StarQuest Nashville

I've not really been in the mood to post music this week. My six year old daughter performed at a dance competition in Nashville last weekend and earned two high gold medals. She was competing against several seven and eight year olds so this time she did not place, but she did win the trophy for best junior costume. The two pictures above show her lyrical ballet performance of Rascal Flatts' "Skin (SaraBeth)", portraying a young girl struck by cancer but who dances in her dreams. It's a little dark, and advanced for her age, but if you're going to stand out, why just do another show tune or Disney routine?

You might remember I mentioned that I edited all the music for our studio. The high point for me was that even in competing against some of the most affluent studios in Nashville, our music sounded fantastic and was (IMHO) much better edited. It's hard to fit a four to five minute song, especially one with a story arc, into the required two to three minutes, without destroying the emotional impact or the musical flow. Additionally, you have to take into account the choreography of the routine, and the ability of the dancer - perhaps extending an interlude or shortening a gap that becomes noticeable on stage.

My favorite edit was in cutting "Wild Wild West" by The Escape Club, a fun little song that clips along quite briskly. I took a pistol shot effect from the 12" Single and added it at the front and at the end, curtailed a verse, and - in a moment of inspired genius - sampled the drumbeat from the B-52's "Love Shack" at one point, which sounded great over a large sound system.

This weekend, we are competing in Nashville again. You go, girls!

Don't Know Why There's No Sun Up In The Sky

Just thought I would take a moment to remember my grandmother, Norah Lillian Mansell, who is sadly no longer with us but was born 100 years ago today, February 5th 1909.

Norah was a quietly remarkable woman. Born into a wealthy and influential family, she chose to elope to London with her beloved fiance Albert, a dashing carpenter of modest means. Their extraordinarily touching relationship is chronicled in a series of letters dating from the war years, when Albert served in the Royal Corps of Engineers.

I remember her for many things. One of my earliest memories is of watching the Doctor Who serial Terror of the Zygons in her little bungalow at Christmas time. I remember her devotion to her friends and her love of her family, her cat Blackie, her regular supply of PG Tips cards, and playing Lexicon with me on a regualar basis.

I can still taste her tea (no-one else made it quite the same), inevitably served in a little yellow mug, and the various treasures and ornaments that she collected over the years, including a simple plastic cross that reflected her honest faith and the quiet pain of the loss of her husband from a premature heart attack and her only son Alan from a tragic plane crash during his service with the Royal Air Force.

I remember playing her one of my favorite albums (Jeff Lynne's Armchair Theatre) in the car and we discussed two songs, "Stormy Weather" and "September Song" that she also remembered very fondly from her younger days.

She slipped away from this world in much the same way that she lived in it, quietly and unobtrusively, having taught me at least one important lesson - that a modest life, a humble heart, and earnest devotion to those closest to you is not only an acceptable ambition, but ultimately the only enduring one worth pursuing. Today, I feel her prescence and am comforted by the thought that somewhere out there her love shines on, a gentle beacon to us who linger yet in life's daily shadows.

And More..

Completely forgot to mention two things. One is that I have listed a lot of CD's on eBay, to raise money for my vinyl project. I've added a widget thingie in case I might be offloading something of interest to somebody. I'll be adding more this weekend as well.

Also congratulations to Paul who won the Rumblefish competition - so send my your email address and I'll get the CD sent to you.

Still Busy

I'm still too busy to put together a decent, well crafted entry. Never mind, this can be like the news snippets you get at the front of magazines - just enough to whet the appetite.

A few new blogs I want to mention. There's a nice mix of stuff at Nothing Better to Do, including recent posts on Red Box, The Christians, The Motels and some compilations. I spent January 20th in a state of heightened anticipation - everyone's favorite Mikey had a new album-oriented blog, and that is news indeed (inauguration? What inauguration?). Thanks to XOLondon who turned me on to Music On Vinyl. Recent posts, among many, many blinders, include Strawberry Switchblade, T'Pau, and "We Came To Dance" by Ultravox (i.e. only one of my favorite tracks from my favorite album, ever, ever, evah!) Let me also make mention again of two of the great friends of Mine For Life, McDoc who has just posted an awesome (12 minutes!) remix of Vitamin Z's "Burning Flame" at his blog, Evo-XR Remixes, and the awesome (and much happier on WordPress, apparently) Miss Parker AKA "Supertrump" who is listening to a lot of radio these days - and using words like "caniptions" thus shaming the rest of us into manifestations of globfracular intransigestinal wonderment.

I'm getting excited about three things at the mo. First, my six year old, Morgan, will be performing ballet and lyrical jazz in Nashville this weekend in a dance competition. Yours truly mixed all the music that our studio is using in our entries, and I am very proud of how it has turned out. I'll have to mention more about that later.

Secondly, for those of you who enjoyed my posts last year about the singles reviews from old pop magazines in the 80's, I'm glad to report that not only did I get my scanner fixed but I have also been acquiring a solid collection of scans from magazine collectors which will give me ample posting material for the rest of the year.

Thirdly, my new vinyl project continues to gather pace. I should have the turntable and software I want by the end of February, and I have at least twenty vinyl purchases to digitize. Roll on springtime!

Private Lives - The Memory of Your Name (1982)

Apologies, been really busy with work and the ice storms here this week. Here's something to tide you all over for a day or two:

Private Lives - The Memory of Your Name (Extended Mix)

MFL Download Charts

Farmer's Boys - For You (#2)

1. (7) Midge Ure - Call of the Wild (Extended Mix) mp3
2. (-) Farmer's Boys - For You mp3
3. (-) The Big Supreme - Remind Me mp3
4. (13) Snowglobe - Aimless Sailor mp3
5. (10) The Monroes - Sunday People mp3
6. (-) Mainframe - 5 Minutes mp3
7. (-) Stephen and Sandii - Something Special mp3
8. (-) Dekka Danse - Immagnetized mp3
9. (-) Lindsey Buckingham - Countdown mp3
10. (18) Bon Voyage - Birthday mp3
11. (-) Vic Reeves & Wonder Stuff - Dizzy mp3
12. (3) H2O - You Take My Breath Away mp3
13. (1) Rumblefish - Mexico mp3
14. (2) Freeez - That Beats My Patience mp3
15. (11) Sal Solo - Heartbeat (Extended Mix) mp3
16. (15) Blue Mercedes - That Beauty Is You mp3
17. (4) The Fountainhead - Someone Like You mp3
18. (6) November Group - The Promise mp3
19. (14) Ultravox - Rivets mp3
20. (9) Midge Ure & Mick Karn - After A Fashion (Extended Mix) mp3

Another gloriously unpredictable chart week with several tracks leaping back up, most notably the Snowglobe track which seems to have acquired a life of it's own. Also good to see Midge Ure topping a chart again, even if it is completely meaningless outside my little corner of the blogosphere.

Nostalgia Trip: Top Trumps

Flying into Gatwick airport recently, and subsequently nosing around a W.H. Smith, I was reminded of the old maxim: 'Great Britain and the USA are two nations divided by a common language. And Top Trumps.'

In fact, I'm quite sure the only reason it's taken this long for me to blog about one of my favourite playground pastimes in the '70's is because the phenomenon is very alien to almost everyone on this side of the pond. Let me explain in simple terms: starting in the mid '70's, kids played a game called Top Trumps. The game consisted of (usually) 32 cards similar to normal playing cards in size. Each card would feature a photograph or illustration, and below would be listed several statistics about the subject. If it was a car, it might list the top speed, or the number of cylinders; for a soccer player, it might be the number of caps (international appearances) or his age. Players would divide out the cards and then face off with one person selecting a statistic and the others (most often it was a two player game, head to head) would compare, with the best one winning. The object was to collect all the cards. It was simple enough, and portable enough, to be played anywhere, at anytime, for a few minutes or a couple of hours.

Most of all (and I'm facetiously wondering if this is why it never caught on in the States) the cards were a form of education. After playing for a while, you could point out a Vauxhall Viva to your uncle and tell him the horsepower and engine capacity. You knew what year the Luftwaffe introduced the Bachem Natter (1945) or how many times Gordon McQueen had scored for Scotland (3, at the time the card was printed).

Initially the sets were quite predictable: cars, boats, planes, etc. Then, more interesting designs came out, such as horror cards (with stats such as "killing power") and cars of the future, and perhaps most controversially, Stars of Cricket. Collecting the packs became quite a hobby.

They died out in the '80's once Atari and Commodore has brought all the kids indoors. But then, strangely enough, the Top Trumps brand was revived 1in 1999 and since then many new packs have been issued, featuring TV shows (24, Doctor Who, Postman Pat), movies (Shrek, Lord of the Rings, X-Men), sports (soccer, for the most part) and quirky (Bratz, FHM Covergirls, Famous Marmelades, etc).

We didn't really do it at the time but it occurs to me that there was a great potential for mixing the packs up. You could have had the Death Star Vs an Austin Metro, Joe Jordan Vs Godzilla, or a Norwegian fire engine (I'm not making that up) Vs the USS Nimitz.

Naturally, there are many people who have devoted a lot more time on the net to the subject. A good starting point would be The Ultimate Reference Site. Then there's the wikipedia entry and the official Top Trumps website. You can also find complete sets in various places, such as Horror, Rally Cars (do Americans know what a 'Rally' is?), World Cup 1978, Fabulous Buggies, and I'm sure plenty more if you look around.

Here is a montage of some cards I remember from the seventies. Obviously, we didn't have cards like this.



Oh yeah, and this being the age of empowerment, there are several places you can make your own cards, such as: