Showing posts with label free. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free. Show all posts

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Record Store Day 2014 - old favourites

I thought I'd go back to the future with my thoughts on the forthcoming Record Store Day 2014. What are your thoughts, perhaps from RSD past, and what you would like to see in 2014?
To take it all back a step, what are the possibly unusual records from years ago that you own and treasure? There is no need for these to be rare or valuable... I own 5 copies of Thin Lizzy's - Black Rose (A Rock Legend) on vinyl but the one I am listening to right now is Vertigo 60 63 169. It sounds just the same as any other but is, in fact, the original Spanish release (1979).
To own a few curiosities, even if they have no particular pecuniary value, is appealing for some of us.

Rather soon after I went away to university, in the autumn of 1983, I was exposed to much new music some of which I liked and some not. Some of both still always reminds me of that time. Another factor is that time more or less coincided with the renaissance of Radio Caroline. As I was in North Kent and MV Ross Revenge was not that far away the station was almost receivable with the radio turned off! 
It also had, and still does, the tendency to play albums. It is arguably, along with my decision to go to festivals from 2007, one of the defining moments of my music-listening life. I credit it with, amongst others some of which I did not appreciate at the time, introducing me to the work of Bob Dylan.

I don't recall this album from that time, maybe it was deemed old even then, but I doubt that was the reason as I certainly remember the station playing Free, which was again largely new to me but just as old.
I actually have some rather strange memory-evidence for this assertion. Another artist that Radio Caroline introduced me to was Jimi Hendrix and while I well remember hearing his version of 'All Along The Watchtower' back then it was probably twenty-five years before I actually realized that it was a Dylan cover, from the aforementioned album of course. How naïve was I?
You could reasonably pin a great deal of my musical taste on that which I heard in my time at University. I still hate Phil Collins' music, for example.


This is becoming rather more "Thoughts On Music" than I planned (because I didn't actually do any planning for this post) but I'm rather enjoying it. None of this endeavour was planned anyway, and I did say that in the event that I reached 100 posts I would retire.
I'm sorry. I changed my mind: this is the 838th.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Love, loathe, or never even thought about it?

This is just one of the lessons I learned the weekend before last. Those who have opinions have definite ones, many other people are ambivalent to the extent that the concept of folk music means almost nothing at all. It is not for everyone, I know almost nothing at all about classical music although I should. I could find so much to listen to so easily but still I don't. That's just me.
On the subject of folk, which of course I like a great deal, this is a pretty distinct compilation played and sung largely in the contemporary idiom. 

It is also a totally free, and legal, 11-track, 320 mp3 download.
You might not even regard it as folk music at all... and if that is so then that doesn't bother me one bit. If you like it for what it is then that is actually the only thing that matters.  This is the track list:
  1. Laura Boyle - Arms Of The Angels
  2. Dave Gerard and the Watchmen - Stables
  3. Jessie Moncrieff - Georgie
  4. Andrew Butler - Love Is A Record
  5. Camille Delean - Rivers
  6. O. Chapman feat. Faith Barker - Morning Song
  7. Lucy Cait - Brother
  8. Worry Dolls - Polaroids
  9. Woodford Green - What The Doctor Said
  10. Josienne Clarke - Forever And More
  11. Salwa Azar - White Horse
And, as I was exploring, I thought I might as well also add some artist links (not included in the download).  I certainly haven't had time to explore them in detail yet, but here they are anyway, and a lot of it looks well worth further investigation.