well, i am somewhat bored, and not as tired as i should be for 9:11pm. probably because prior to the time space continuum change of today, look you see, it would now be 8:11pm. i guess i just need to adjust, which one suspects i will - with some comfort - as and when the alarm clock does its thing in the morning.
i have pulled some random images from magazines uploaded around the web. 19, to be specific. they represent something of a flashback in time, for the internet at this stage is unable to provide magazines which will be published in the future.
regular readers of these random features will know the drill; pictures in no specific order other than however blogger uploads them, with my comments provided to be indulged or ignored. off we go, then.
one for the musicians to start with then, with this most usefull of music making devices from 1986.
the sampler, ladies and gentlemen. it is hard to believe now, but then this was an actual proper music making device. you had, after all, to make the actual music first before you could load it into the sampler and mess around with it. now, of course, the 'musicians' simply shove music that other people made into a similar device and pretend that they are making music. some say the new way is sad and depressing, but the kids like it, so hey ho, there you go.
actually, yeah, i forgot, i have recently got two CD & DVD sets of her and i intended to do a post on them. whoops, will get around to it.
this is, as you can more or less see, a TV guide from March 1975. it was a time when we only had three channels to choose from, and they did not broadcast around the clock. yeah, will let that one sink in.
i am indeed quite taken by the way Barbs appears in this picture, and i trust that you are too. look at the elegant, sophisticated way she holds the cigarette that she is smoking. as it has, at some point, been decided that smoking is the worst thing in the world, and responsible for everything that goes wrong, ever, you will of course not in this day and age see an image of someone smoking on the front cover of a magazine. it is increasingly rare that one sees someone smoking in a TV show or film, too. Midnight Run, off the top of my head, will look all crap and silly when they inevitably release a version with all the smoking scenes cut out.
oh yes, indeed, Barbs has a lovely hat on there, nicely off-setting her magnificent suit. and she has fantastic hair, and fantastic nails. i may well use this as inspiration to reference Barbs more on this blog, actually.
the tape stuck on the front of it was nothing short of revolutionary. a free tape for the computer? nice one!
"demo versions" of games, in which you got to play a level or two, were not something at all common - in fact i am not sure they even existed before this tape. there was no "downloading" or "CDs"; such a thing would have had to be, as was the case here, pressed on to cassettes that you loaded games off of.
were the games any good? i do not remember Flying Shark at all. Buggy Boy was all right, i guess. 720 was a smart idea, and encapsulated the idea of a skateboard emulation game just about as well as you could do with what the Commodore 64 offered up in terms of technology.
i have not, now that i think on, done any Commodore 64 mode pictures for a while, have i? mostly that's because it would mean me needing to take my iPod thing somewhere with me to take the pictures. i will see what i can sort out in that regard sometime soon, maybe.
next up a picture i just love. it goes back to an era now sadly long since gone, with pop stars of today unable to do this. why not? because they either look like a sad unoriginal parody or they look like the are indulging in excess that the fans and their talent seem not prepared to allow.
oh yes, indeed that is the great, sadly late, Freddie Mercury. indeed he is getting his hair done. and yes, indeed he really does have 4 - four! - hair stylists employed to make sure that it looks most smart!
there are a fair few classic rock and pop stars coming up in this post, as it happens. the world really, really misses flamboyant, mega-massive pop and rock stars. or, at the least, the illusion of them. it would be nice to have all that back, but in this day and age of rolling media and constant social network updates, where everyone knows what everyone is doing, i suppose it is just not going to happen.
more Commodore 64 stuff? sure, why not. here's a review of a very smart game based on a very, very smart book indeed.
the book, as it happens, landed me in the headmaster's office. some of the content met with the disapproval of my form master, who i saw in the village this weekend. all of the content, from start to finish, met with the disapproval of our headmaster. i wasn't allowed to take it back into school.
yes, i still have the book. it is sat in storage. looking forward to one day getting it out, so to speak, and reading it again. as funny now as it was in 1987, i will wager.
i would be uncertain that anyone comes to this blog looking for advice, and i am positive that people should not come to this blog looking for advice. if i am wrong in this regard, here you go.
is that advice any good or valid? i have absolutely no idea whatsoever. maybe, possibly not.
anyway, moving on and i stumbled upon a catalogue for music, film and tv memorabilia. as The Italian Job was an ace film, this item naturally caught my eye.
smart, that is, and apparently worth quite a lot of money. no, alas, i do not have this Japanese poster for the film or, as far as i am aware, any Japanese posters. i am reading a Japanese novel at the moment, if that counts, but it is apparently in English, so i guess not.
some more music stuff, pop pickers? sure, why not. here's a double bill advert for two smart albums from the year 1982.
indeed these were two bands off of the New Romantics revolution before the New Romantics revolution had really kicked off into overdrive. not long after these albums came Duran Duran, who took the phenomenon from a new wave thing with minor hits to a global, dominating stage.
A Flock Of Seagulls took their name from a lyric by The Stranglers; the song Toiler On The Sea as i recall. sorry, no idea where Haircut One Hundred got their name off of.
an advert for specialist racquetball shoes from 1982? doable.
what is racquetball, you ask? well i assume you do, since the spell check thing does not seem to recognize it as a real world. perhaps it does not exist in this modern world, which is a shame. no, i am not sure what it is, or was, but going on that picture it looks like it was some sort of mentalist, violent version of squash.
granted, i know many families and people never get the luxury to go away on holiday or some sort of break. whereas i am sorry for that, i don't believe that constitutes as moral grounds for us not doing so.
is Rockley Sands a likely destination? i do not know, to be honest. we certainly wish to stay within the realm of the kingdom on our travels, as and when they happen, but as i have not heard of this place prior to seeing this advert, i cannot say whether or not we want to go there. it does look really, really smart, though. perhaps i will phone the listed number, or send off for a free brochure, and have a look and then decide on it.
if for some reason you are sat with a Sinclair ZX 81 and cannot get it working, then have i got some good news for you! the first bit of advice, i suppose, should be "don't bother to get it working", in truth. if, however, you are determined to do so, well then here you go, here is a guide as to how to plug it in.
although i am not sure that TV sets can even be tuned in to non-digital signals anymore?
the thing that gets me is that there's apparently a port on the ZX81 for both a microphone and earphones. it has been some 30 years since i had one of these smart machines, but from what i recall of the 1KB technology it offered (no, that's not a typo, 1KB), they did not do much in the way of making a sound, and you certainly couldn't record anything on them.
some more stuff from that class auction catalogue i saw? well, sure. it would be worth uploading pretty much all 130 or so pages of it, but rather let me leave you to find it for yourself. for now, though, here is what, according to the world of the auctioneer, bundles of 7" singles are currently worth.
there are, of course, some 7" singles that are worth considerable amounts. they would just seem not to be part of the auction above, unless a few rarities slipped into the bundles. that, i suppose, would be the gamble or, if you like, punt anyone buying those records would be taking.
i, like everyone else who ever saw it, really loved the TV series V. i think it was first broadcast in 1983 or 1984, i seem to be of a mind that it was on at the same time as some major sports event was on the go - possibly the 84 Olympics.
i had no idea at all that there was a comic book adaptation of it. i should have just assumed, i suppose, if i had ever stopped to think about it. back then most films and TV shows that had a science fiction spin to them had some sort of comic book release with them. i have nothing but fond memories of the Superman III one for a start, would love to get that again.
i think, or at least i seem to remember, that they had a go at a remake of V not so long ago, and it failed quite miserably. as, i believe, did the attempt to make a TV series of Flash Gordon. there's a lesson here, dear reader, for all those people excited about the imminent return of X Files and Twin Peaks to TV. i loved both of those series, but they came to an end. i am not at all sure how well it will work out, bringing them back.
Abba, oddly, offer wisdom in this regard. they have always refused any overtures or offers to reform. why? because the nostalgia for the band gets mined to the extent of about US$1billion every year. that is some serious coins of money. why risk that income by shattering people's images of the past with the now?
wondering what was in one of the first editions of Smash Hits to be published in 1984? of course you are, and here you go, here's what they had for the kids.
an interesting start to the year. by the end of it, of course, it was all Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Live Aid. quite a year in music, 1984 was. a very, very smart one.
it very nearly goes all music for the rest of this blog post, people, so if you have no interest at all in that, you may want to opt out now. for those of you who find that interesting, appealing and indeed exciting, here's a celebrity endorsement of blank tapes.
nice one Stevie. i did use TDK tapes back in the 80s and 90s, and was in fact using them as recently as 2013. i look forward to the day that i can access them and use them again, to be honest. i did all of this with no idea at all that they were giving money to Stevie Wonder, who does a pretty good Lionel Richie impression in this picture now that i look. now that i do know, i feel nothing but pride about the fact that i used them. and will use again, one day.
now, then, odd nostalgia. this is a poster for a film i have not seen, and one that i am unlikely ever to see, as the reviews all suggest it was awful.
i just recall that we were living in Australia when this film came out, and one could not move for adverts promoting it. by that i mean the radio, the television, comics, magazines and newspapers were all beautified with advertising this film, declaring it to be the best thing ever.
that does seem to be the Australian way, really. whenever something is released, published or made available there, it gets presented as the best, the greatest and the most important thing ever. whether it is or, as was the case here i believe, is not.
just what the hell are The Stone Roses up to? they got back together in 2011, did some amazing gigs in 2012, did a couple more in 2013, then back to silence. there was a report a few months ago that they had split once more, but there was something of a denial of this from the band, unofficially released.
anyway, here's an image of the band from 89 or 90, out of one of them "poster magazine" things.
do the kids of today still put posters on their wall? i would presume or hope so. probably all that One Directions stuff, or them Jedward lot.
the above image of The Stone Roses is not one i recall seeing before. it looks like it is off of the session where they did their legendary "victory" pose, where they were stood, hand in hand, raising their arms up high in declaration of being regarded as the single most important band in the world. they were that, if only for a brief time. better to be that for a moment rather than not at all, i guess.
i do, however, know that this dude is total, full on awesome. look at the way he is dressed, man. that's smart, that is.
obviously his style is heavily influenced by The King, Elvis Presley, but he gets away with it. he doesn't look like a sad or pathetic imitation or poor tribute act. he looks smart, he does.
this in many ways rejuvenates my own hopes, ideals and aspirations to dress like this one day. i am aware that i will look awful in it, but now exists the vision of this look actually working on someone else who happens to not be The King, Elvis Presley. looking at that, other than finding a shop that does strides with sequins in them and sells belts with massive buckles on, i think i need to work on my chest hair. i mean i have some, but nowhere near as much as that dude. my own chest hair count, if you are interest, is probably measured as being somewhere in between that dude and his lady friend.
and speaking of dudes, here is arguably the king of dudes, stood with Eddie Van Halen.
how the hell Eddie Van Halen - great guitarist but an apparently dull and quiet guy - ever managed to get the great rock legend awesome ways of David Lee Roth to join his band is a mystery. Roth is, or at least was, awesome, man. just solid, all out rock and roll lifestyle. lucky man.
yes, we are at an end. to finish off, then, a look at some of the smart devices you could get to play them TDK tapes on, after you had recorded the Top 40 on one of them or possibly an album off of a mate.
my first ever copy of The Joshua Tree was on a tape. i mean, i had bought the 7" of With Or Without You, but not the album off the bat. i think it was Nicky Sinclair i borrowed it off and recorded it. no doubt i recorded it on to a TDK tape, and played it on one of these devices. no doubt with that device attached to my belt as i walked or rode my bike somewhere.
phew. right, that really will do. hope these random things have been of interest somewhere, and no doubt more like this will come along here sooner or later. in the mean time, then,
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment