The Afterword

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ATM – anyone here invested in some of Rick Beato’s training material?

by 32 Comments

I know there are a lot of musicians here, most of them far more accomplished than my clumsy C,F and G strumming. Oh, and D as well. And A minor. I wonder if any of them have previously invested in any of Rick Beato’s training materials, or have any insight into its suitability for an old fart who wishes he knew more than that he just has a good pair of ears and pretty good pitch.

I ask because Rick is currently, at the time of writing, offering a humungous bundle of his interactive material for $99, which on the face of it is a huge discount.

Any observations are welcome: I’m tempted, really I’m tempted, but even heavily discounted, it’s still a chunk of moolah that I could otherwise spaff on a Dylan boxed set…

…so what’s the verdict?

All things of ancient wonder, all things that brought us here.

by 8 Comments

If you have any fondness for the old things, the rare things, the strange ways in which we came to this place, the wisdoms and foolishnesses we have partly forgotten, you may already know of Doc Rowe.

For six decades he has been documenting the folklore of these islands, gathering up arcana in scatterings of film, video, photographs and sound recordings, traipsing from one end of the isles to the other, tirelessly capturing culture that has, miraculously, persisted to the 20th century and beyond from much older places deep in the wild wood, hidden in dark, narrow, cobbled streets, on windswept beaches and high on the blasted damp of the bleakest moors.

There is a move affoot to digitise this huge archive, to make it more secure for those that follow us to be able to see, to wonder and to marvel at and to learn from. If you have a few bob you can spare, perhaps you can dip into your pocket and help things along. It’s not a huge amount of money that’s needed, but more than is currently available without a collective sub. Can you help to make it happen? The link to chip in » Continue Reading.

ATM – the hand luggage challenge for weekend CD shopping in New York.

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A pal of mine is off to Noo Yawk shortly for a 4-day weekend. He’s there to meet up with a fellow comedian, go to his show, and check out some comic book stores. He’s also kindly asked me if there is any CD I’d like him to pick up for me while he’s there – something not easily available, or only available at extortionate prices over here in Blighty.

Off the top of my head, I couldn’t think of an example, but surely there must be something of that description that I can ask him to get for me?

It doesn’t necessarily have to be a single CD, it could be a double, a triple, a small boxed set even, as long as it fits into his hand luggage, and the genre doesn’t matter all that much. Just the cheeky fun of getting a copy for a regular price in the US rather than a small fortune in the UK, and the avoidance of any import duties would be a small thrill. Sticking it to the man, in a ridiculously tiny way. I guess vinyl is out of the question, but a shiny silver disc or three would » Continue Reading.

Too Much Mahler…

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I’ve been reviewing my CD collection and have decided that I have too much Mahler (© First World Problems). If any of you crazy pop kids would like a nice box set of the Bernstein 1980s cycle on DG, PM me – first come first served…

I don’t want any money – perhaps a donation to your local Hospice – if nobody fancies it, it’ll probably end up in my local Hospice shop anyway.

Sláinte, everyone.

(PS: Mods – if anything about this is uncomfortable, please delete – thanks)

Vox, Select, etc. free cassettes – worth hearing again? I need some triage here.

by 89 Comments

Back in the nineties and noughties, the monthly non-Word music rags, mostly also now extinct, used to regularly sellotape little cassettes to their covers, often from single label sources, and often containing otherwise unavailable tracks or alternate mixes. I know this because I have a box of the darn things in my loft.

I also know that tape print-through is starting to make itself heard on these cassettes, particularly those that used el cheapo tape in the first place. That’s most of ’em.

With that in mind I’m setting out on a mammoth digitisation exercise using the ace NevaDuo USB gizmo that our friend @fentonsteve recommended some months back for those of us keen to turn our analogue tape stuff into ones and zeroes before it’s too late to retrieve it all.

So, as I won’t live long enough to get around to actually playing all of those little freebies again, I’m calling out to you lot to suggest the one that you found most excellent back in the day, so that I can concentrate on those to start with. The one that really had tracks worth hearing again, the one you’d maybe like » Continue Reading.

The Pocket WOMAD anyone? Has it ever been bettered?

by 27 Comments

Reflecting on the recent WOMAD Festival just up the road from me outside Malmesbury, and the interest shown on another thread here in the mellifluous choons of Remmy Ongala, I wondered whether any other Afterworders were aware of the splendid 90-minute Chrome cassette release (WOMBIP C1) put out by WOMAD/Bop Cassettes in 1987?

The tracklisting is in the comments – it’s a monster!

Talk about eclectic and well-chosen; has there ever been a better ‘world music’ compo?

ATM – turntable dilemma – upgrade or replace or what?

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@fentonsteve most likely; here’s where I’d value a third party opinion…

The context: My trusty Rega Planar 3 has just (about an hour ago) slowed to a halt and stopped, mid-rip. It may well be that it’s just the fuse in the mains plug that’s let go, but it really deserves a service anyway, so I’m going to cart it to the audio-T shop on Park street in Bristol and invest.

The obvious question: I can afford to just pay for a service (assuming it is still capable of resurrection) and a new stylus for the existing cartridge (Elys), or I can pay for a service and a cartridge upgrade (Elys2), or I can stretch a little and buy a brand new P3 with an Exact cartridge. And here’s where it gets worryingly and more excitingly stretchy, I could just about convince myself to splurge for a brand new P6 with an Exact MM cartridge…

Before I risk emptying the vaults, I’d like to see some sort of spreadsheet comparison of bang for buck for all these options. Failing that I’d value any techical advice that’s a little more up to date than my sketchy hi-fi » Continue Reading.

ATM – is there anything worth watching on the telly today?

by 125 Comments

Strewth. Both of the main BBC channels are awash with blithering from Claire Balding, as the unlucky two are dragged uncomfortably before their cheering supplicants in a monstrous golden carriage. The bloke inside looks miserable while his chum just keeps on tapping at her hairsprayed bouffant lest it move a nanometric smidgen from its intended position. Her handbag is apparently carved from the timbers of H.M.S. Victory. Or something.

Any suggestions from iPlayer, or Netflix? It’s pissing down here so we aren’t keen on going out.

60 tomorrow…

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I had over the years assumed I was of average age for an Afterworder!

As I reach a slightly cranky 60 tomorrow, am I a youthful but occasional contributor or just too old to rock’n’roll.

Though a fan of the 1970’s Tull, I am listening today to those bangin’ toons from Leftfield’s first album. Who am I trying to kid? Time for a cocoa and a bit of Josh Rouse!

Emergency Alerts Test. You what?

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On Sunday 23 April at 3pm HM Gov will be sending a UK-wide Emergency Alerts test message to all compatible devices – i.e. all things 4G or 5G. When you receive the message, your phone or tablet may vibrate and make a loud siren-like sound for about ten seconds, even if it is set on ‘silent’. An inane message will appear on your screen, trying to stop you from panicking, should you be sufficiently disadvantaged to have missed all the prior hoo-hah ahead of Sunday, or to have paid it no heed for whatever reason.

As this is going to be just a test run ahead of any real emergency – Boris standing for PM again, Record Store Day being cancelled, 30 kilotons heading swiftly for your local area, that sort of thing, it’s just a royal PITA for most people.

Imagine being jolted from your post-prandial slumbers, comatose on your Parker-Knoll Recliner dreaming about Stevie Nicks and what might have been, if only. It might be enough to trigger that final, fatal, massive cardiac event, or at least spill that ill-advised second G&T the size of Wiltshire.

For my part, I’m just going to put my phone inside » Continue Reading.

The swallows are back. time for a CD Swapfest I reckon?

by 43 Comments

Do you lot fancy another round of “baffle the others” by doing a CD swapfest? How about it, CD-swap experts?

It’s not as if the monthly arrival of Mojo and Uncnut issues doesn’t empty my wallet as fast as I can refill it, but the stuff I’ve discoved from our CD swaps out-baffles even the wackiest of the monthlies’ cover CDs.

Whadja rekun?

Bob Dylan does Death Metal anyone?

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Saw this on the dodgers and considered the likelihood that I’d enjoy old crooner classics reinterpreted by croaking Bob and a bunch of chord crunching idiots like Venom. Decided against it, though similar unlikely collaborations might possibly have actually had some merit.

Your own favourite unlikely collaborations that surprsingly hit the spot for you?

View post on imgur.com

ATM – best Analog to Digital line level gizmo with a USB interface to a PC?

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I laboured under the impression that an earlier ATM discussing audio interfaces was about gizmos to attach to the line-out of your hi-fi and plug into your laptop via USB – until I saw all those weird jack plug input sockets – shock horror, they are for microphones and geetars!!

What I currently have is a little noddy thing that takes a stereo line level output and sends it out to a USB I can plug into a laptop to record straight into Audacity and save from there as wav files. It’s OK I suppose (I’ve done a few relatively OK needle drops that way) but it’s a really plasticy little thing and has limited controls bar a dodgy looking switch to change from MM to MC cartridge sources.

Shirley, there must be a neat gadget I can get to do the same job, only with far better quality?

Any help most welcome.

Calling @fentonsteve and others!

The Annualist’s Compendium Of 2022 Musical Joys (& Free Hugs)

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You can’t have enough lists (or free hugs) so here’s my very own Year-End-Best-Of-2022 list. I’m no fan of ratings of any kind – and it changes every day of course – so each category has a winner and everything else sorted alphabetically. The winner isn’t necessarily »The Best«, but certainly the most played at Fatima Towers.

C O M P I L A T I O N S

||||||||||||| Various Species Of Musicians Gathered Together With A Tune ||||||||||||| Jack Kerouac • 100 Years Of Beatitude + Chrome Universal • A Survey Of Modern Pedal Steel (Imaginational Anthems Vol. 11) Climb Aboard My Roundabout • The British Toytown Pop Sound 1967-1974 Dark Exotica • As Dug by Lux & Ivy Lux & Ivy Say Flip Your Top Heroes & Villains • The Sound Of Los Angeles 1965-1968 Ocean Child • Songs Of Yoko Ono Ost-Kraut Teil 1 & 2 • Progressives aus den DDR-Archiven 1970-1982 This Was Your Future • Dave Brock presents Space Rock (And Other Psychedelics) 1978-1998 The Virginia & West Virginia Box • 1950s & 1960s Oddball Labels

N E W M U S I C

||||||||||||| The Sunday Painter Greets The Lemonade Dawn » Continue Reading.

ATM – utterly blank screen on a Roberts Stream WM-202 internet radio – WTF?

by 19 Comments

I know there are a lot of internet radio users hereabouts, and I’ve got several myself; there’s my first one, a Revo Axis (thanks for the original reco @Twang – it’s been brilliant) that sits on my desk right here, then there are two little Bush items, there’s a very nice Pure jobbie that lives out in the potting shed, and we have a big old Roberts Stream WM-202 in the kitchen.

The Roberts has always been set to play BBC Radio 4 only; I’ve never paid much attention to its screen, I just tap the on/off button and away you go. However, wanting to continue listening to a FIP programme that I’d been following out in the garage, I went to change the presets yesterday and noticed that the screen was blank. This is a Royal PITA, as pretty much anything other than selecting a pre-existing preset is done via the menu on this screen – without it, the thing is just stuck at Radio 4. Any attempt to navigate the menu system blind is a sure-fire route to permanent brickdom for the entire thing.

Anyone here ever replaced/revived the LCD screen on this » Continue Reading.

Photos you have taken that remind you of fine paintings.

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These days, we all take oodles of photos. Research has indicated that 99.88% of these are a waste of pixels, but they give us pleasure, so hey! Why not? Every now and then I take a photo on my phone that reminds me of some painting or other.

When I was a young lad, we used to get a decent sized framed print of a ‘great master’ painting delivered every few weeks to our primary school classroom by a van from Plymouth City Museum – over a term we’d see maybe half a dozen such works. Proof of the cultural enrichment this afforded me is the fact that I still recognise some of these when they turn up on University Challenge as part of a ‘picture bonus’ round of questions. No doubt the impoverishment of our local authorities has long since seen this service to our youth withdrawn.

Anyway, just yesterday I snapped a scene that immediately made me think of a work by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the marvellous ‘The Hunters In The Snow’. My photo is in the comments.

Have you taken a snap that brings a classic painting to mind?

Hunters » Continue Reading.

What’s the WORST album you own?

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Looking through the past few weeks’ worth of retrospective reviews, and facing a relative dearth of new stuff being celebrated here that tempts me to explore (I’m well into a Thea Gilmore investigation thanks to this place right now), for some tangential reason my mind wandered to those CDs or LPs on my shelves that haven’t been played at all since i first heard them. It occurs to me that some members of the Afterword posse might own more duff CDs (or LPs) than the average punter has in their entire collection.

That passing thought led me to ask – if we haven’t done this before I’d be surprised, but it was long enough ago that another crack at it might be amusing – what’s the absolute worst CD or LP in your possession, and what on earth led you to acquire it in the first place? Weird stories of how it came to be on your shelves, or why you still continue to own it, are almost more important than knowing what it is.

Here’s my candidate: ‘Dig Thy Savage Soul’ by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages, acquired when my bestie Mike handed it to me with a » Continue Reading.

Sandy Denny curates a radio prog in Denmark, 1970

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Not sure if this will work, but worth a try – I’ve tried to put a link here to a Danish radio programme’s website that’s hosting a recording from 1970 wherein Sandy Denny plays a few of her fave choons. It’s a nice listem; hope this works.

It’s only up there for a short while I think.

https://news.bauermedia.co.uk/pub/cc?_ri_=X0Gzc2X%3DAQpglLjHJlTQGwN5gCoohWs7BDzfBDkgvgAIkzaNNwRtT5XIld5rgDtszcze0nvWIt3uARVXtpKX%3DSYRWSBAAT&_ei_=EU_JU348kCCZz1U0JHE_k9j-KAOxYrTnyGE6rsArHXgaJwNIa8MAY-qEz9ZECkw7zwaPFtHQWfn542rQQmdk82sZ0kmYG_06tf_Ehgj3U82DRSAypOZ4fvGilaBazMo_b-r9qON_bFCkRozLEXrcZwyK_6O1AUgWZ38.&_di_=48t557htj5cd3ncad606di219hknptqlc2dmmqdnmrv3uetpfig0