a bit of a "so near and yet so far" type of post, look you see, or for those of you of a more visceral, literary proclivity, you can do that thing (you do) where you say best of times, worst of times. but that's not really far, i guess, as ultimately everything turned out all good.
recently i had reason to wander around a small but significant hamlet on the plains of the wastelands of cleveland and redcar, no matter where it tries to claim it belongs. still, nice enough place. my reasons for such were needing to wait around whilst the nice people at the exhaust menders performed their art and mended the exhaust on our car. well, not "mended" so much as "replaced", for our rather insolent one elected to fall off.
to sort of get back on point (appreciating no such point has been made yet), on my wanders i found a few things of interest in shops. mostly i visited charity shops to see what donations caught my eye and would enable me to donate further to good causes, but yes, i did indeed go into a supermarket with my post Fortnum & Mason bag and yes the staff of such seemed suitably impressed.
it was quite exciting when i spotted the above, presented here in Commodore 64 mode for obvious quality of clarity reasons. for further reasons of clarification, yes, that is the 1983 (or maybe 1984) cassette single, or cassingle, or singlette, of the debut single by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Relax. as i was, am, and always shall be a Frankie fan i did not hesitate in picking it up, especially when it was a bargain at 49p. this one is a bit rare, so normally it goes for north of five pounds.
what exactly is it? a throwback to the days when music features attention to detail at every level. for some Frankie, or their label ZTT, were notorious for releasing multiple versions of a single, with the accusation being that they "manipulated the charts" by having different editions out for sale. not true, i would say. each and every release of Frankie's singles, be it vinyl, tape or later CD, featured entirely different versions, extra tracks, artwork (mostly) and linear notes. you got value for money.
also, people had to go out and buy the records. if they were no good, then people would not have. gone, of course, are the days. now the charts are a mess, thanks to Edwin Sheridan (or whatever) and his contemporaries. no, now, rather than putting effort into making an attractive product people want, record labels simply set up multiple "streaming" accounts on which to play their music on repeat, with such somehow counting for "sales". to boot, they also appear to enter into "strategic partnerships" with the streaming services. for those of you who use such facilities, ever noticed how certain artists seem to frequently feature on supposedly "random" playlists?
no, of course good fortune did not smile upon me. it was, as illustrated above, an entirely different cassette in the box. whereas i have not played it, i have every confidence that it is indeed Sir Richard of Cliff, doing love songs (apparently) on the tape. probably recorded off a vinyl record by someone, or maybe they did it tape to tape.
quite a pity, as i never had the proposed version of Relax in my collection. the 12" and 7" seemed like enough at the time, and to be honest not all editions always turned up across the country. also, i am not sure if this was usually referred to as the from soft to hard from dry to moist version as the cover state. usually, i believe, it is called the party trick, hence the title of this post. anyway, whatever is or was on the tape, i would be (fairly) sure that i have it across the many CD sets which have been issued over the years.
what else did i pick up? well, there was a U2 cd single. i think it was last night on earth, but i am not sure and don't really care, what i do care about is it is the one what has their covers of Pop Music and Happiness Is A Warm Gun on it. also i found a Beta Band single in cd form, of Human Being and two other splendid tracks. also a Beastie Boys one, Ch-Check Your Head, but i am not going down that "proper fan of Intergalactic" nonsense again, thanks.
so yes, of course i bought the box, even with the wrong tape in. the cover is quite smart, after all, and it is still a Frankie item. also, you never know, one of my Frankie fan brethren may have the tape but a knacked cover, under which circumstances they are quite welcome to this one.
how would i have felt if i picked up a Cliff Richard tape box and found a Frankie cassette inside? probably happy, but i do not see circumstances in which i would pick up a Cliff cassette.
right, anyway, that shall have to do. i need to be getting off and on doing things, shooting in the right direction, dreaming those dreams, scheming those schemes, and so forth.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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