Category: music

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Music (was my first love)

Mark Cathcart

was the title of a great John Miles track from a 1976 John Miles album called Rebel. Strangely although I loved that track, it was one of the many I for the most part gave away, or sold for next to nothing in the Spring of 1983 when I moved to New York. I can remember to this day renting an estate car for the day and loading up the vinyl I wasn’t going to keep, and driving down to Kentish Town in London and offloading it all at some used record shop. Of the some 2,000 albums I have … Continue reading Music (was my first love)

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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

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Ripping off customers

Mark Cathcart

I saw the following tweet and literally laughed-out-loud. In the past two years I’ve got to the checkout confirmation step on music and theatre events and cancelled out and closed the browser window more times than I care to remember. Ticket “fees” and “convenience” charges are rampant. The airline industry over the past year has gone the complete opposite direction, some forced by legislation, some by marketplace competition. They nickel and dime you for charges for everything. The Trump administration has rescinded a rule requiring Airlines to disclose baggage fees upfront. This rule previously made it easier to compare airfare prices … Continue reading Ripping off customers

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Skinheads, Mods and youth subculture

Mark Cathcart

In my medium feed at the weekend was a link to a post titled “British skinheads in the 1980s were young, pissed, and stylish as hell“. I scanned through the pictures, read the accompanying text, and see just a very small slither of a culture and a style that I and my friends wouldn’t have been associated with in 1972, and would have rejected. Yeah some of us were involved it fights at Football matches, it was of it’s time. As I sit here today, my clothes are still inspired and styled by those days, I’m even comfortable with a … Continue reading Skinheads, Mods and youth subculture

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What is old is new again

Mark Cathcart

One of the things I’ve had most fun with since going into “semi-retirement” or as I call it, retired-until-further-notice (RUFN), is being able to spend time getting back to the music and sound editing that I so much enjoyed at the end of the 1970’s. MixES on tape 70’s stylE Back then, doing dance music mixes, for they were true mixes using the technology available to me then, meant recording a series of tracks from vinyl albums and vinyl 7-inch and 12-inch vinyl to a cassette. Reel to Reel tape would have been easier, but wasn’t affordable. I would then … Continue reading What is old is new again

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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.

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Talent or tradition?

Mark Cathcart

 Monday saw the announcement of what many are calling the concert of the century, which century is not clear. Maxim branded it “‘OLDCHELLA’ mega concert. I just don’t get it. I admit, apart from McCartney, mostly from his Beatles era stuff, I was never a fan of any of these bands. Among our joint collection of some 20,000 albums, singles, and digital files, we only have around 100 from these artists, and the majority are Beatles. Hopefully the ridiculously price includes insurance in case any of them die on stage during performances. Seriously, I don’t get this fascination with old … Continue reading Talent or tradition?

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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!