Category: art

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How Funk went Swing

Mark Cathcart

My vinyl to digital conversion effort has taken an involuntary pause as my NuWave Phone Converter and pre-amp has failed. Fortunately the makers, PS Audio, are only up in Boulder, so I drove it up there last Friday to drop it off for repair and will go collect it tomorrow. While tidying up some of my more recent conversions, it caused made me reflect on a few trends, and at least, as far as I can remember them happening. I wrote over 10-years ago about the Day that disco died(for me). One question has been answered with the discovery, and … Continue reading How Funk went Swing

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Secret Agent: Top-10

Mark Cathcart

I’ve spent the last year plus digitizing my vinyl collection for personal use. I’ve done all my general soul/jazz/jazz funk and disco artists from A-K. Which in total is only about 1/4 of the collection. My passion though is collecting albums made by, former A&M  producer/A&R manager Creed Taylor.  CTI was initially a sub-label on A&M Records in the late 1960’s. There were a number of classic albums released including Paul Desmond – Summertime We Montgomery – Road Song Soul Flutes – Trust In Me 10-Years earlier, a 28-year old Creed Taylor, was working with a small orchestra on a series … Continue reading Secret Agent: Top-10

art, culture, environment, LifeLeave a comment

#TEDxBoulder2017

Mark Cathcart

I got to attend my first TEDx Boulder yesterday, it was a good mix of both motivational speakers, those talking about lessons they’ve learned from personal experience, and some professional development speakers on the topic of CLIMATE and CHANGE. Overall an excellent way to spend an afternoon and early evening. I’ve curated my tweets from the event into a Twitter Moment. If you have any questions, or feedback on the subjects, feel free to leave a comment or email the usual way. #TEDxBoulder2017 Continue reading #TEDxBoulder2017

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Apple Stole My Music. No, Seriously.

Mark Cathcart

The following is a pretty hard to believe story of what happens when you subscribe to the Apple Music service. This isn’t new, back in 2008, I got a call from Cassidy, she couldn’t find any of the music on her PC after installing iTunes to sync to her then, new ipod. It was partly what I learned then that convinced me to never ever install iTunes or use Apple devices. I admit I was pre-disposed to not using Apple anyway. Recently I’ve been backing up my digital music collection to Amazon Cloud Drive (unlimited everything) service. I’ve had lots … Continue reading Apple Stole My Music. No, Seriously.

art, films, Life, musicLeave a comment

British Youth Culture Films featuring Music

Mark Cathcart

Thursdays Robert Elms show on BBC Radio London discussed and took submissions from the listeners on their top-3 British Youth Culture films featuring music. I’d not heard of many of them, so I hit the BBC iPlayer pause button and made a list of all those mentioned. The films are listed as they came up on the show. The most popular films mentioned, including by Robert were Quadraphenia, Take it or Leave It, and Babylon. Quadraphenia (1979) features one Gordon Sumner aka Sting, as we as Phil Daniels and is set in London in 1965. The music is predominantly American acts, … Continue reading British Youth Culture Films featuring Music

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69!

Mark Cathcart

It’s David Bowies 69th Birthday today, Happy Birthday David. It’s also 44-years since a 1972, a wet evening photo-shoot in Heddon Street in London gave us one of the more iconic album covers ever; and finally, it’s the release date for Bowies 28th studio album, Blackstar. He was hugely influential on me in my early teens. I saw him live a few times, including during the first Spiders from Mars Tour in 1972 at his second gig that year in High Wycombe. I also saw Bowie at the Milton Keynes bowl in 1990 as the UK Leg of the Sound+Vision … Continue reading 69!