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Pete Atkin
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Re: Atkin/James re-releases on Demon Records
« Reply #80: 08.03.09 at 10:44 »
Quote

Quote:
Maybe someday we will have a definitive version of the first 6 records?

 
This is just an attempt at a small message of reassurance to any browsers who have found their way here out of interest in Clive's and my stuff (for which I thank you most sincerely and profoundly).
 
You may have gained the impression, assuming you have made it this far down the page, that Demon Records have lived up to their name in having perpetrated a travesty, that I have somehow been done over yet again by the men with big cigars (metaphorical ones these days, of course).  This is absolutely -- and, may I say, definitively -- not so.
 
The facts are that the new CD transfers were all sent to me for checking and approval, quite apart from the checks made by the guys at Alchemy (who did the transfers) and Val Jennings at Demon; and that I did indeed check and approve them. In one or two cases I sent them back with comments and those comments were acted upon promptly and efficiently.  
 
I confess that I did not make a detailed comparisons with the master tapes themselves, or with previous transfers, or with the vinyl.  I was - evidently culpably - content with the thought that they sounded OK to me in and of themselves.  There are, I am grateful and pleased to say, many who have listened to these records far more often than I have myself in every available format and on a huge range of different kinds of sound equipment.  These listenings create an individually definitive idea of how the records ought to sound.  That's not to say that there aren't objective standards (Steve is dead right about those early CD reissues of the  Steely Dan albums, in my opinion), but in sound reproduction everything is a compromise -- always was, still is.
 
So, dear browser, assuming you have made it this far down the message, if you have arrived here in search of the songs, please don't be put off.  The songs are indeed still here.  And the songs are what matter most to me and to Clive, at any rate. The recordings are just what turned out on particular days in the seventies, for better or worse, the best I could do at the time.
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S J Birkill
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These ARE the definitive versions!
« Reply #81: 08.03.09 at 12:30 »
Quote

I must just add a few words of agreement and support for Pete and Val here: despite the appearance of forensic analysis in my previous post, this really is a techie thing and very little to do with the music and the listening experience. Yes, the manipulation of a sound recording is an exact, material and deterministic engineering process, but the set of parameters finally selected for that manipulation remains an artistic judgement: one listener will be appalled if his CD sounds less 'bright' than his vinyl while another will be seriously discomfited by any trace of background noise. You can't please everyone. If over-processing is my bęte noire, that bee is in my bonnet. I'm far more annoyed to discover that the earlier CD reissues featured peak clipping, and my ears didn't even spot the resulting harmonic distortion! In fact I'd never have noticed any shortcomings in either version if I hadn't made a direct comparison.
 
Just think of the alternative: dub one's old vinyl to CD. Most people reading this will have played those LPs to death. Yes, they might be able to hear the original tape hiss in those worn grooves, but the swoosh and crackle of cleaning residue and micro-scratches, and the modulation noise due to groove wear even on a copy that's been handled in the true '70s audiophile tradition, tracked at 2 grams with an elliptical diamond stylus, will at best mar the pleasure.
 
This release is the very best treatment these 6 LPs will ever get, and probably could get. I can't see the material ever again being assembled with such loving care and attention to detail, by all parties concerned, not just Val Jennings and his team but also Pete and Clive, themselves closely involved with design and production. Yes, judgements and compromises have been made along the way -- what to include, how to present it -- and this applies to the recording techniques as much as to the packaging. And, let's not forget, promotion and distribution: those albums are in the shops again, 35 years on from their initial appearance, and at a fraction of their original price, in real terms.
 
So fear not -- these are the definitive versions!
 
Steve
 
PS - Forgot to say: the whole technical quality debate falls further into insignificance when you consider that many CD purchasers will immediately dub the albums onto their PCs in MP3 format, with all the supposedly inaudible compression and data loss that entails, and subsequently listen primarily to the compressed version on a portable MP3 player. Indeed, some have even stated (MV passim) that they prefer the 'MP3 sound' to the CD's original 16-bit linear coding!
« Last Edit: 08.03.09 at 12:51 by S J Birkill »     https://peteatkin.com/forum?board=news&action=display&num=1230193171&start=81#81   copy 

Stephen J Birkill
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Re: Atkin/James re-releases on Demon Records
« Reply #82: 08.03.09 at 14:19 »
Quote

I thought I would try to extract this thread from the pit of geekdom into which it has fallen - the last time I saw the phrase 'smoothed off peak' I was in a geography class, and that wasn't any time recently.
 
My package of litlle Edsels arrived on Thursday, so I have replayed pretty much all of them since then (still a little stuck on Live Libel) while dipping in and out of the notes. It threw up a couple of vivid and unexpected memories.
 
The first was on Wristwatch for a Drummer, which I remember playing to my mother - who was quite interested in popular music - because I admired the wordplay on it. She wasn't that impressed (she had also been an English teacher).
 
""That ain't no bummer'"?, she said. "That's not much of a line".
I assured her that that was the way in which musicians talked to each other about such things. "That doesn't mean he has to use it in the lyric", she said.
 
At that point she heard the line about the "synthesiser played by elves". "He's just using that because he's said 'twelves' and hasn't got anything to rhyme with it", she said, clearly sensing that by now she was on a roll, not that anyone would have said that in the mid 70s. (And I think she may have had a point here).  
 
At this point my brother jumped in - yes, there's a whole family pattern re-playing itself here. He was studying music and at the time was rather more into Charpentier than Cream. "Just because the lyric mentions a bell it doesn't mean we have to hear one", he chipped in. "I don't know why the arrangement is so literal". At this point I quit.
 
The second memory was prompted by the notes about 'Perfect Moments'. By the time I got 'Road of Silk' I was at Cambridge, and at the time there was a fine jazz record shop specialising in 'cut-outs' and deletions called Garon Records, in King Street. This meant that even on a student budget they sold a lot of high quality affordable jazz. I knew a little bit about Parker at the time - he hadn't been big where I went to school, but I'd borrowed records and tapes from people who were better informed - and after hearing 'Perfect Moments' I fell upon a deletion which had 'My Old Flame' on it. Of course, I bought it.
 
Now, 'My Old Flame' is a fine track, but for the last few years I've had the notion that Clive James chose it because it fitted rather better into the rhyme scheme and scansion than, say, Ornithology or A Night In Tunisia might have done.
 
But reading the interview notes on Val Jennings booklet, I think I may have been wrong.  
 
Echoing other comments about the high quality of the booklets, I haven't found a single typo yet, and CD booklets are usually infested with them. But more importantly, the interviews about the song have a whole masterclass in song-writing embedded in them. Terrific.    
 
  
« Last Edit: 08.03.09 at 14:37 by Andrew Curry »     https://peteatkin.com/forum?board=news&action=display&num=1230193171&start=82#82   copy 
Bogus Trumper
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Re: Atkin/James re-releases on Demon Records
« Reply #83: 08.03.09 at 18:07 »
Quote

on 08.03.09 at 10:44, Pete Atkin wrote:

 
 I was - evidently culpably - content with the thought that they sounded OK to me in and of themselves.  

 
For those of us us less conversant with geekspeak - thank you!!  That is good enough for me.  Cheesy
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andyw
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Re: Atkin/James re-releases on Demon Records
« Reply #84: 08.03.09 at 19:19 »
Quote

Pheww!!  You techno-geeks had us worried for a minute there.  Pardon me while I go back to re-listening to all 6 of the new CDs recently delivered by Amazon, without having to go into the loft to find my vinyl copies.
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Ian Ashleigh
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Re: Atkin/James re-releases on Demon Records
« Reply #85: 08.03.09 at 19:47 »
Quote

I have just placed my order for AKAN/TROS and SD/LL from the good people at Hillside Records.  
 
As the good Mr Birkill correctly observes, I will load them onto my MP3 player via Windows Media Player for enjoying through that medium.
 
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S J Birkill
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Re: Atkin/James re-releases on Demon Records
« Reply #86: 08.03.09 at 19:47 »
Quote

What is this 'geek' thing, guys? A term of abuse for software-aware kids that talk a different language from the rest of us? Or  just something one uses when one fears one should know more about something than one does? I don't think we should need derogatory terms here. Surely we all know something about recording and music? Is knowing a major seventh from a suspended fourth, or what makes an iamb different from a trochee, geekish?
 
SJB
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Stephen J Birkill
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Re: Atkin/James re-releases on Demon Records
« Reply #87: 08.03.09 at 20:04 »
Quote

No offence intended, especially not to the good Mr Birkill, but as Pete says "And the songs are what matter most to me" Enjoy!
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Jan
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Re: Atkin/James re-releases on Demon Records
« Reply #88: 08.03.09 at 21:32 »
Quote

May I say that I very much enjoyed all that tekkie stuff, it was most interesting especially the bit about one recording being a smidgeon longer than another. Does this mean it's just a bit lower in tone or has it got a note or two missing - no don't tell me  Smiley
I will eventually get around to purchasing the new CDs but just for the documentation. The MP3 player is already full of Atkin and when heard over the engine of a Pennine bus it all becomes a bit academic.
Jan
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Andrew Curry
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Re: Atkin/James re-releases on Demon Records
« Reply #89: 08.03.09 at 22:39 »
Quote

Well, according to Merriam-Webster:
 
Main Entry: geek
Function:noun  
Etymology: probably from English dialect geek, geck fool, from Low German geck, from Middle Low German
Date: 1914
 
1 : a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake 2 : a person often of an intellectual bent who is disliked 3 : an enthusiast or expert especially in a technological field or activity <computer geek>  
 
Given that [3] is the modern usage, seems more descriptive than abusive... But even if we had been discussing scansion or chord structures there might also have come a point where the technical discussion had reached the limits of what it could usefully contribute to our understanding and enjoyment.
 
Best wishes
 
Andrew
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S J Birkill
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Re: Atkin/James re-releases on Demon Records
« Reply #90: 09.03.09 at 00:25 »
Quote

on 08.03.09 at 22:39, Andrew_Curry wrote:
But even if we had been discussing scansion or chord structures there might also have come a point where the technical discussion had reached the limits of what it could usefully contribute to our understanding and enjoyment.

This criterion (at least the 'understanding' bit) surely lies at the heart of the necessary distinction between such inevitably simplified but nevertheless justified technical terminology as is necessary to explain and illuminate the point being made, and the excessive and obscurantist use of jargon which characterises the commonly-held image of the 'geek' (whatever the dictionary definition) as an obsessive and anal enthusiast in his own narrow field, unconcerned about the boredom he inflicts upon his uncomprehending audience.  
 
Do you really think this thread crossed that line? Posting a handful of screen shots to illustrate a subtle aspect of signal distortion in terms even the reader totally ignorant of the recording process could understand surely beats the paragraphs of verbal hand-waving that would have been needed to explain it otherwise without resort to a highly subjective set of terms open to individual interpretation, doesn't it? I'd like to think that seeing the bass go "du-du-du-dum, dum dum dum" might have been enlightening for some, and I'd hope that we could discuss here the intricacies of scansion or chord structure in equivalent detail without complaint.  
 
Has the technophobic Zeitgeist really brought us to a point where people mentally 'switch off' rather than focus more closely when an explanation is offered? If so, it's not surprising that the derisive stereotype of the 'geek' is so often invoked.  
 
As for enjoyment, no-one here would deny that's what we're all chasing, and it might be argued that all analysis is foreign to enjoyment. Certainly we have had MV members express that sentiment in the past, concerning in particular the analysis of Clive's lyrics which formed a large part of MV traffic in the early years. But one of the advantages of a Web forum is the availability of the browser's 'back' button -- if too much analysis damages our enjoyment, we should leave it, read something else, go for a walk, play some music, whatever works. As Pete says, it's the songs that matter.
 
Steve
 
PS - Nothing personal, Andrew (nor any of the others citing geekdom) -- just riding another of my hobby horses Smiley. Enjoyed your reminiscences about first time around!
« Last Edit: 09.03.09 at 00:46 by S J Birkill »     https://peteatkin.com/forum?board=news&action=display&num=1230193171&start=90#90   copy 

Stephen J Birkill
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Posts: 35
Re: These ARE the definitive versions!
« Reply #91: 09.03.09 at 13:06 »
Quote

on 08.03.09 at 12:30, S J Birkill wrote:
I must just add a few words of agreement and support for Pete and Val here: despite the appearance of forensic analysis in my previous post, this really is a techie thing and very little to do with the music and the listening experience. Yes, the manipulation of a sound recording is an exact, material and deterministic engineering process, but the set of parameters finally selected for that manipulation remains an artistic judgement: one listener will be appalled if his CD sounds less 'bright' than his vinyl while another will be seriously discomfited by any trace of background noise. You can't please everyone. If over-processing is my bęte noire, that bee is in my bonnet. I'm far more annoyed to discover that the earlier CD reissues featured peak clipping, and my ears didn't even spot the resulting harmonic distortion! In fact I'd never have noticed any shortcomings in either version if I hadn't made a direct comparison.
 
Just think of the alternative: dub one's old vinyl to CD. Most people reading this will have played those LPs to death. Yes, they might be able to hear the original tape hiss in those worn grooves, but the swoosh and crackle of cleaning residue and micro-scratches, and the modulation noise due to groove wear even on a copy that's been handled in the true '70s audiophile tradition, tracked at 2 grams with an elliptical diamond stylus, will at best mar the pleasure.
 
This release is the very best treatment these 6 LPs will ever get, and probably could get. I can't see the material ever again being assembled with such loving care and attention to detail, by all parties concerned, not just Val Jennings and his team but also Pete and Clive, themselves closely involved with design and production. Yes, judgements and compromises have been made along the way -- what to include, how to present it -- and this applies to the recording techniques as much as to the packaging. And, let's not forget, promotion and distribution: those albums are in the shops again, 35 years on from their initial appearance, and at a fraction of their original price, in real terms.
 
So fear not -- these are the definitive versions!
 
Steve
 
PS - Forgot to say: the whole technical quality debate falls further into insignificance when you consider that many CD purchasers will immediately dub the albums onto their PCs in MP3 format, with all the supposedly inaudible compression and data loss that entails, and subsequently listen primarily to the compressed version on a portable MP3 player. Indeed, some have even stated (MV passim) that they prefer the 'MP3 sound' to the CD's original 16-bit linear coding!

 
Oh dear, Steve, I'm beginning to feel a weeny bit guilty. If you, Pete and Clive are happy, then I'm happy too. It was (to continue my previous culinary comparison) as if one had gone to a 3-star restaurant recollecting a great meal there and then eaten a very good but not outstanding meal. Chef off form or an over-rosy memory? In that case impossible to tell, but we can - as you did - compare different versions. There are differences, and I wholly accept that they ultimately boil down to individual preferences.
 
Then there's the technical (geeky?) side. I can't agree that vinyl is quite as compromised as you suggest; I've got a decent system (Linn Sondek/Arcam/B&W P6) and have always looked after my records. The result is that I have imperceptible background noise, am mortified if I ever hear the slightest click, and often prefer the original vinyl version to the CD re-issue - possibly because it is closest to the artists' original intensions?.
 
But then again, much of the listeners' views on sound quality will depend on the equipment they use to listen with (I originally typed "their reproduction equipment" then realised that wasn't quite right.....). If your set-up has a somewhat bright tone, then my comments will be irrelevant; it'll sound OK. Mine tends to be smooth - which makes many more recordings tolerable - and so may have prompted my original comments.
 
Finally, MP3 can be rubbish, but not always. I transfer new CDs to my iPod using 256 kbs AAC encoding and it is audibly lossless as far as I'm concerned. It certainly allowed me to hear the difference between the SFM and Demon versions of the same song. And, of course, if I'm cribbing about the tonal balance, there are oh so many ways to adjust it on an iPod.
 
Perhaps we should draw a line under this now?
 
John
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John N L Morrison
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Re: Atkin/James re-releases on Demon Records
« Reply #92: 09.03.09 at 16:07 »
Quote

This "geek" was more than happy to see Steve's pictures, particularly as I haven't worked out yet how to get frequency graphs out of my audio software and was wondering what they would look like here.
 
True geekiness would have meant describing transformations between the amplitude and frequency  graphs in algebraic detail, or trying to describe exact equalisation parameters used.  That Steve did not do (I would have been very surprised if he had).  Nothing that either of us has written could be taken as nit-picking or even abstruse to anyone with a remotely technical background.  To assert so would be to have sided with those who declare pride in the their inability to do maths, as though that were some badge of honour.
 
To get back to the music, I find the Edsel releases more pleasing to the ear, even if they do lose some of the finest detail of the recordings - that is preferable to the clipping that SFM used and, as Steve has noted, not easy to spot in the audio itself.  I think Val and his team have indeed done a wonderful job of getting all 6 albums in a good state and, as far as we can tell, in such definitive versions.
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Bogus Trumper
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Re: Atkin/James re-releases on Demon Records
« Reply #93: 09.03.09 at 17:05 »
Quote

Well, I will retire into my little corner of ignorance, leaving behind nothing but apologies for anyone I unintentionally insulted!  Cheesy
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And so goodbye, my lady of a night
Andrew Curry
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Posts: 39
Re: Atkin/James re-releases on Demon Records
« Reply #94: 09.03.09 at 20:38 »
Quote

Steve,
 
One of the charms of the forum is that anything relevant to the music and the words can be discussed in much detail - as I think Pete points out in the notes at the end of at least one of the Edsel books!  ("and I mean anything").
 
Best
 
Andrew
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Pete Atkin
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Posts: 508
Re: Atkin/James re-releases on Demon Records
« Reply #95: 10.03.09 at 10:10 »
Quote

Quote:
often prefer the original vinyl version to the CD re-issue - possibly because it is closest to the artists' original intensions?

 
Well, John, there's not much reason to assume that.  It's perfectly OK to prefer the sound of vinyl (or indeed the sound on any particular medium), but it's not OK in my book to say that it's somehow 'truer'.  It isn't.   The transfer from the magnetic medium (tape) to the physical one (disc) is a much bigger technical leap even than the big compression from CD to MP3, and far more compromised than the transfer from magnetic to digital.
 
It's no surprise to me that the cleverness of MP3 sampling means you can detect the difference between the different masterings, but that doesn't mean that the losses involved in both are therefore inconsiderable.   More than that, it seems to me that the general acceptability of MP3 sound must mean that the quality of the sound is not in practice all that high a priority for most people.  The prevalence of Apple MP3 players is one further proof of that for me:  I was shocked recently in a direct comparison between my Sony and a friend's iPod by how much better the Sony sound seemed to me.
 
When you master something, you're always aiming at some kind of objective standard if only as a kind of baseline, always in the knowledge that even if you think you've achieved it, you still have no control over how people are going to be hearing it. Usually the best you can do is to play your finely considered stereo master through a single two-inch loudspeaker.  If that doesn't sound acceptable, then your finely considered stereo master probably needs a further rethink.
 
Hence my alarm at your expressed hope that there might some day be a definitive edition as a remedy for the implicit failures of cloth-eared transfer technicians and ignorant, uncaring record company executives - none of whom, I'm pleased to say, has in fact been anywhere near this whole project.    
 
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Kevin Cryan
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Re: Atkin/James re-releases on Demon Records
« Reply #96: 10.03.09 at 11:59 »
Quote

on 10.03.09 at 10:10, Pete Atkin wrote:

 
......   More than that, it seems to me that the general acceptability of MP3 sound must mean that the quality of the sound is not in practice all that high a priority for most people.  ....................

 
A piece of research by Jonathan Berger, Professor of Music at Stanford University, California, seems to support that particular view.
 
Kevin Cryan
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Pete Atkin
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Re: Atkin/James re-releases on Demon Records
« Reply #97: 10.03.09 at 13:37 »
Quote

Interesting points, Andrew.  Thanks for that.  But....
 
Quote:
"That ain't no bummer'"?, she said. "That's not much of a line".
I assured her that that was the way in which musicians talked to each other about such things. "That doesn't mean he has to use it in the lyric", she said.
 
 
No, he doesn't.  But he chose to.  I don't think there's any moral imperative about the choice of words in a lyric.
 
Quote:
At that point she heard the line about the "synthesiser played by elves". "He's just using that because he's said 'twelves' and hasn't got anything to rhyme with it", she said, clearly sensing that by now she was on a roll, not that anyone would have said that in the mid 70s. (And I think she may have had a point here).  
 
 
No, actually, I think she got it exactly the wrong way around.  My guess - and it is, of course, only a guess, albeit an educated one - is that the elves came first
 
Quote:
At this point my brother jumped in - "Just because the lyric mentions a bell it doesn't mean we have to hear one", he chipped in. "I don't know why the arrangement is so literal".

 
Umm.... it's a joke.   The whole song is a joke.   I thought that the use of a bicycle bell as the warning bell might have been a clue.
 
Quote:
after hearing 'Perfect Moments' I fell upon a deletion which had 'My Old Flame' on it. Of course, I bought it.  Now, 'My Old Flame' is a fine track, but for the last few years I've had the notion that Clive James chose it because it fitted rather better into the rhyme scheme and scansion than, say, Ornithology or A Night In Tunisia might have done.
 
 
Couple of things about this:  I don't think it's too much to say that Clive finds uptempo bebop a bit hard to cope with (there are clues in Cultural Amnesia), and it's Parker's slow ones that he'd always be more likely to pick out.  That probably means that 'Don't Blame Me' would be the likeliest alternative choice.  But in his note for the song in the new reissue (now available just a click or two away from where you are now) he refers to Parker's "ruin" of a solo on 'My Old Flame', whioch makes me wonder if perhaps he wasn't actually thinking about 'Lover Man', from the session where Parker, just about to go into rehab, was so sick he could barely hold the sax to his lips, let alone keep it there, but managed to construct something wholly musical and yet almost unbearably poignant for non-musical reasons.
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Andrew Curry
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Re: Atkin/James re-releases on Demon Records
« Reply #98: 10.03.09 at 23:02 »
Quote

Help! How does one respond?
 
Pete - Of course I agree with you. And I did understand that the song was a joke, even at a tender age. ('It's got more jewels than Princess Grace/ Buckminster Fuller designed the case' was a clue, as was the name of this fantastickal watch.) And that was kind of, well, how do I put this? - supposed to be the point of the story.
 
So perhaps I shouldn't have tried to share my deep family traumas on the list - or even taken the risk of exposing my mother's terribly fallible judgment when it came to song lyrics, or my brother's when it came to song arrangements (my brother's has improved with age, although I'm not sure about my mother's).  
 
Heavens, perhaps I made the mistake of thinking that because she'd used 'She's Leaving Home' as the basis for an English lesson in the days when teachers weren't supposed to admit, at least in class, to knowing who the Beatles were, that she'd be open to some of the best song lyrics it's been my pleasure to enjoy. Perhaps I should have started her off on something more obviously literary, or certainly more serious, or more self-evidently technically proficient ('Thief in the Night' might have done it. Or 'Carnations on the Roof', or 'Payday Evening' - well, all of the Voices could suggest a better place to start, I suspect.) Perhaps I shouldn't have had damning pre-Atkin form - in terms of improving my family's cultural frames of reference - of once having suggested that The Nice's Nutrocker was quite an interesting take on Tchaikovsky, or that King Crimson were intriguing. But our pasts are full of things we might not have done had we been wiser, if not older, at the time.
 
Thanks for the thoughts on Charlie Parker and My Old Flame. When my brother's musical judgment improved he wrote an interesting radio play about two English jazz fans trying to 'spring' Parker from the Camarillo State Mental Institution. That moment you describe (which I had forgotten) of the strung-out Parker, right on the edge of breakdown, summoning the 'Lover Man' solo from his depths, against all odds and every expectation, is surely one of the great moments of 20th century musical history, and is so well told by Ross Russell in his biography. I always enjoyed the irony of 'Relaxin' at Camarillo', a title which must be lost on almost everyone who hears the track.  
 
Andrew  
« Last Edit: 10.03.09 at 23:19 by Andrew Curry »     https://peteatkin.com/forum?board=news&action=display&num=1230193171&start=98#98   copy 
Pete Atkin
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Re: Atkin/James re-releases on Demon Records
« Reply #99: 11.03.09 at 09:33 »
Quote

Quote:
Help! How does one respond?

Listen - don't worry about it!
 
By chance, Ken Clarke's Radio 4 jazz series yesterday featured Charlie Parker.  He placed Parker at the very peak of the pantheon.  Being Radio 4, there wasn't all that much music, but what there was was good (almost inevitably), although none of our as it were featured tracks were included.   It's available for the next week on BBC Listen Again.
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