Revolution – The White Album David Quantick.

August 13, 2012 – 9:34 pm

david quantick revolution the white LP

Price 50p – Location – Sutton Veny Summer Fate, Wiltshire.

I bought a copy of this smart little book at the Summer Fete at Sutton Veny House in Wiltshire off a charity stall. I also bought one on Let it Bleed as Well which I haven’t read yet.  I had second thoughts about buying it as I have such a back log of books to work through but I have always been amused by David Quantick’s writing in the past and have fond memories of the listening to the White Album.

The book covers the recording of The Beatles 1968 LP called the Beatles but referred to by everyone as the White LP due to its classic cover (plain white) but British pop artist Richard Hamilton. There is a nice mix of trivia, personal details about the writers and some critical analysis of the songs.  It doesn’t aim to cover the same ground as Ian McDonalds Revolution in the Head, the tone is fairly light hearted, funny and well judged.

Throughout the book the versions of the songs on the LP are compared to those in the Kinfaun demos. The Kinfaun  demo versions of the songs are all acoustic with a number of different melodies, lyrics, arrangements and a number of songs that didn’t make the final version of the LP.

From reading the book I have now tracked down a copy of the demos online and really enjoyed listening to them. Buying the book has resulted in a new set of songs that I had never even heard of (let alone heard) and a better understanding of Pop Art and the work of Richard Hamilton.

I am going to burn a copy of the demos and send it with the book to a good friend of mine who is a big Beatles fan. Hopefully he will get as much joy from them as me and maybe past them on to someone else so that the book takes on another life all of its own.

Revolution is a classic example of why I started second hand culture website. One book has resulted in opening pathways to a wealth of other sources and material. You are not going to get this from second hand Kindles are you?

Kinfaun Demos

Richard Hamilton 

David Quantick Twitter

David Quantick Revolution The Making of the White LP

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The Undertones – Hypnotised LP (Fame Reissue)

February 7, 2012 – 11:45 am
The Undertones - Hypnotised LP Front Cover

The Undertones - Hypnotised LP Front Cover

The Undertones - Hypnotised LP Back Cover

The Undertones - Hypnotised LP Back Cover

I have always been a fan of The Undertones and also loved the post spilt band that the O’Neil brothers formed That Petrol Emotion.

I bought this copy of the Hypnotised LP from the Oxfam Shop in Fore Street in Kingsbridge Devon. I could resit this as the front cover photo is great. Not sure which two band members it features but the look of glee in their eyes and the lobster napkins and white wine glasses makes for an arresting image. A band in the first flush of success amused by it all.

Hypnotised is the bands second LP and includes the UK top 10 single My Perfect Cousin. The whole LP is great with the mix of killer punk pop melodies and lyrics that turn the parochial into the universal.

This copy is a reissue on the Fame Label which EMI records reissued LPs at a cheaper price. It cost me £1.99 and was well worth it.

Track Listing

No. Title Written by Length
1. “More Songs About Chocolate And Girls” Damian O’Neill 2:43
2. “There Goes Norman” J. J. O’Neill 2:28
3. “Hypnotised” Damian O’Neill, Michael Bradley 2:31
4. “See That Girl” J. J. O’Neill 2:25
5. “Whizz Kids” Damian O’Neill 2:20
6. “Under The Boardwalk“ Kenny Young, Arthur Resnick* 2:27
7. “The Way Girls Talk” J. J. O’Neill 2:30
8. “Hard Luck” J. J. O’Neill, Michael Bradley, Damian O’Neill, Billy Doherty, Feargal Sharkey 3:42
Side two
No. Title Written by Length
1. “My Perfect Cousin“ Damian O’Neill, Michael Bradley 2:36
2. “Boys Will Be Boys” J. J. O’Neill, Damian O’Neill 1:27
3. “Tearproof” J. J. O’Neill, Michael Bradley 2:21
4. “Wednesday Week“ J. J. O’Neill 2:17
5. “Nine Times Out Of Ten” J. J. O’Neill, Billy Doherty 2:38
6. “Girls That Don’t Talk” J. J. O’Neill 2:27
7. “What’s With Terry” Damian O’Neill 3:19

More Information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnotised

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/129152-the-undertones-the-undertones-the-undertones-hypnotised-positive-tou

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Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell – You’re All I Need LP

February 7, 2012 – 10:48 am
Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell - You're All I Need Vinyl LP Cover

Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell - You're All I Need

Picked up a copy of this great LP from the Sanderwick car bootsale. I tend to always buy Tamala Motown LPs if they they aren’t compilations or greatest hit sets. This set me back the grand total of £1.oo and the rare record guide has it priced at £30 .00 which is not bad profit if I ever looked to sell it on.

The record is okay for it’s age with some surface marks and crackle when you play it but then its 43 years old!

“…You’re All I Need is the second studio LP  by soul musicians Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, released in August 1968 on Motown-subsidiary labelTamla Records. Entirely written and produced by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson (who composed three of the songs on the first Gaye/Terrell duets LP, United), You’re All I Need was recorded throughout 1966 and 1967 and features two Top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hits, “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing” and “You’re All I Need to Get By“. It peaked at #60 on the U.S. Billboard 200 Album Chart. You’re All I Need was the two singers’ final collaboration effort, as Terrell would turn ill following recording, before succumbing to a brain tumor  in 1970…”

Track Listing:

Side one

  1. “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing“ (Nickolas Ashford, Valerie Simpson)
  2. “Keep On Loving Me Honey” (Ashford, Simpson)
  3. “You’re All I Need to Get By“ (Ashford, Simpson)
  4. “Baby Doncha Worry” (Johnny Bristol, Jackey Beavers)
  5. “You Ain’t Livin’ ‘Til You’re Lovin’” (Ashford, Simpson)
  6. “Give In, You Just Can’t Win” (Harvey Fuqua, Bristol)

Side two

  1. “When Love Comes Knocking At Your Heart” (Fuqua, Bristol, Gladys Knight, Vernon Bullock)
  2. “Come On and See Me” (Fuqua, Bristol)
  3. “I Can’t Help But Love You” (Robert Gordy, Thomas Kemp, Marvin Gaye)
  4. “That’s How It Is (Since You’ve Been Gone)” (Fuqua, Bristol, Bullock)
  5. “I’ll Never Stop Loving You Baby” (Fuqua, Bristol, Beatrice Verdi)
  6. “Memory Chest” (Fuqua, Bristol)

 

 

 

For more information -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You’re_All_I_Need

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/marvin_gaye_and_tammi_terrell/youre_all_i_need/

 

 

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Associates – Sulk – Vinyl Record (Beggars Banquet)

July 16, 2011 – 10:31 pm

Associates - Sulk VinylA bought this copy of Associates – Sulk on vinyl from the same person that I bought the copy of Lost in The Stars from at the Sanderwick bootsale and it cost me a £1.00. I was too young to have found this of interest when it was first released and my first exposure to the glory of Billy MacKenzies voice was fairly late in the game with the release of Fever in 1990 and a glimpse of the video on ITVs Chart Show on a Saturday morning before my shift at Sainsbury’s in Woolwich. I did not know at the time that Alan Rankine had left before the Sulk tour at by the time I first heard the band they were far down a path of critical and commercial decline.

The band were always getting name checked in The Melody Maker in the late 1980s and I have owned a few records over the years but never a copy of Sulk. Sulk hasn’t disappointed at all. I love the cover photo and that they have had to put a sticker on the cover to explain who the record is by.  Its full of bravado, ache, lush production and that spine chilling vocal. Its such a shame that Rankine left after this record and that Sulk wasn’t seen as a blue print for great overreaching sonic pop for the rest of the decade. A pound well spent.

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The Observer’s Book of Ships (Book)

July 16, 2011 – 9:53 pm

The Observer Book of Ships

I have always been a fan of the Observer’s books or mini guides, something else I picked up from my Dad. The books published  by Frederick Warne & Co in the United Kingdom from 1937 to 2003 in pocket size additions. The Ships edition caught my eye due to its lovely 1950′s cover art and the guide to ships flags on the inside colour plates. This is number 15 in the series 100 and cost me 50p in a secondhand book shop in Lyme Regis Dorset.

 

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Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill (vinyl LP)

July 16, 2011 – 9:34 pm

Lost in The Stars

I bought this copy of Lost in the Stars – The Music of Kurt Weill at Sanderwick car bootsale for a £1.00 as I have always had an interest in Kurt Weill and have a vague memory of the reviews of this when it was released back in 1985. I wasn’t a fan or either Lou Reed or Tom Waits at the time but it was there names on the shelve that sold me on it. I also remember The Young Gods covering September Song.

I thought that it might sound like post Swordfish Tom Waits and I think I was kind of right. Lovely art work and cover notes. Anything who’s opening title is called ”Introduction from Mahagonny-Songspiel” is a winner in my book. There are also great versions or the songs by Marianne Faithfull and Van Dykes Parks.

 

 

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The Selected Poetry of Pope (Alexander Pope) – Hardback Book

July 12, 2011 – 2:38 pm

Alexander Pope Selected Poetry Book Hard Back 1970

I picked up the hardback copy of Selected Poetry – Alexander Pope from the Warminster Lions Charity Bookshop in Warminster Wiltshire. Its a great little shop that is only open on a Saturday morning but it carries a range of books and they prices are very cheap. This book cost me 50p to buy.

The main reason I bought it was that I loved the cover image and it wasn’t until I got it home that I noticed that it was an old withdrawn library book from Glasgow University Library.

The fact that is old library book only adds to the appeal for me. Sadly for this collection it doesn’t look like it was ever issued to a reader as the inside sheet is black and the Withdrawn From Stock Stamp reads 31 August 2005. This addition was published by Signet as part of their New American Library series in 1970.

The sad volume must have sat alone and unread on the shelves for 35 years hoping for someone to take a glance at it. How it traveled in those six years between Glasgow and Wiltshire is a mystery and I just hope it was read in that time.

I now know that Alexander Pope was was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse. A catholic by birth Pope was taught privately as catholic school were banned at the time in England. As well as his work as a poet Pope also worked as a translator on a famous version of the Odyssey by Homer and completed a new version of the complete works of Shakespeare.

“…Pope was also employed by the publisher Jacob Tonson to produce an opulent new edition of Shakespeare. When it finally appeared, in 1725, this edition silently “regularised” Shakespeare’s metre and rewrote his verse in a number of places.[6] Pope also demoted about 1560 lines of Shakespearean material to footnotes, arguing that they were so “excessively bad” that Shakespeare could never have written them…”

I have been dipping into the book at lunchtimes and in the evenings and the use of language is wonderful.

This is some of his Verse from the poem To A Lady  (1735)

“…A fool to Pleasure, yet a slave to Fame:
Now deep in Taylor and the Book of Martyrs,
Now drinking citron with his Grace and Chartres.
Now Conscience chills her, and now Passion burns;
And Atheism and Religion take their turns;
A very Heathen in the carnal part,
Yet still a sad, good Christian at her heart…”

Now without picking this book up I would never have uncovered any of the above information and I know my life is richer as a result of it. This is what will be missing in a decades time when the physical object is replaced by the digital media version. What are we going to do? Buy old iPODs and Hard Drives?

 

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Kate Bush – The Kick Inside Vinyl

July 11, 2011 – 9:11 pm

Kate Bush - The Kick Inside Vinyl

I bought this copy of The Kick Inside by Kate Bush on vinyl at the Sanderwick Car Boot Sale in Frome Somerset for the grand total of £1.00. I have always been a fan of Kate Bush since my brother Pete bought the Hounds of Love and The Whole Story on video one Christmas. I remember watching the videos over and over and loving Cloud Busting and The Hounds of Love and being rather confused by the earlier material. Oddly Kate Bush’s Dad was my Nan’s GP and one of my old school friends used to deliver her post.

I have a number of other Kate Bush LPs on vinyl and this copy is in lovley nick and on first play on Sunday morning. The Man With a Child in His Eyes was as wonderful as I remember it.

This appears to be reissue on the EMI/Fame label which I believe was the label that EMI used when they reissued LPs at Midprice although I can’t find any information about that online.

The record has the lyrics printed on the back and an Our Price sticker on the front for the cost of £3.99. That means I bought it for roughly a quarter of the original purchase price a bargain in anyone’s eyes.

 

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