The state of the scroll

 Month is coming to a close, some topics purposely left off the blog  cos they take me to places that are not good and while of that was going on, we find more than enough to post about.

Social media often feels that way -it can be bad enough for your processor to get through a forest of big size pictures and gifs without failing to load any- never mind all that scrolling  to get to the stuff you really want.

You might think to just see things on accounts you have chosen to follow would be such a great experience to offer but how many times do you find "Posts you might like" added in or promoted posts?

Often and that is what can make doing social media such a energy sapping time consuming business just because they want more click through's cos that's potentially more revenue for them or the people they promote.

I do think a basic charter of rights for the end user is needed.

The Stones at the El Mocambo

 This week we are going back in time with a two cd set that came out on April 29 this year.

Live At The El Mocambo marks the first official appearance of the group's two famous secret concerts at the 300-capacity Toronto club in March 1977. 

This double cd set features their full set from the March 5 show, plus three bonus tracks from the March 4 gig, all of which have been newly mixed by Bob Clearmountain. 

Although all of performances were available at the time, only four found their way onto the Love You Live album that followed in September 1977, that I bought at the time which was dominated by tracks captured on the band's 1975 and '76 tours in Paris, with the full set having never been heard before. 

As the Stones took residency that year punk and disco were both rearing into full view, supposedly ready to see off a band who had already been at the top of their game for 15 years. Over two nights, in an intimate space in one of their favourite cities, they showed they still had it.

For reasons best known to themselves over recent years their artwork on new projects has been somewhat uninspired and this is a good example with just the Tongue logo and title where a band photo on stage would of been more eye catching.

The card sleeve has pockets for the discs which are not in protective sleeves to avoid damage scratches so I had to line them myself.

The set includes songs from Black And Blue, their then current album such as Crazy Mama and Fool To Cry coupled with songs from It's Only Rock And Roll, the previous album of 1974 followed by a mixture of classic 60's and  early 70's sings plus blues covers such as Mannish Boy.

For me the smaller setting helped take the Stones' back to their roots leading to their inspired Some Girls album which mixed the energy of punk and interest in disco sounds while still being true to themselves showing they were still relevant.

It's good to have this set of live recordings out.

Raymond Briggs: a reflection

 

One Wednesday it was announced the story-writer and illustrator Raymond Briggs died.

He was born in 1934 in Wimbledon, Surrey and later moved to Sussex, making his own difference in story telling for being less inclined to write sweet happy ending stories for children for more gritter stuff and writing things also for adults but in form of a comic book.

 

Ethel and Ernest was a looking back of his own upbringing based around his aspirational parents, working to bring in the money, keeping a nice well kept house, helping to ensure their children got a decent education.

Raymond had his views, a life long Labour supporter although no fan at all of the Corbyn era he championed unilateral Nuclear Disarmament which found support during the tensions of the Cold War in the early 1980's taking part in protests.

He wrote the highly influential When The Wind Blows which saw the following of government advice in publications such as Protect And Survive by an elderly couple who'd lived through WW2 exposed for the load of absolute piffle it was (and I favour the deterrent generally speaking) 

The book end on a blank page. The inference was they died from radiation sickness as the measures they followed could never protect them (but made people think everything would be okay).

Christmas was tackled twice by Raymond originally in a story that looked at the challenges of Santa Claus (aka Little Saint Nick) delivering a multitude of presents from Santa's point of view, cursing as things went adrift.

The Snowman is a ritual in our country, every Christmas we all gather to watch this moving tale of the boy who plays in the snow building a Snowman who becomes alive forming a friendship that sees the boy  being taken on a voyage of discovery only to melt the next day with him being mourned by the boy.

The Sinfonia of London play a score for the duration of the cartoon and famously "walking through The Air is song as the boy is flying with the snowman looking in wonder at the world.

Summer is here

Start of Summer proper here with a fair bit of sun although it was rather drizzly over Tuesday so it's time to read the Summer Specials and make the most of the season.

Well you might as well take off the layers and let the fresh air and sun in trading sweaters, long pants or skirts for something much much lighter.

In world of big cats wouldn't you rather be a kitten?

Music I associate with summer does include this offering by the Jazz-rock group Santana who at the time included some tremendously talented musicians that originally came out in 1970 and spawned the single Black Magic Woman of which I still have the Columbia 45.

This is the super audio cd version of what was in that infamous one step double 45 rpm record set sounding better than ever for a good deal less.

Now to read the final edition of this, ghoulies!

The Great Mofi Records Scandal

After the last few weeks of serious politics on here we go back to one of the old mainstays of this blog from the very beginning, music, and specialty record labels.

Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs otherwise known as Mofi was first established in 1977 in the US as the premier company for issuing high quality reissues of titles because while many of the major labels such as Columbia, Capitol, MCA and RCA had re-issue labels, quite often they used copies of tapes in varying conditions, in the case of Capitol, hacked songs off to save royalties and used shoddy recycled vinyl to press from.

It wasn't unknown for those pressings to be very noisy too more so than discs pressed in the UK or Germany for instance.

The original company ran until around 1998 making mainly lp records although the late 1980's and 90's saw some 24 karat gold cds including a pioneering series of two on one titles and they were first off the mark to issue Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road on a single cd.

After a hiatus brought on through it folding, the label was bought by Music Direct, an Illinois, U.S.A. hifi distributor and shop continuing with heavy weight "audiophile" lps and a mixture of gold cds that were phased out around 2012 and Super Audio cds which what the current cd offering is with both regular and sacd layers.

Historically all lp issues were mastered and cut from tape provided by the majors under licence that would restrict quantity and sales period to minimize impact their own sales and the cd product mastered and pressed for that.

It appears after a major ruckus in the hifi community to have been revealed this month that from around 2008 a high proportion of records were cut with the tapes copied to a high quality digital system (DSD) on location at the major labels facility and that was used to master and cut lps even though the packaging made no reference to it, just droning on about their all analogue mastering chain.

This did not just include their regular lp series but very limited "One Step" releases that have  simpler process for making stampers to press the discs, cut at 45 rpm and presented in big boxes currently selling around $125 (£175) often selling out quickly.

The second hand prices of them are often quite high so Santana's Abraxas from 2016 often goes for around $2,000 or more and more or less everyone thinks it's the best ever copy.

Thing is people who pony up over $100 for a record tend to be hifi nerds who love the romance of an all analogue product believing it to be the most truest form and they are avid collectors.

That digital step doesn't matter to someone paying around $25 and many new releases from groups like Music on Vinyl often are as for instance are the current Beatles, Stones and Abba  vinyl editions.

I'm not opposed to digital sources on vinyl remembering buying "digital" classical lps on Decca and EMI Angel amongst others and having some of the DSD sourced Rolling Stones titles but to me the issue was with them you know it was from digital.

Mofi flat out lied about it in the promotional material and on the jackets plus their is footage even from 2017 showing staff claiming discs to be analogue when only this week under pressure they have published their sources for an increasing by the day number of titles and the one mentioned WAS digitally sourced.

Yesterday as the anger mounted over ten days the following was issued on Twitter and a in modified form on their website:

Abraxas, that super rare and raved over One Step IS from a digital transfer so whatever the all analogue protagonists think digital does sound very good enabling great care to be taken to get things like exact tape azimuth and dolby noise reduction alignment spot on song by song, reel by reel which certainly wasn't the case in vinyls heyday on that digital transfer and be mastered back at their own facility in California on to the lacquer to press the record from.

Sony Music who own the Abraxas tapes seldom allows their tapes to be sent to any other label supplying dsd files or offering access to tapes only at their facilities and this is a growing trend.

The issue was honesty and trust, put very simply and in the future (can we ditch "going forward" for the tried and trusted older expression please?) new releases will have more information so at least you'll know how it has been mastered and cut from.

Other labels like Analogue Productions will still continue mainly doing tape based mastering for the purists although for me its always been about the best sound but this explosion of anger is leading to greater transparency from specialty reisse labels and that frankly is well overdue.

We have the right to know how our favourite records we spend top dollar on are sourced, mastered and cut from.

 

A New Era Begins II-B Elimination to two.

 Across the week run offs were run Monday Tuesday and Wednesday to arrive at the two required for the next stage.

Tom Tugendhat - Eliminated Monday

Kemi Badenoch  - Elim inated Tuesday and was personal favourite for her straight talking.

Penny Mordaunt - Eliminated Wednesday.

This leads us with the two for be put for the Conservative Party members to decide upon by either paper branch voting or postal votes which will be going out very soon.

Liz Truss who came second.

Rishi Sunak in the lead

There will be a series meetings "hustings" held for each so that members have opportunity to hear and put personal questions to each candidate.

On Monday the BBC will be hosting a special debate here in my home city region of Stoke On Trent with a hundred people in the audience on the tv which I'm delighted about because we have a good cross section of issues and people who should be able to cast some light on what each have to offer ordinary people of all classes, sexes and ethnicity.

These are trying times for people so this matters a lot.

A New Era Begins Part II

Well, after all the head scratching here I second guessed the short term situation right where Boris Johnston continues in office on the understanding from the temporary cabinet they are not to introduce any major new legislation effectively tieing an incoming Prime Ministers hand.

That was without an attempt by former Prime Minister John Major to persuade people to have him removed and an attempt by the opposition to pass a "no confidence measure" in him.

This basically takes us to the selection process where around eleven announced they were going to stand although one dropped out  on Wednesday.

The way this runs is this

Candidates could only enter the race if they had the backing of twenty Tory MPs, that reduced the number of candidates down to ten.

On the first of two rounds of voting only conservative MP's can vote and each candidate needs to secure at least thirty votes to go through to the next round.

The next round sees the candidate with least vote eliminated and this is repeated until just two candidates remain.

It then opens up to Conservative Party members.

Round one vote of MP's.

Eliminated Jeremy Hunt with eighteen votes

Eliminated Nadhim Zahawi with twenty-five votes.

Going through to Round One

Suella Braverman with thirty-two votes

Tom Tugendhat with thirty-seven votes

Kemi Badenoch with forty votes

Liz Truss with fifty votes

Penny Mordaunt with sixty-seven

Rishi Sunak in the lead with eighty-eight votes.

So Eight went through later onto Round two stage one on Thursday

 

Round two first elimination Results:

Tom Tugendhat with thirty-two votes (Rank: fifth)

Kemi Badenoch with forty nine votes (Rank forth)

Liz Truss with sixty four (Rank: third)

Penny Mordaunt with eighty-three  votes (Rank: second)

Rishi Sunak in the lead with One hundred and One (Rank: first)

Suella Braverman with Twenty seven votes - Eliminated

Now down to five candidates for next elimination next week.