When you can't find what you've mislaid...

This was me today and I just can't find my CD of Amy LaVere - Anchors and Anvils!

I trawled for it in my CD collection, without success, but then got distracted by my vinyl collection knowing full well that it would not be found there. While that did not solve the original problem it was to prove interesting on the day that AC/DC went straight to the top of the UK album charts.
I found three albums, packed together in a polythene sleeve, that I'm convinced I've never ever listened to! That's careless and particularly so as I had at least made the effort to note - on a slip of paper inside each sleeve - when I acquired them, which was November 1987!

This is the most interesting of the three - the original French release, Disques Carrere 67.484 (1981) - on vinyl and complete with very sensible storage instructions on the inner sleeve:

The music is a far cry from that of the, far more recent, French artists that I was listening to earlier today but that is just the way it is. It may not be groundbreaking, and wasn't even thus when it first appeared, but it has nevertheless stood the test of time remarkably well.

Reality Check - Part 2: Echo Beach revisited.

I'd been planning to mention some new (to the UK) Australian music developments in this post but this evening, while I was making something to eat (a fish pie if you care to know) and listening to the radio I got a surprise...

I know it's out of fashion and a trifle uncool
But I can't help it, I'm a romantic fool.
It's a habit of mine to watch the sun go down.

The song 'Echo Beach' but certainly not the version I remember.

This one is, it turns out, a cover version sung by Australian 16-year-old Gabriella Cilmie and I'm fine with that. The thing is that it made me feel old again when the DJ said I bet you don't know the original. I certainly do (and without the help of a press release) but I did recall something more useful that was not mentioned, which is that it was on the album Metro Music (DINDISC, released as DID.1 - that being a fact that I didn't remember) and more importantly that I actually own it on original vinyl and so, after some searching, here it is.

Metro Music - Martha And The Muffins (1980).

The passage of time, almost three decades, has not done the sleeve any favours but then, as I have just rediscovered today, I paid the princely sum of £0.50 ($0.95, €0,70) for it secondhand and that was in 'Canterbury Rock' twenty-two years ago next month! The vinyl inside has however stood the test of time admirably - unscratched and still as flat as could be - and so it should therefore play perfectly? I have just listened to it and it certainly does; that may be surprising but what I find even more so is just how well the music itself has aged!

This is not actually what I intended to continue yesterday's post with but that will now just have to wait again.