The Second Time Around

And it is in more ways than one!

The soul music group Shalamar formed in 1976 from three dancers who appeared on the US black music show Soul Train were a passion of mine in the late 70's, early 80's being one of the acts that were the link between the seventies Soul (think Ojays' and solo Smokey Robinson) and the Funk that became prevailed as the main genre of black music in the 80's.

Sufficient I feel to say I bought the 45's usually as imports cos they were cheaper and many of their albums that were very satisfying in themselves having ballads as well as uptempo stompers you can dance to.

Of the albums of these that held and still hold great interest for me they are Big Fun issued fall 1979, Three For Love issued January 1981, Friends Early summer '82 and The Look issued May of 1983 and the last album by the classic original line of Jody Watley, Howard Hewitt and Jeffrey Daniels.

Jeffery pioneered the 'Moonwalk' first shown on BBC UK tv's Top Of The Pops in 1982 and was begged by Michael Jackson no less for the secret of them moves!
The records remain in my collection but like many acts it took a while before anything outside of a compilation got issued in the cd era.

 
That takes us back to the title of this post because in so far as the UK was concerned for a brief point Friends and The Look were issued around 1983/4 when the label was being handled by Warner (WEA) as straight cd issues - no bonus tracks - but had been out of print for a long while. These issues commend a very high price on the collectors market.

In 1996 Sequel Records part of the big re-issue group Castle Copyrights issued all four of these albums on cd, with Big Fun and Three For Love being issued for the very first time with bonus tracks.

It wasn't long however before this set of re-issues themselves were deleted and following the formation of Sanctuary Records from Castle Copyrights and the issuing of new compilations including the nice various artists Soul Classic Soul and Solar Classic Disco two cd sets in late 1999, attention again was placed on revitalizing the Shalamar catalogue.

In 2002 the entire Shalamar album catalogue was re-issued from 1977's Uptown Festival to 1990's Wake Up with new liner notes featuring interviews with Jeffery and Howard and lots of chart related facts.
It was and is a great idea but this set of issues have some flaws for the serious fan.

The first thing is like many contemporary albums an attempt was made to make everything sound loud so the quiet ballad You Can Count On Me has the same average level as a track like Dead Giveaway on the 2002 The Look cd which it never did on vinyl.

 
They also seem to attempted to remove any hiss and pops from the original tapes - I'm not sure these tapes are the actual 'master tapes' so much as copies of - and this has left the high notes sounding brittle and liking any sense of space around instruments or vocals.

 
You can hear a filter on the high notes on the intro of You Can Count On Me being lifted electronically on the louder passages which is distracting.

 
On the 2 albums on one cd issue of Big Fun and Three for Love I was taken aback to see they had shortened several tracks for 12 seconds or sometimes longer compared with the 1996 cd and original vinyl albums and used much shorter edits of Right In The Socket and Full Of Fire with the first song losing over two minutes!

 
To give you an idea how this impacts on it if you took the two albums minus any bonus tracks, the 1996 issues would run for 80:56 minutes and the 2002 a mere 74:50
Nowhere in the notes of the 2002 cd does it mention this just proudly informing you of the bonus of The Second Time Around (edit) which was the 45 version (the lp version runs for 7:06) which how they got it all onto one cd!!! In so far as the first two albums go there are more bonus tracks - the edited singles versions - on the 1996 versions too.

Now my original 1996 Three For Love cd got lost in a move several years back and so I ordered up a complete set of the four 1996 cds used and was taken aback by the differences.
Now for The Second Time Around, I'm reunited with the cds that sound really like the vinyl albums I love.
Deja vu!

Vampire Knight DVD

At long last my Region 1 Series 1 dvd arrived from supamart in the usual mediamail bags they use. Compared with my duff racing certainty bootleg copy this is much much sharper from the first few minutes of the titles you can see the difference. I wrote a review of the series around the end of 2009 if I recall right and anyway the current edition (#76) of NEO magazine in England has a feature on it. The dubbing is pretty good - I know some moan about dubbing - but this is okay actually and less demanding than trying to read it all on screen. Inside the dvd is a sample manga from the first chapter of the Manga of Vampire Knight as published by Shoujo Beat in the States as a teaser for their Manga products.
In other news I'm quoted in the NEO forum poll comments printed in the magazine on where we buy anime from.

A Cellarful of Motown

On August 30th 2010 the forth instalment of UK Motown's 2 cd set series "A Cellar of Motown" was issued.
This series is notable for the issuing of recordings by artist deemed at Motown's infamous listening panel as not being good enough to be issued with an instant hit written all over them or versions not issued at the time.
Some of these have surfaced in the past as noisy 'test pressings' played from vinyl but the series uses the original tapes left in the vaults and so sounds that much better.

Well that was August 2010

Well this post was originally intend to be a review of Vampire Knight Season 1 Part one but Otaku failed to come up with my pre-ordered dvd so I've place a fresh with with Super_mart and will have to wait for it to arrive from the States.If you haven't all noticed I've made it easier for you to navigate this blog as there is now a 'label' index. Am I kind to you or what? :lol:
Finally and after one false start I have completed my set of Rock and Roll Greats cds and have made a start on a series of discs issued between 1988 and 1990 called the Hits of [insert year] on EMI's Music For Pleasure label that comprise of hits from the EMI-Capitol, United Artist and Liberty stables in any one year and many of theses old discs do sound really good and are the next best thing to having a set of the original 45's if you like a lot of the music from the 50's & 60's and include a number of tracks often missed of compilations.
















In addition I ordered from Jonifan in the states the new sacd speciality re-master of the first Foreigner album issued by Mofi.
It's been a funny kind of a month, Luna became a friend at NEO as we seem to have quite a bit in common plus updated the Funimation S.A.V.E. releases list, I eventually got around to replacing the dvd drive on this computer cos it died a few weeks back and I was rendered speechless to find out about the 'secret life' a person I knew who was done for publishing and possession of indecent images of children something I feel very strongly over having worked on child abuse cases.

London American label

In 2009 Ace Records a leading UK based speciality cd re-issue label commenced its new project the London American year by year series.

The London American label was an imprint of UK Decca Records that licensed recordings from the very many independent companies in the States and promoted them for the UK market at a time when very few US companies had UK operations of their own and the global multi-market companies we have today just didn't exist.

London American had many deals with companies such s United Artists, Liberty, Big Top, Chess and Cadence that were the home to many of the stars of the late 1950's and early 60's such as the Everly Bros, Bobby Vee, Del Shannon, Chuck Berry and Johnny and the Hurricanes who were really popular some more popular than back home in the States.

So a series like this is really valuable for giving you a taste of what the music of this era the one before the Beatles was really like and what is more they have deliberately gone for the previously unissued on cd tracks.

As a really good move they have also gotten access to the UK Decca tape vaults where the tapes used to manufacture the original 45's were stored and used them so we have the original monaural sound those who bought and collected the 45's expect which has been expertly re-mastered.

To date three titles have been issued 1960, 1961 and 1962 which came out last week landing in my mailbox on Monday.







































Hear we go again rewinding to the past with this the latest instalment of ACE's London American year By Year series.

28 tracks some hits some misses that haven't been re-issued on cd from 1958 from the original UK masters.

Artists featured are Duane Eddy, The Mills Bros, Jerry Lee Lewis, Pat Boone, Chuck Berry, The Drifters and Eddie Cochrane with his Summertime Blues.

What's great about the series is there's very little duplication with other ACE London American compilations

EGL Edition

A couple of Elegant Gothic Lolita items I quite like:
From Candy Fruit, this traditional Maids Outfit.

























Metamorphose: This is available in a number of different colours, this one being the Rose Pink Gardening Teddy Dress.

cd updates

Finally I got two albums by the theatrical art-rock group The Tubes on cd, mainly The Completion Backward Principal and Outside/Inside from 1981&1983 respectively that were re-issued by BGO Records over here many years ago (1991 I think).
They feature the hits 'Talk To You Later' and 'She's A Beauty' which was a top 10 hit in the States which I remember buying the domestic 45 of.
Coming soon and not before time is a set of discs in the 1992 Rock and Roll Hits series from UK EMI's Music For Pleasure label featuring various classic jukeboxes on the front covers.
They compile may hits of the 'Rock and Roll era' from 1955 through 1963 from the Capitol/EMI, MCA and United Artists/Liberty stable taking in Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, Bobby Vee, Eddie Cochrane and the Crickets amongst many.
I bought two back then but they soon went out of print and want to complete the set.