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Mojo/Word cover CDs to a good home?

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Hi everyone. I’m sure this clarion call goes out a few times a year, but Mrs. Mickey and myself are downsizing, and one of the casualties will be my Mojo & Word covermount CDs. I have hundreds of the things, probably complete sets (though I can’t be bothered to check), but I think we’ve established in the past that there’s no “market” for them (for obvious reasons), so would anyone here want them, free to a good home? I’m in Essex, 10 minutes from the M25, prepared to drop off somewhere reasonably nearby, or is there anyone out there who’s prepared to come and collect? Cheers!

ATM: suddenly having Internet issues

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My desktop PC (an HP one in case it matters) had a Windows update overnight. I usually try and keep postponing them, but this one got past me… (PS might be a red herring or coincidence)

Anyway, I’m now getting weird issues with the internet, like not being able to go to Google (even within Google Chrome) or YouTube. Most sites (Ebay, Discogs, Yahoo, Bing) are fine, so I know the internet is working, but those ones just won’t load (there may be many more, those are just the obvious ones…) Actually, it took ages to load this site too, so I’m posting this from my phone…

Other browsers have the same issue so I know it’s not Chrome. I’m a bit flummoxed to be honest, so any help appreciated, thank you!

TV recommendation: The Rehearsal (Sky Comedy / NOW TV)

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Starting this Wednesday 24th on Sky Comedy or NOW TV is The Rehearsal, a genuine one-off which is pretty much the best and most original thing I’ve seen on TV for years – my wife and I haven’t talked about a programme this much since Twin Peaks: The Return (not that they’re similar, except in a “holy cow, what on Earth did I just watch?” kind of way…) and I can’t recommend it enough.

I hadn’t heard of Nathan Fielder before this, but he’s a dead-dead-deadpan Canadian comedian whose previous claim to fame was Comedy Central’s “Nathan For You”, a reality show where he’d advise small businesses on how to be more successful, occasionally with surprisingly successful results… in The Rehearsal, he offers to help people rehearse (in quite ludicrous detail on HBO’s dime) crucial moments in their lives, with the intention of getting the best possible result, but after that I struggle to describe how things proceed…

Episode 1 is quite self-contained, but episode 2 starts a longer arc, and isn’t quite as immediate, but it perfectly sets up 4 amazing episodes of ever-escalating rollercoaster TV which turns itself inside-out and back-to-front, defying its classification as “cringe comedy” at » Continue Reading.

Scritti Politti tickets – Leeds 28th September

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Hope this doesn’t contravene site rules, but for reasons too boring to go into, I have 2 tickets for Scritti Politti in Leeds (Green’s college town, of course) that I’m unable to use next month, and hoped someone here might want to buy them from me. Green and his band will be playing Cupid & Psyche ’85 in its entirety for its (sort of) 35th anniversary, and it’s a sold out show, so should be good (I’ll be gutted to miss it, to be honest.)

Venue: Leeds City Varieties Music Hall Date: Tuesday 28 September 2021 Location: Upper section, row A

I paid £80.88 and will accept that or nearest offer, and in case of a rush, I’ll say “first come, first served…” In the interests of full disclosure, I don’t have the actual tickets in my hands as I write, they’re due nearer the date, but I won’t need payment until I’m ready to post them. Hope that’s of interest to someone here, cheers!

PS Was anyone else here at the Word In Your Ear show at the Lexington in 2012?

Bonfire of the vanity projects

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I recently came across “Now And Then” by Paul Stanley’s Soul Station, an album of classic soul cover versions (of the ilk of “Ooh Child”, “Could It Be I’m Falling In Love” and “Just My Imagination”) and a clutch of soundalike originals, essayed by the erstwhile singer-guitarist from heavy rock gods Kiss, with a crack backing ensemble, all apparently having the time of their lives.

On the reasonable assumption that Stanley is a multi-multi millionaire who doesn’t need the money, I must presume he’s using his clout to pay tribute to the music he loves, even if it’s not the music he ended up making a living from. Stanley himself looks not unlike Sylvester Stallone playing a rock star these days, and I’m sure he has no illusions as to how his undistinguished but pleasant enough voice compares to the originals like Al Green and Marvin Gaye, but it’s an enjoyable, guileless and fun album, and I’d imagine their gigs are a fantastic evening out.

So in the interests of making a thread out of this, what are the other vanity projects big stars have indulged themselves in? And did they work, or were they filed under “Let Us » Continue Reading.

TV recommendation – Ramy (Channel 4)

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Just a quick recommendation to the Massive for the TV series Ramy, starting on Friday night at 11.05 PM on Channel 4 (though they also seem to be previewing multiple episodes at 1.45 AM Friday morning if you want to set your recorders.)

This trailer gives you a good flavour of what it’s like, but in short, it’s a comedy-drama about a young Muslim American in New Jersey starring and (mostly) written by Ramy Youssef, but the supporting cast are fantastic too, and all get chances to shine (some even get whole episodes to themselves) as the series progresses. It’s funny and poignant, all that good stuff, and even the soundtrack is great (including some excellent 70s & 80s Arabian needle drops.) It’s probably my favourite new series of the past few years, and I haven’t seen any promotion for it, so I thought I’d highlight it to you good folks here…

(PS Season 2, with added double-Oscar winner Mahershala Ali, is even better, though I don’t know if/when Channel 4 will be showing it, and season 3 is on the way, too…)

» Continue Reading.

Just a quick recommendation to the Massive for the TV » Continue Reading.

ATM – recovering data from a corrupted USB?

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In short, my PC is unable to read a USB stick of mine that has some backed-up files on it. A dialogue box comes up saying “Location is not available: [drive] is not accessible, the file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.” I’ve tried uninstalling/reinstalling the driver, and attempted a check & repair with no joy.

Leaving aside the philosophical conundrum of how many backups of backups should be considered “safe”, does anyone have any hints for getting the data off it (even if it’s only once before disposing of the USB stick?) There are also many recovery software packages out there – it doesn’t have to be free (it’ll be worth paying out to get this data back), but I’d appreciate any recommendations before I invest in one… thanks a lot folks, enjoy the rest of your your day!

Suede alive!

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If my username is not enough of a clue, I’m a fan of Suede. Always my favourite of the Br*tp*p posse, I maintain that “Dog Man Star” is the high watermark for anything flying under that much-abused banner, but the pure pop of “Coming Up” is a close second… and their comeback has been one of the most dignified and satisfying I can remember, with two truly excellent albums (“Night Thoughts” and “The Blue Hour”) and a never-ending tour of the world’s festivals paying testament to their status as a great live band, plus Brett’s excellent memoirs of course…

Anyway, I just thought I’d point out that one of the band’s apparent lockdown projects has been to regularly post whole remastered concerts on their YouTube page. There’s about half a dozen on there as I type, drawn from all points in their career, as early as 1993, and as recent as last year, with new ones appearing every few weeks (Phoenix 1995 is due any day now.) If you’re only going to try one, it should be the one I’ve linked to here, their first reunion show at the Royal Albert Hall in 2010 (I was at the 100 Club » Continue Reading.

ATM: Resetting DVD region-coding on a PC?

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Hello there, I’m throwing myself on the mercy of any Massive PC tech-heads out there, for any help they might be able to offer… For background, I have a massive DVD collection, with disks from all over the world, bought on business trips, or online to obtain movies otherwise unavailable elsewhere, especially world cinema, for obvious reasons. Having been playing them on my (relatively new) Windows 10 PC with no issues, I’ve suddenly found myself stuck on DVD Region 5 (Former Soviet Union, India, Africa, North Korea!) due to a previously unknown-to-me wrinkle in PC disk drives that only allows you to change region codes five times, before it permanently locks into the last code you used… so of course I can no longer play the vast majority of my disks, disaster!

In short, does anyone know a way to either reset or circumvent this? I’ve done a bit of googling on it, and unlike many tech issues, there doesn’t seem to a plethora of fixes out there, perhaps because it’s not that common a problem, especially in the streaming age… all help appreciated – cheers, happy Sunday!

ATM: PC DVD drive no longer raeding DVD-Rs?!

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Hi everyone, hope someone might be able to help with this puzzler. Overnight, or even faster, the disk drive on my desktop PC has stopped reading DVD-Rs. I’d been ripping my collection to my harddrive using Handbrake with no problems, and then it suddenly stopped recognising DVD-Rs, tending to see them as blank disks, but not seeing any data on them. I’ve had no error messages to suggest a problem. – “Pre-recorded” disks are still fine. – As far as I can tell there was no software update since the last DVD-R I ripped literally hours before – I’ve done a system restore to a week ago but no change – It’s an HP PC if that makes any difference All ideas appreciated, for what might have caused this, and (especially) how to fix it! Thanks as always, enjoy your sunny Sunday!

Happy Christmas – I’m redundant!

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So our Director comes up to me this morning, says “can you pop downstairs for a chat?”, and 5 minutes later I’d been made redundant – bummer! Something about restructuring the department, blah, blah, difficult trading conditions, blah, blah, the usual… there’s going to be a 30-day consultation period (should have been 14, but they’re allowing longer for Christmas & New Year – how kind!) and my first 1-to-1 is in the morning, joy! In theory they’re going to look for ways to redeploy me, but if they’re looking to make cuts, I’m pretty much resigned to being out – I’m frankly very well-paid, and my contract says that if they offer me a lesser role, I get my current wage for 3 years, which now feels like a bit of a 2-edged sword, but hey-ho…

On a more positive note and with no false modesty, I think I’m popular within the company, renowned as a good team-member and hard-worker, and have always had glowing appraisals, so I’m taking them at their word about the “restructuring”, and that this isn’t a performance-related action (or at least that’s the rock I’m clinging to right now!)

It’s too early to think about » Continue Reading.

Matthew Sweet UK gig Klaxon!

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I hadn’t heard about this previously, so don’t know if it’s only just been announced, but the notoriously flight-averse Matthew Sweet is playing a rare UK gig next month, Tuesday 18th December at the Islington Assembly Hall… he’s promoting his recent-ish Tomorrow’s Daughter album, but recent gig reviews suggest a career-spanning setlist, so it’s an early Christmas present for us powerpoppers amongst us!

https://www.seetickets.com/event/matthew-sweet/islington-assembly-hall-london/1277796

ATM: Dental as anything – any tooth experts here?

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Quick version – after a bad bout of toothache following a big filling last week, I’m booked to have the whole tooth out tomorrow (Thursday), but in the time since booking the op, it’s, er, got better, could the filling have just taken a long while to “bed in”, or should I just go ahead and have it out?

Long version – one of my wisdom teeth has a huge filling in it (“more filling than tooth” my dentist says) and was refilled last week after a bit dropped out. It felt uncomfortable straight away, but got more & more painful as the week went on, peaking at the weekend, when I accidentally bit down hard on it and almost passed out when a bolt of pain went right through me… I went back to the dentist ASAP who said she was afraid this might happen with the size of filling, the only real solution is to have it out, and booked me in for tomorrow accordingly. Since then though, it’s gotten better & better every day, to the point where it genuinely almost feels back to normal. I have been on antibiotics for a few days, so maybe that’s » Continue Reading.

Career-killing records

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So this came up on shuffle on the commute this morning – The Shamen’s “Ebeneezer Goode”. I can’t remember the last time I heard it, and hadn’t even remembered it was on the compilation that smuggled it onto my iPod, but (eek) 25 years later it just sounds monumentally misjudged, a studio joke that went too far, a drug song for kids… and of course, despite its number 1 success, it effectively reduced the formerly supercool alternative dance act to the status of novelty-hitmakers, to be named & shamed alongside Benny Hill, Joe Dolce and Black Lace. Yes, they eked out a few more years of ever-less popular hit singles, but their career trajectory was instantly blown…

So, are there any other career-killing records (singles or albums) we can think of? Deservedly or otherwise? And should any be rehabilitated…?

Steve Lillywhite – where is he now?

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You know Steve Lillywhite, we all know Steve Lillywhite, I’d even put a fair amount of cash down now and bet that every single person here has a record produced by Steve Lillywhite somewhere in their collection. I first came across his name when I started seriously buying records in the late ’70s, on records by Siouxsie, XTC, Ultravox, The Members, Psychedelic Furs, you name it. Later on he moved into the big leagues with Peter Gabriel, Simple Minds, Talking Heads, Morrissey, even the Stones, and though his workrate has declined over the years, he still managed to contribute to U2’s last album…

… but where do you think he is now, selling over 7 million albums a year? If it was April 1st I wouldn’t believe this story, but click the link and maybe you’ll be as impressed as I am.

Here’s a clue: Chicken.

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2018/05/12/steve-lillywhite-at-cmw/

ATM – can’t burn audio CDs on PC?

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A technical query here for you geniuses of The Massive. My PC has suddenly decided to stop burning audio CDs – I’ve tried both iTunes (my usual method) and Windows Media Player, and in both cases, the burn seems to go OK for 10-15 seconds before the programme completely hangs with no error messages, and I have to shut down the programme via task manager to use the PC again.

It doesn’t seem to be a problem with the drive, as I can listen to and rip audio CDs, and also burn data CDs (and I can watch, rip and burn DVDs, no problem), it’s just burning audio CDs which is the problem…

Any easy solutions or even troubleshooting tips would be appreciated – thank you all!

A somewhat different music list – TV Cream 100 Greatest Singles

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I’ve been dipping into the TV Cream website for many years now – they style themselves as a 70s & 80s pop culture repository and though they can veer into the “Spangles & Chopper bikes” nostalgia zone, I mostly find them pleasingly irreverent…

Years ago they published a top 100 singles list, and have recently updated it… they’re not clear on how it was arrived at, though the comments clearly indicate some kind of voting system, but it’s a pleasingly bonkers celebration of 70s/80s pop & rock, and probably more diverse than many “cooler” charts out there… I’d also wager there’ll be a few “blimey, I’d forgotten about that” moments to be had too, especially in the YT clips they provide…

It might just be a bit too-uncool-for-school for us Afterworders, but I’d like to think it might also be a bit of an antidote to the angst-y handwringing we can sometimes be guilty of in analysing our listening likes & dislikes…

Top 10 in the comments (the number 1 might raise a few eyebrows), and the whole list is at the link, enjoy and have at it (and remember, don’t have nightmares…)

http://www.tvcream.co.uk/category/pop/100-greatest-singles-ever/

Best Fictional Tracks

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Sorry if we’ve done this before, but how about collecting our favourite tracks by fictional (non-existant) artists? I’d imagine the richest seam will be songs from movies & TV series, but I think we can stretch things to include artists actively performing under assumed identities (e.g. Dukes Of Stratosphere, even Chris Gaines or Silicon Teens), though if there’s a “rule”, it would be that this doesn’t apply to simple pseudonyms (so no “Layla”).

I’ll kick things off with the track that put the idea in my head – “All Over The World” by Strange Fruit, from the movie Still Crazy, and featuring the collective songwriting talent of Mick Jones and Chris Difford (with Marti Fredriksen) – surely this would have been a hit in “real life”…?

Various Artists – Close To The Noise Floor: Formative UK Electronica 1975-1984

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What does it sound like?:

“His mother bought him a synthesiser, got The Human League in to advise her, now he’s making lots of noise, playing along with the art-school boys…” (The Undertones’ “My Perfect Cousin”)

That was the status of The Human League and electronic music in early 1980 – a punchline to another band’s joke. Of course, history records that about 18 months later, The Human League would be one of the biggest bands in the world, and “Futurist” or “New Romantic” music would be the sound of the moment…

… but this 4 CD box-set tells the story of that other electronic music – the parallel path of art-school boys (and make no mistake, it’s nearly always boys) making lots of noise, often sounding like a “spaceship taking off” (as one of the sleevenote contributors has it.) This is the hipper-than-thou underground world of tape-swap collectives, mail-order cassettes and one-off self-financed labels, with many of these tracks appearing on CD for the first time, and as a historic archive project, this is an excellent collection.

However, it’s far from a complete survey of the UK electronic scene – with no Cabaret Voltaire, Mute or Some » Continue Reading.

Posies spare ticket – 100 Club, London – Wednesday 6th April 2016

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06/04/2016

A sudden change in shift-patterns means my usual gig-partner can’t make it to see powerpop legends The Posies (plus support from the unknown-to-me The President Lincoln) at London’s equally legendary 100 Club on Oxford Street tomorrow night (Wednesday).

Please PM me or reply below if interested – £20 to cover ticket face value or close would be appreciated, and you’ll be under no obligation to associate with me inside 🙂 (PS in the event of a rush I’ll say “first come, first served”.) Cheers!

(http://theposies.net/)