Terrible album art

Like many fans of vinyl, there's nothing I like better than a great album cover.  Nothing that is, except for a really terrible one.  I bought this irresistible book a couple of weeks ago and I've been mesmerised ever since by the horrors within:

Here are a few of my favourites:

Ahh, bless 'em.

An ideal Valentine's gift.

No.

A long-time favourite of mine, the
classy Ms. Jackson.

Eek!  Apparently Miss Joyce is popular on the
internet.  One can see why.

Don't have nightmares........

You can find the book here.

Living To Music November 2012

Join in if you can, alone or with friends, this Sunday at 9pm with Greg Wilson's Living To Music worldwide communal listening experience. This month's selected album is the brilliant Hunky Dory by Dame David Bowie.

http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2012/10/living-to-music-david-bowie-hunky-dory/

http://carbootvinyldiaries.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/make-way-for-homo-superior.html

Monkberry Moon Delight

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post.  I turned 38 and was given lots of music for my birthday, plus I bought several CDs with some birthday money, so my ears have been very busy for the past fortnight.  This of course hasn't stopped me from vinyl-hunting, and last weekend turned up a couple of Beatles-related LPs.  Firstly, bought for £3, I give you Moog Plays The Beatles:

Marty Gold - Moog Plays The Beatles (1970)

American composer Marty Gold interprets twelve Beatles songs using the then very new Moog synthesizer accompanied by electric guitar, bass, harpsichord, a Lowrey organ, drums and percussion (unlike the  pure Moog-ness of the Star Wars soundtrack by The Electric Moog Orchestra).

Highly comic in places, it works best on tracks such as Penny Lane, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds and surprisingly, Norwegian Wood.  It relies more heavily on guitars for rockier tracks like Get Back and Day Tripper.  The cover art is both inexplicable and explicit, and I like it.

Rear cover

Like most Beatles covers though, it just makes you want to hear the originals.  Here it is on Spotify - see what you think.




The next find, also for £3 was Ram by Paul & Linda McCartney:

Paul & Linda McCartney - Ram (1971)

This pre-Wings album was Macca's second release post- Beatles.  He and Linda wrote the album during time spent at their Scottish farm and recorded it in New York with Denny Sewell, Dave Spinoza and Hugh McCracken.

Like his first solo album McCartney, the songs on Ram have a homegrown feel about them; probably a reflection of the domestic bliss that Paul and Linda were enjoying at the time.  A quirky set of relaxed, melodic and whimsical compositions show an intimacy that the pair's seclusion encouraged, yet they don't forget to rock, too.  There are also a couple of thinly-veiled jibes at his former bandmates; this is illustrated by the beetles photo on the rear cover:

Rear cover.  Note the two beetles - said to be how Paul
felt he'd been treated by the other Beatles.

The cover photography is Linda's work, but the awful artwork is credited to Paul - he may be a talented man, but this doesn't extend to graphic design...

Inner gatefold

Ram reached no.1 in the UK and no.2 in the US, and produced three singles.  Here's Monkberry Moon Delight:




And the album on Spotify: Paul McCartney – RAM

Beatlemania!

Today marks fifty years since the release of the Beatles' debut single Love Me Do.  It's hard for those not around at the time to imagine just what an impact the Beatles had on young people once they'd broken through with their early 1963 singles.  The levels of complete hysteria that they induced when playing live or even just being spotted are almost unbelievable; teenagers screaming, crying and fainting at the very sight of their heroes.

At last Sunday's car boot sale I bought a copy of The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl (£5) and was able to get a real sense of the madness that could surround them.

The Beatles - At the Hollywood Bowl (1977)

Released in 1977 to serve the as-yet unsatisfied hunger for a Beatles live recording (bootlegs aside), this LP was painstaking put together by George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerik from recordings made at LA's Hollywood Bowl in 1964 and 1965.  As George says in the sleeve notes, the sound itself is unimpressive due the poor quality of the recordings, but the tapes still managed to capture the "electric atmosphere and raw energy" given off from the band playing live at the height of Beatlemania.

Oh the screaming!  Although the band didn't have on-stage monitors with which to hear themselves, I doubt it would have made much difference.  The sheer volume and incessance of the thousands of screaming fans is incredible; they couldn't have heard a note the boys made!

The album features thirteen songs including Twist & Shout, Dizzy Miss Lizzy, She Loves You, Can't Buy Me Love and Ticket To Ride.

Here's some amateur footage from the 1964 concert - to say that the excitement is palpable would be an understatement; just take a look at the shots of the crowd.

Living To Music October 2012

Join in if you can, alone or with friends, this Sunday at 9pm with Greg Wilson's Living To Music worldwide communal listening experience. This month's selected album is Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not.

http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2012/10/living-to-music-arctic-monkeys-whatever-people-say-i-am-thats-what-im-not/

The 100 Club

After about 14 months of keeping this blog, today marks it's one-hundreth post.  In this relatively small space of time I've fallen in love with several artists, and come to appreciate many more.  Here's a selection from the last few months:

And to celebrate Car Boot Vinyl Diaries' century, here are 100 songs by the Fabs in five minutes: