Fades in Slowly

The blogger I’d previously only known as Mr. Obscure but whom I now know as Stuart sent me a couple of fantastic emails recently that cheered me up no end, hence the title of this post. I’m sure anyone who blogs knows the feeling: from time to time you just feel like there’s no bloody point and you just want to jack it all in. I’ve been going through a few of those days recently, but a few kind words from a fellow blogger or two are all it’s needed to get me back on track. Aforementioned Stuart has a load of, quite frankly, marvellous music blogs, all of which I’m going to list now:

- Mr. Obscure

- Post Punk Power Pop

- Free Fiction 4 U

– Guitar Instrumentals 4 U

- Rare & Elusive

- Super 70s Sounds

- The Audio Emporium

- The World Upstairs

- The Tremolo Men

- ’78 to ’81

- Costello Variety

If there isn’t something for everyone in that little lot, then I don’t know what the world is coming to. Thanks to all of you who support what I’m doing and those who leave comments on posts, they are always appreciated. Thanks also for the recent (relative) deluge of votes for the 1976 Festive 50, the chart is shaping up to be a nice mix of punk and disco classicvs with a little bit of reggae thrown into the mix.

I hope you’ll be glad to hear that there’s no chance of me packing in this blogging lark just yet. While we’re at it, anyone know if the 7/3/1979 Peel show with a session from Hi Fi has surfaced yet?

The ever lovely, excellent and, indeed, outstanding Kat’s Karavan has been busy recently with a plethora of late 60s shows, including this beauty from December, 1969:

With so many of us downloading the shows, the 10gb monthly limit that Divshare places on users is being reached very quickly. therefore you might need to use the alternative of listening online, which you can do with the handy little widget above.

I haven’t even downloaded this one yet myself, so I feel it’s best to use the words of Ken Garner from the Peel Newsgroup:

Well I’ve finally completed my first rip of my (modest) collection of my own originated complete (or nearly complete) Peel shows, so here it is, a timely surprise for this weekend. I won’t say any more about what this show was / represented / contains, or why I chose to do this one first for right now, but it will become obvious, especially if you listen from the start of the sports news. Loaded into itunes the 3 parts will flow together pretty well, but after first listening all the way through once (I really think you might like the completeness of the experience, given the context), you can always detach / discard the first part and just archive parts b and c. I was taping back then using one of those mains plug timers with the pins for 15 min periods, so I must have known I’d be out at the start, and the tape kicked in 5 minutes early. If I get a chance I’ll do a full tracklisting for the wiki site over the weekend, but for now, just enjoy it.

There will be about half a dozen more like this between now and end October, I hope. Below is a summary of the route technically. I had to switch the dolby B back on (I suspect like many, until I got a top flight tape deck in 1990 or so I tended to tape with dolby on and playback with dolby off, in the car / walkman etc) because the first go was very hissy. This is my third attempt using different settings etc, and the one that came out sounding closest to the tape, so there. I just look away from the screen and wing the EQ right up and right down, then back up slowly till it sounds right. Shocking, isn’t it? Let me know how it sounds. I monitored using various closed / open / in-ear headphones and playout systems, but am assuming most people, like me, will probably listen on an ipod/mp3 player, or a desktop computer linked to a reasonable stereo, but probably not a real audiophile setup. The feature I really like in the software I got is the graphic, neat little kicking analog VU meters: now that, I can understand.

ken

I’m glad to say that the John Peel Wiki that I started (and then proceeded to neglect) is now becoming a valuable resource for documenting Peel’s radio shows. This is perhaps the best way to document the the so-called ‘400 Box‘ of approximately that number of cassettes featuring material from the John Peel show between 1978 and 1982, purchased jointly on eBay by the John Peel newsgroup in July 2008. The first show from this formidible collection is now available in digitised fromat for your listening consumption. Details of the wonderful 7th July, 1978 show are available here.

The Big Ozine is a fabulous resource for live recording mp3s. Here are the current offerings:

- Van Morrison: Can You Feel The Silence?

- Neil Young: Just Singing A Song Won’t Change The World

- BB King: Fillmore East 1971

- Pink Floyd: Madison Square Garden 1977

- Gillian Welch & David Rawlings: Hickory 1997

- Tom Waits: Atlanta 2008

- Erma Franklin & Electric Flag: San Francisco 1968

- Nigel Kennedy with Jeff Beck: London 2008

- Miles Davis: Complete Friday Miles at Fillmore

- Miles Davis: Complete Wednesday Miles at Fillmore

- Nick Lowe: London 2001

- The Band: Lost Tombstone

- Talking Heads: Jabberwocky 1977

- Copperhead: Unreleased LP

- Barry Gibb: The Kid’s No Good

- Cat Stevens: Hollywood 1973

- Arctic Monkeys: Koeln 2006

Dr. Mango is back in action over on the Peel Newsgroup with another offering, this time from 1989. Again, his words are undoubtedly better than mine:

Apart from an obvious edit after the first song, this is a continuous segment of Peel show. JP mentions a football score before the last track, which allowed me to date the show as being in the week from Monday 20th – Thursday 23rd November 1989. Sadly, there are no session tracks to allow me to pinpoint which of these days the recording is from.

Track listing:

-Kevin Sizier (?) – ? Soap opera song
-Sly Williams – I Believe in a Woman
-I, Ludicrous – Britische Architect
-Gary Clail and the On-U Sound System – A Man’s Place on Earth
-Elvis Hitler – ?
-Jordan Shittaka (sp?) & his Sisters – Dishiwa Denga
-Alan Martin & Bobby Nut – I’m Following Sheffield United

Length: [24:49]
Size: 22.7 Mb 
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BKSZW5KT

I’ve also uploaded photos of the track listings of the cassettes from which this show, and last night’s 1981 mix, were taken:

1981 tape

1989 tape

 

One of the advantages of working in a university is that you get a sizeable summer holiday. A small drawback of this is that you – meaning I in this instance – go away for weeks on end to places without internet connections and miss loads of goodies from the Peel Newsgroup, including this belter from 1993.

Right now I have a can of Efes Extra (Turkey’s finest beer offering) in one hand, the keyboard in the other, a pot of steaming hot chilli on the stove and a Fall compilation on the CD player, hopefully filtering through to my Turkish neighbours who can’t fail but be impressed by the likes of ‘Yeah, yeah, industrial estate’. I did a workshop for other teachers recently and was genuinely pleased when the Fall CD I was using for incidental background music was nicked - another one converted. Anyhows, back to business.

This show comes courtesy of dontsleepinthesubwaydarlin on the newsgroup, who has the following to say:

Session guests include Oil Seed Rape (1st session) and PJ Harvey (3rd session), John also premiers the new Fall single “Why Are people Grudgeful?” and generally appears to be having a grand old time. It’s thanks to this recording I discovered The Nectarine No 9 LP “A Sea With Three Stars”, which is one of my favorite discoveries. Hope you enjoy this recording as much as I do.

I’m sure we will. Here are details for your full downloading pleasure:

(Tape 1 Side 1) http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RFPVQ0UV
(Tape 1 Side 2) http://www.megaupload.com/?d=993XDXUS
(Tape 2 Side 1) http://www.megaupload.com/?d=E50LFQM0
(Tape 2 Side 2) http://www.megaupload.com/?d=K4F3OHNJ

The Perfumed Garden has made something of a spectacular return to form over the past month, now even incorporating a Forum. Get over there and start sharing.