCartney song.

Indeed it near lt fooled me.

There were two records by new artists that make lasting earworm memory with me the first being Love Grows by the Edison Lighthouse.

The other was The Same Old Feeling by Pickettywitch.

Observant eyes will have spotted they were both written Tony Macaulay but with different co writers.

Perhaps the biggest suprise from that year was as we moved into it Two Little Boys performed by Rolf Harris got to the number one spot a tale of long lived boyhood friendship and as we left that year into 1971 Grandad by Clive Dunn who we all new from Dad's Army, the WW2 Home Guard based comedy show on BBC1.

It too was a song with enduring theme and message and that was sharing past events and lessons he'd learned along the way, valuing what older people had to offer in society and how that can help us grow so perhaps this image of an older Top Of The Pops audience sat around listening to him isn't so surprising as that's what as younger boys and girls we did around our own.

Just imagine what the nations grandads felt about mini skirts and hot pants!

It also was the era of the open season with me and my many Cap guns playing cowboys and indians with the smell of burned mini capsules on a roll having been fired following me in fairly short short trousers.

Back then boys playing in the garden or your own street with silver cap guns was less an issue as was going around with a pen knife.

Perhaps inadvertantly my folks had discovered the secret of getting me more mallible???

Recollecting in 2024

One common theme across a number of years has been around the purpose and nature of my record collection because across the decades music has been issued in a variety of formats and it's fair to say that from the mid 1980's there has been a strong push towards getting new recordings on the compact disc.

With me while classical music was a early boyhood like, the nature of it means generally once you have aquired what you consider to be  great recording of a particular work, then that is generally it so your collection is generally static with just a few additions across the year.

Popular music being drawn from mainly new songs or tunes is ongoing and additions tend to based upon what you what like in the current charts or anything from the past you have just discovered in either album or single form.

Like many I gathered quantities of lp records in the eighties and early nineties and either part exchanged or otherwise replaced them for compact discs as they were seen as more durable, better sounding and well more modern that having a needle go along a groove cut in vinyl.

As time has gone by a number of things happened of which ones some records left but never were replaced and the other was that actually provided you cleaned them, actually those records for a variety of reasons actually sounded better than the compact disc!

That's different than the whole thing around the more tactile nature of records, the better potential for album art, reading notes and whatnot in a larger but thinner form.

Thus I have being buying back a number and while there are less outstanding from when the first wave started around 2011, in 2024 I do see a number returning.

The other area has been the buying of new albums, and while some modern trends in popular music don't do anything for me, I have been buying a number of albums for the first time on vinyl and these do include some compilations that take me back to my earlier years.

Handling including the placing of the record on the turntable and lowering of the arm all take me back to those days where many of us that's how we listened on our record players so music of that era in that form really pulls emotionally and nostalgically.

Taking stock

As I write this It had been a bit showery here so after carrying a few changes last week with my stereo which I'll probably write something not too highly technical on Friday about it but a part of that has been assessing the difference it has made.

Given how I am, any kind of taking apart, moving around and reassembling the system does take a lot out of me apart from the difficulties in disconnecting things because of the damage to my hands so it's not something I do a lot of.

Thus I've been playing a cross section of records and at the same time reviewing just where I want to see the collection into the new year and beyond -any I feel little need for and just how far I wish to go with collections of artists and composers - so it is a collection and not just a pile of records just stored for posterity.

For me it must be small enough that I enjoy playing them on a regular basis being actively cherished rather than one of a thousand or so dipped into once in a blue moon or held so you can say "I've got one of them"

That's the thing. 

Lost treasure

It's been a strange week following my return late last Wednesday after being away and one thing relates to the ongoing exploration of what was Mum's bedroom where a number of things were found on Monday that had puzzled me over the years.

One was the finding of my last O level Geography school exercise book from February 27, 1981 that later got used as a notebook cum scrapbook of American charts with positions of songs I loved and artist details written with clippings from UK magazines such as New Musical Express and Sounds about them taped into it.

The other was of a good thirty or so records some classical I'd bought from 1978 onwards and a couple of handfuls of Duran Duran 12 Inch singles and foreign extended play singles that I suspect were moved when I had some roof problems that resulted in leaking near where they were stored.

That also included a Glam Rock compilation I'd suspected long lost which had onely been played about ten times since being bought in the late 1980's as I'd taped it and transferred that to two MiniDiscs in 1998.

I always played it from that whenever I needed to so that's practically in mint condition.

I've been cleaning and resleeving where possible a number of them simply because they were and remain things that tie to that era I grew up in.

I know where they were all those years ago but I can enjoy them all over again.

Record stores of the day

One advantage we had being in a city region was the variety and number of shops we had and in particular of record shops which were always a haunt on Saturday's and hols which was only bettered if one caught the train to the Black Country or Manchester which had the national chains such as HMV although we gained one in 1992.

I remember going to it on the first day of opening inside the then titled Potteries Shopping Centre, the first massive mall we had in the city centre opened in late 1988.

The real strength of this area for shopping was the independents and that certainly came into it given our six district centres plus one layout rather than that of one centre and surburbs cos its's less of a city and more of conurbation.

Thus in each district you had their own "local" record stores which for me meant Replay Records on Tunstall high street which had a large selection 12 inch and seven inch singles apart from albums and discount bins for anything that had peaked.

It didn't do much with other media such as cassettes unlike some although it did sell blank tapes for taping your own which I did a lot of .

We also had our own Woolworths which had a fair sized music section and was the first place I bought a record from before Replay opened and they had a top 75 7 inch single wall, rotating racks of pre-recorded tapes and budget albums followed by main racks for chart and selected back catalogue.

Chrissy's Market Store on Saturday's was a gem for having used records, heavily discounted import albums and singles an example of which was the mere £1.49 I paid for the 1978 Paul Stanley solo album as a sealed cut out where I'd of paid normally around a fiver for as a new domestic copy.

From time to time I would go into the City Centre and for a period I worked in it so it was a lunch time, before the bus comes in destination which in the mid 80's had around five large stores each with their own specialities such as Japanese imports, ticket sales or extensive quality used sections.

For much of 80's and 90's, Mike Lloyd Music Mega Store was the place to be because it had the biggest selection of compact discs, very extensive vinyl back catalogue, trade ins and sold tickets to local venues such as the Victoria Hall plus Bingley Hall, Stafford.

Many was the day I'd be in surrounded by students holding our Bluetones albums on vinyl in line while the upstairs held publications, discounted and used vinyl.

It was the first place locally to stock blank and pre-recorded MiniDiscs and had its own version of the Sony Music Nice Price paper catalogue printed with new mid price re-releases

As the bags your purchases went in stated there were branches too in Queen Street Wolverhampton and Newcastle although the city centre branch was the main one.

 

As befitted an area with two universities despite being sandwiched between Manchester in the North and Big Bad Brum the area was largely self sufficient with its own network of shops rivalling larger population areas.

Words best not said

We appear to be going through a period at one site where people seem to be more interested in pursuing agendas  than just saying what there own experiences are.

I've seen this at a particular music based site before where certain members who see themselves as followers of its owner talking in a ultra uber "Our Host said" way as if they were some music engineering diety, whose approach cannot be questioned.

One has a personal site devoted to this individual with lots of photos of them and in over 15 years I have seen him always without exception pile on any other audio mastering engineers work and labels they work for as if no one ever could do a good job and this other person never made a mistake at all.

Personally I'm not into Cults of Personality having bought a good number of records and cds over the years including those issues targeted at people with hifi system looking for the best available copy of an album.

Good people can and do make mistakes and even if they don't another person may of improved upon previous attempts so the most sensible approach is to just listen to them and set out why you favour one rather than the other.

Others promote very old copies of cds that just do not play well with modern cd players as they lack the ability to reliably tell if some older discs where the high notes were boosted and a signal to switch a circuit in the play to correct it that helped some very early players.

If they get that wrong they sound "tinny" and you can't manually switch it over so a really good modern copy without that makes sense for people in that situation.

Similar some older records were made to louder because some like a more "in your face" presentation where the actual recording may have a more subtle dynamic sound and that is what a new copy is trying to give people.

That can when matched with improved detail make for a much more enjoyable copy to sit and listen to rather than perhaps bopping along on the dance floor.

Ultimately it's really about what you feel makes for a great listening session with your favourite recordings and why these other people and labels have given you a new version.

Sometimes a new "flavour" of an old favourite really does it for you.

Audiophile vs Analogphiles

 After last weeks more introspective blog entry I am looking at a different topic this week as the rumbles of a great unmasking in July continue to make themselves heard.

The casual music fan who visits a record stores cannot help but notice the resergence of the vinyl record, specifically the twelve inch "long player" in recent years from when it was almost phased out with perhaps a few bins in a dark corner where a very limited promotional copy of a couple of thousand world wide might reside to where a sizable amount of the store has been devoted to it complete with seperate artist and genres per rack.

For some that's where it ends.

You see a record by your favourite artist, you look the cover over before taking it to the sales desk, hand over your credit card and there it is in a bag to play when you get home.

That's if you haven't ordered it online from Diverse Vinyl, HMV or Amazon in which instance it arrives to your door.

For some there are other things especially when it comes to re-issues of older, "classic" titles such as what source did they use cut the record from, was it the actual assembled stereo mixes mixed down from multitrack session tapes, a copy of them a generation or so removed, a digital copy of that and how does anyone know what they are getting is from a good sounding source?

One thing complicates it some record labels such as Sony seldom if ever now allow the actual tape to leave their own vaults either making a tape copy or sending a digital file to use the team mastering cutting the new version of the record.

This at at the core of dispute in the audio community where generally most people saw themselves as more "Audiophiles" - people who like to hear a recording sound the best it can and spend time setting their own systems to enable that in their homes.

For them the only thing that matters is when comparing them is which sounds the best.

Increasingly a subset of them appear to formed a view that when a recording was made on analogue tape only a tape should be used to cut it even if may be a copy and if it might benefit from some work that can only happen in the digital demain.

They even feel there is no benefit at all in making a record from a digital recording.

No form of preserving through copying produces an exact perfect copy this may be tape or it may be high resolution digital which if even regarded as perfect enough can only store what the playback from the tape produced.

I regard the position of these analog-philes really extreme as really what does matter is which system for each recording delivers the best possible results.

An authoritive voice

This week we are going to talk about something that's in one sense a bit removed from what this blog usually talks about but elements do connect with it.

You may of noticed I do like music and that does extend to buying vinyl records, some older used copies and others new either new albums or high quality re-issues from companies that specialize in that.

For the last ten days or so there has been a burning controversy on a music forum and on you tube channels devoted to audio issues concerning one labels product which is quite expensive at around $125 which rather than growing a number of new stampers requires laquers to be individually cut and can only used a few times rather than what has been used for decades

The argument runs by missing out this step you get lower noise and and more precise sound as pressing records has a lot of parallels with using moulds to stamp out plastic items.

This issue blew up because a planned release at years end  for the 40th anniversary of Michael Jackson's Thriller album had a stated 40,000 copies which could not be done especially when they claim to cut each laquer directly from the master.

Again traditionally in the days when any title could sell ten to twenty thousand copies per week an intermediate tape copy was used for that and the quality was such you'd struggle to hear any difference.

Doing this or using a digital copy to generate one is what is being alleged and it is also true to say a number of major labels such as Sony regularly refuse to let out the actual master tapes supplying only 1:1 tape copies or high resolution digital files.

The shocking thing all this is firstly the failure to respond at all to being asked exactly what they do use just tossing out a statement to say the endeavour to produce the very best records they can as if customers who spend a lot of money on these things do not matter.

The other is the lack of transparency in all the material they do put out hinting at mastertapes even though some titles were recorded digitally just saying they were sourced from them not addressing the question of how they cut these.

Getting back to top of this peice it's less about the product, many of which do sound great but just the seeming inability to show intrigrity and come clean.

That's all lots of audio fans are asking for.

Boyhood audio

Things from the past this week.

As soon as I was able to get past the AM and stereo Record home made stereo with a main unit with turntable, radio amp and speaker in on main unit and right speaker I'd had since the age of nine to the world of separates I did normally involving either second hand or handed down components.

By about the age of fourteen I'd actually had a set up rather like this, a Goldring-Lenco turntable  with an Audio Technica arm fitted, a "home brew" phono preamp which went into my Rodgers Cadet II tubed (UK: Valved) matching control unit and power amplifier.

I had a small Realistic (the Radio Shack/Tandy own brand) FM Stereo and AM radio tuner which was suprisingly good for the modest cost to listen to Radio Three, Two in high quality stereo and One for Pop programs in mono

The amplifier had a relative small foot print unlike most even allowing for its power and output transformers and a Din socket at the front for connection to a tape unit such as originally my ITT Studio 73 portable stereo cassette recorder used at boarding school and later the Narional Panasonic RS600 US home deck.

By the mid 1980's that was supplemented by a Toshiba cd player as many important classical recordings became cd and tape only.

Sadly while ungergoing repair work the amplifer went in a freak shed fire on February 28th 1998.

For me that early hifi seperates part restored from second hand units was really more about having the means of exploring and appreciating music from the pops of the day to getting past the major classical works building up collections, the bulk of which remain with my current system from discovering Elvis Costello and Ian Dury to Mozart String Quartets.