Now 12" 80's: 1980 and 1981

Those people at Now What You Call Music must be getting busy as after resuming the Now Yearbook series with the 1992 volume and  regiving us Now15 they've decided to start a new 80's series.

Compilations of 12" mixes aren't exactly new and Now have given us three 80's sets in the recent past but what makes this series of value is that each set has the hit 12" mixes of one year which as with the Yearbook series I find helps get you into a year and its memories better than a random all 80's set.

Thus this fits well with your Now Yearbooks for giving you the longer more extended side of the hits of the year and in this sets case adds such unforgettable hits as D.I.S.C.O by Ottowan in it's extended for that the 1980 Yearbook left off, the delectable Taste Of Bitter Love by Gladys Knight & The Pips, Blondie's pounding Call Me and the S.O.S. band's Take Your Time (and do it right) among many others.

Overall musically speaking this draws mainly from soul, funk and disco which remained big in this year at least in the UK but brings in those early New Wave synthesizer sounds from the likes of OMD and Spandau Ballet.

 

1981 was one of the best years for pop music in the UK mixing, soul, funk, synth pop  and reggae and that is well represented in the 1981 set from the delights of Japan's Quiet Life, the mixture of new wave and rap in Wordy Rappinghood by the Talking Heads  spin off Tom Tom Club, Ottowan's Hands Up showing that in the UK at least disc wasn't dead, quality soul from the Jones Girls with Nights Over Egypt and Physical by Olivia Newton-John.

 

My only criticism is they've reverted to a folded card sleeve with panels packaging with no write up  where this would of been better served up in the Yearbook style with a short write up on each song with pictures but overall these are a great set and series to collect if like me you did buy those 12" singles back in the day.

Uncovered edition

 I was away last weekend and arrived as the great garden works were about to unfold with the arrival of the "large" skip in the afternoon after a nightmarish journey involving a good half an hour delay and super rapid platform alterations just minutes before the train was due out and indeed had been on time.

Much progress is being made uncovering the garden from its overgrown state at the side, like you can now see grass and a pathway plus strewn about stuff has gone from by it and the sheds.

Further exploration of the house is uncovering things such as scarcely read books, old school photographs of Nativity Plays, old newspaper and the like.

It's no secret I read comics on this blog as much as we keep the other bits of my life elsewhere shall we say but in with all of this stuff was inexplicably the September 13 2014 issue of The Beano which reading Wednesday afternoon has lots of connection to the children's culture of the 2010's even if some of the more recent changes such as more ethnically and disability inclusive added characters were not to be seen nor the Spotty becoming Scotty name changes.

That wasn't something children seemed really into back then and I suspect adult involvement drove it although I agree the overall idea of bringing broader representation of more diverse society from that of 1950's Britain never mind that of the 1970's and 80's.

Adults can argue over it -and they do- but the world children are growing up in is different and so needs to be one they themselves recognize as much as is this is fiction.

Resting

Not feeling too brilliant to be honest as I pack my things ready to be away this weekend even as the arrangements have been a bit all over the place but hopefully it'll all be worth it.

I did play a few records I had recently and the Abba Voyage album of 2021 which I had for Christmas that year as it's cooler now which helps as upstairs where the main vinyl set is gets rather warm quickly which was pretty much how things were the last week and a bit ago when it was around 30 degrees c.

I struggled with that heat, running warm and having a highish blood pressure so I'm glad that's all over.

Restoring the gardens

The week starts moving towards another hot spell this weekend which happens to be why this is being typed when it is but this week I'm talking a bit about gardens and no I'm no expert on layouts, plants - never would of moved beyond getting a badge in Brownies for identifying flowers and that but my home is a semi-detached (and that hyphen matters!) which means your house is joined to just one other and typically both of you have gardens.

Very much the typical suburbia idyll many of us aspire to in this country in the far northern suburbs of this City Region and in times gone by such rituals as mowing the lawn, planted cultivated flowers and potting ones plants were what we did.

It's also fair to say we've got a much bigger plot than most here being on a corner too.

In the last few years as Mom got more infirm before this coep/covid related business kept her in bed, she did much of planting, planning and oversight while Dad did the more muscle based stuff like trimming, lawn mowing and the like.

We'd employed a neighbour to whom notes of the realm worked well to do odd jobs and up to around September and October last year he was working on various things we either never got around to or she couldn't do and dad was too busy progressively doing more that she used to around the home.

Inevitably over Christmas and up to Mom's death, the garden was neglected a bit as there wasn't the time to do anything and in any event hardly time to either plan anything as caring became increasingly the sole focus of everyone's activity.

We are picking up on what was left starting with some garden features bought in the last two years that never come out of their boxes and are now installed complete with a bird feeder.

The hedges a little overgrown have been trimmed together with the bushes while plans are being made to tackle the area that leads up to and around one of two sheds to tidy and trim the vegetation that has taken over and maybe put in some planters for easy maintenance plants to make the area enjoyable again as you approach via a gated wall.

Progress is being made catching up with things. 

Hot off the press edition

 

What can you say about a week that's been so hot you've felt really ill drifting in and out of being consciousness even and when you got up early  to try to to get things you needed done while you were able to?

Let's put it this way, the last time I felt anything like this was 2018 but at least this time minus lyme disease although last year was quite a challenge as indeed it was for Mom.

I tend to run warm ordinarily and my blood pressure is a little above average which I tend to keep under control by watching what I eat and avoiding stress inducing habits and ways of thinking.

You're probably not the only person who feels politics as a means of dealing the needs of everyday people isn't working and seems to more focused on internal issues, swabbles and more knockabout theatre between rival groups and parties.

For what it is worth, if the former Prime Minister had attempted to get a veto by the Lords of some his peerages turned down by our current Prime Minister Mr Sunak then I feel in rejecting that he was right.

That group has a function and the minute you try to pull this kind of stunt off then it only deepens the sense of politicians working against the system and would leave a big stink, something no one possibly having to go to an election really needs.

Sometimes you just have to say to people "With respect, I cannot possibly do this".

As much as I respected what Boris did, as imperfect  and at times flawed as he was, we need to move on to deal with issues of today such as ecology, the cost of living crisis which is causing very real difficulties and helping Ukraine regain its territory, standing up to an aggressive Russia and China.

There is far more to politics than just going over the ground of a man who feels slighted and some who are more into their own intrigues, digging up the past than dealing with what matters now.

Back to the wire..

 

Indeed it is "Back to the wire" as my pawley paws are aching after dealing with an emergency reorganization as a bunch of loose records I was sorting through deciding which would stay and which would go started a move forwards and to one side.

Things hadn't been helped with during an ultimately ill fated attempt to change a piece of hifi equipment I needed to find the secondary mains socket and its extension block to unplug it and that triggered a movement of all in its path including these records.

You forget just how much in the hand a small number do weigh - and I'm ignoring those "monster" 180 gram modern issues - 15 at 120 grams is getting close to two kilos worth so I had to move them and *everything* around that area ready to insert this rack ordered with urgency into the space and start getting bunches by artists in order to populate it.

This appears to have worked and with some removal of the unwanted titles that will make their way to charitable collections as after all physical media can be recycled to new fans making money for good causes here is even some more exposed floor space.

I just need a few days to recover from this.

Record storage

The one thing you cannot avoid with records is they are big, the 12 inch (30 cm) diameter record normally resides in a 14 x 14 inch square sleeve of some construction or other so once you have a few you really do need to think about storage.

While you could just have them standing sandwiched between something on a carpet, trust me it doesn't take long before that straight pile starts to lean which if you have the misfortune to have any kind of heat nearby will warp your discs.

Traditionally storage tends to be some sort of variant on cubes that might hold some fifty or more discs depending on how thick the outer sleeves and the spine width might be, a big firmed fixed to the wall unit or those flight deck cases you see with locks and handles.

Another approach from the past especially when it came to 7 inch (18 cm) singles was a wire hanger with slots and that idea has come into vogue with a unit that claims to hold over 40 lps using thicker quality coat hanger wire which is coated with slots between which you place your lps.

As with compact discs, odd ball packaging such as box sets of various shapes and sizes just don't work with systems that assume regular dimensions so whatever you get you'll always have "box set corner".

If you have only a relatively small number that may be on a unit or on the floor ideally well away from radiators a unit like this one I bought from Analogue Seduction might be just the ticket to tidy them away or be a place for your most "on rotation" discs near your turntable.