Exiting May round up

 It's a bit late to be typing this with having a few unexpected things to attend to in the middle of the week but as we exit this month and enter official Summer there's two topics on my mind I'd like to talk about.

Unless you're a hermit in the UK, you will of heard of and perhaps had been impacted by the hacking of two shop websites including Marks and Spencers and a few other things for little apparent reason by some dispersed group that apart from affecting internet sales also rather messed up the stock control systems of their physical stores.

Well, it seems the same kind of thing is going on when it comes to interest based websites as Elvis Presley fans found when five were hacked beyond ribbons with not a jolt of useable content left which contained much talk around elvis recording, tours, projects that had been built up over the decades went although to be fair it seems the owners didn't do much around backing up regularily and keeping board security up to date.

That lead them to moving to another more generalist site trying to put together the course of events that lead me to remark over there that old school forums seem to be on the decline as people run Facebook (and other) groups that don't offer the ease of threads within a forum have.

We've seen that loss of content with Misterpoll in the last six months or so.

The other thing is this:

After much clamouring that box of 11 original UK catalogue albums in mono cut from tape in September 2014 with a double disc of non album singles and EP tracks is getting a repress with replicate jackets and inners.

I bought the individual discs in twos and threes back then, putting the cat on cheap rations, but since copies went off the selves several years ago prices shot right up with the full box with book going for over £1,500 as those who were late to the vinyl revival party kept saying  "I missed them" or "I couldn't make my mind up".

I knew I needed them, that high quality re-issues from the original tapes don't happen much as today they prefer to copy once to high resolution digital to cut wear and tear to that tape and made my plans.

I only hope those who didn't then and are are interested in this boxes content make the arrangements this time as there may not be another.

Buddy Holly and the weekend

It is almost Whit Bank Holiday so as we're likely to get rain I've sorted a couple of discs to play between getting the lego out and listening to the bank holiday specials on Boom Radio.

You might recall me mentioning about having to use pen, paper and cheque to send for a speciality cd on Rollercoaster Records and it came the other day.

What it is is the first Buddy Holly album credited for label reasons to the Crickets but using modern A.I. remixed from mono in stereo so well you'd never know it wasn't recorded that way with full seperation covering songs like That'll Be The Day, Oh! Boy and Not Fade Way and a version also in stereo that removed the ill advised background vocals by the rather square Picks producer Norman Petty added.

It sounds amazing.

That two on One cd came out in 2000 and adds the original mono Chirping Crickets to his second album attributed to him alone "Buddy Holly" from 1958 that featured Rave On, Listen To Me, Everyday and Peggy Sue.

Although various albums were issued since his death in 1959 from sessions that were too incomplete or earlier recordings often overdubbing new backing really these are the only two studio albums you need.

As we said way back in 1978 when the 20 Golden Greats compilation of hits was issued that webought back then Buddy Holly Lives, his music influencing british rock.

Coping with the sun

So it is Friday at the start of yet another hot day in a week where one has keep in during the highest UV spots and where the heat leads to you having to drink much liquid to stay hydriated and we all know where that ends up!

I do keep a RADAR key on me while I'm out but given I've at least 1.8 miles before there is a public convenience that's not so much use if I'm taken short so you have to think things through, always going just before you go through the front door.

Then if I'm out, if there's not a RADAR one you may have a toilet that's too low to easily get myself up from - I do have issues raising myself up from sitting at times - and that doesn't help my back any apart from the getting up bit.

Then there's the great A for application as in insect repellent for anywhere wooded or with long grass where ticks lie in wait given I have very severe reactions from bites having needed penicilin several times and sun cream as you can burn easily.

That said I do like the summer months it's that there's stuff to think about.

Going back to old school life...

While this week has been taken up with VE Day events and memories both on the forum and here watching the services and parades sometimes things things can go a bit old school as sometimes you do get the odd personal letter or card.

Then when was the last time you set pen to paper yourself AND sent it?

Well I did yesterday as I wanted to by something a specialty cd and I tried to order it online but the site was corrupted so you couldn't go from basket to check out.

As this was a small UK concern, they did have a mail order address, price and say how you could place an order and pay by cheque.

Well, when was the last time you used a cheque? By my notes 2020 but I still have a cheque book having had a cheque account from leaving school and then adding a debit card so I end ed up writing a old fashioned letter requesting the item with my address in the top right, date and landline on the left and writing a cheque and posting it with a stamp.

So with pen, ink, paper, cheque and stop I ordered something!

Physical media

After last weeks brief and sooner not had to mention anything about it post this week between sweltering in the heat that had followed me from the weekends activities I had spent a bit of time listening to some recordings on the newly installed amplifier after the hasty installation before going off as for me at least, it was and is all about the music and rather less "the gear".

The gear is a means to an end, the re-production (intended hyphenation) of that music as captured be it a vocal, a traditional instrument or a synthisizer at home as close to the performance as we can.

Thus when something is installed and I'm happy with it, then it stays around for a while because it is doing its job, it satisfies my ears.

It is interesting to note that physical reproduction via media is a fairly new thing becoming more popular from the early twentieth century and mass collecting really rather more from the nineteen fifties from records of shellac and vinyl, through tapes of various sorts to the compact disc.

People prior to that tended to have smaller numbers of titles with the Great Depression obviously affecting disposable income and in some ways the shift towards streaming rather than physical ownership is affected by things like sky high mortgage and rents and the overall cost of living crisis we're living through.

It doesn't mean there won't be physical media or for that matter people have turned their back on music and its reproduction simply that they're doing the best way they can given how life is and there are always those who hanker the the feel of owning something that's tangible.

In my lifetime I've bought different formats as each had their own strengths and weaknesses, a common criticism of the compact disc is the artwork and how you access it has less of the feel of holding and reading that gatefold cover and text is often small spread over many pages where the record is more like reading a newspaper.

Over the last year I have been picking a limited number of favourite albums from the nineteen eighties that originally had on compact for their seen at the time as outmoded lp record equilivents for that feel apart from anything about how some early compact discs sounded.

Examples of which do include Heart's self titled and Bad Animals albums, Depeche Mode's People Are People and Music For The Masses, the Tracy Chapman debut album from nineteen eighty-eight (a reissue after being deleted for decades) and The Pet Shop Boy's Please and Actually albums that were amongst the first cds I ever bought.

Holding them just feels different and more of a pleasure.