*whew* School’s finally finishing up for the year, and even though I only take classes part-time it gets tough to take both school part-time while working full time during the year as well… hopefully now that it’s summer I’ll be able to keep up with this site a bit more now… then again, I end up saying that each time I update and then I disappear for another few months. Well, hopefully this post should make it worthwhile – two out of print albums and a radio show for your listening pleasure!

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Songs & Sounds of the Sea

I don’t know if you remember, but the last proper update I did was of the album Mellow With Ale from the Horn by John Roberts and Tony Barrand… this album, published by National Geographic (one of the last groups I’d expect to be publishing music, most people – myself included – usually know National Geographic for their excellent articles and fantastic photography). This album also features John Roberts and Tony Barrand, as well as about another half-dozen folk singers, all doing sea shanties with sound-effects that make you feel like you’re putting out to sea on an old whaling expedition. It’s very authentic-sounding, and it was kind of amusing to read people’s reactions to similar albums currently available for purchase and lament the fact that this album was so much better and how their record player has since died and they can’t listen to it anymore. Yes, the effect this album has at making you feel as if you’re at sea is that good…

The record album itself has a fantastic “booklet” (actually part of the album’s cover, it opens for more pages with info and diagrams about old sailing ships as well as all the lyrics), and as part of the booklet it has several pictures, each awesome to see.

This has been recorded from an old record we’ve had here for ages, and I have to say that the quality isn’t that bad – except for the rare skips due to regular use of the record, it’s a pretty enjoyable listen. I would have had this album up here ages ago, except I was trying to scan in more of the booklet because it really is a nice addition to the music, and very informative too. Unfortunately, with the size of the album being too large of a size when opened to fit on the scanner, and attempts at combining bits and pieces of scans together not working well, you’ll just have to settle for those few scans of images from the album and look at those when you listen to these:

Along The Pier / Clear Away the Track
The Dreadnought
Money in Both Pockets
Blow, Ye Winds
Boston Harbor (With A Big Bow Wow)
Jolly Roving Tar
Patsy Campbell
The Whale Catchers
Wheat in the Ear
The Little Beggar Man
Johnny Todd
Sail Away, Ladies
The Diamond
Deil Stick The Minister
Rio Grande
Old Molly Hare
Can’t You Dance The Polka
Fiddle Medley
Captain Kidd
Liverpool Hornpipe
Queer Bungo Rye
Devil Among The Tailors
Leave Her, Johnny, Leave Her

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Star Wars: by The Electronic Moog Orchestra

A Galaxy Far, Far Away has once again come to A Theater Near You, so to celebrate its return (ssh, I haven’t seen it yet, don’t tell me anything about it!) I’ve got another out o’ print album for you to check out: “Star Wars” as performed by The Electronic Moog Orchestra.

If you don’t know what a Moog organ is, this can help out much more than I can ever say about it, except that the music produced by a Moog synthesizer is very odd and unearthly… kind of like disco! This album – though it’s all songs from the original movie – made sure to let people know that it wasn’t the original soundtrack with a special notice on the cover notifying people… I could just imagine people buying the record hoping to hear John Williams and getting electronic beeps and boops instead!

Most of the songs on this album don’t really translate well to a Moog synthesizer… “The Imperial March”, for example, starts off ok, but soon it evolves into more of a disco hit, and even from there it soon sounds like a bad cover of “In A Gadda-Da-Vida” with random guitar twangs and such. Other tracks (or “Cantina Band” more specifically) sound like what the Moog synthesizer was specifically designed for, and as a result I think that it even surpasses the original version!

Main Title
Leia’s Theme
Imperial Attack
Ben’s Death & TIE Fighter Attack
Cantina Band
Throne Room & End Credits

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Fresh KRUD

Recently Dave and I were able to record our own mini radio show along with my friend and co-worker Keith – it’s actually about 72 minutes long (fits perfectly on a cd!), and we go over a few different songs that we’ve talked about on here in a little more depth and also introduce some new stuff that we’re going to be posting about soon as well. Keith also has a ‘zine he writes for (“Undisputed”) that covers some local goings-on for the Baltimore area, as well as articles on all sorts of various entertainment stuff – they’ve even got an interview with Baltimore Oriole Brian Roberts in the latest edition – not too shabby! They’ve been trying to give the magazine away (as in FREE!) at various record stores and such around the area, but if you’re interested in getting a copy of the magazine or seeing what they’re about you can send the crew an email at undisputed.magazine@verizon.net… if you’d like to check out our radio show and hear what we sound like as amateur radio djs, give us a listen here… not only would you get to hear what we sound like and hear us making fools of ourselves (as well as hearing my laptop’s fan come on :P), but you’d also get to hear what we’re going to be posting about in the upcoming weeks, and at the very end you get a special listening treat and info about hearing more of that listening treat, so give it a listen!