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24-04-2022, 11:09
(This post was last modified: 24-04-2022, 11:14 by Ruby.)
DIRE STRAITS - Dire Straits
Remarkably accomplished album for a debut but then they worked at it - no accidental success here. No doubt at all about MK's literary persuasions either. I can tell I'm going to be listening to them chronologically over the next while, as companion pieces to John Illsley's book. They just released this one (in the book) ... and it's still a great read I'm pleased to say!
Way to kickstart a career! Ok - it wasn't actually this one, it was Sultans but anyway -
The last track has also spoken to me today - liking the grittiness - amusingly, a lot of the early photos of them are taken while they pose in some mud or other, LOL! They weren't image conscious at all - how fab - all that promise ...
"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us." ~ Bill Watterson
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Apart from the absolutely brilliant music on their debut album I am also fascinated by the cover. It intrigues me.
Somewhere between right and wrong there is a garden. I will meet you there - Rumi
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^With apologies to Mr Illsley for the copied snippet – here you go …
…“They were quite sure of themselves, but we most certainly did not feel the same way about the mock-ups for the cover they scattered before us over the baize of a billiards table. We looked at them silent and aghast. Picking up on our horror, one of them piped ‘Obviously, we’ve been doing this for a long time. Just pick your favourite. You take care of the music, we’ll take care of the rest.’
Mark and I threw each other another one of those glances, both thinking the same: No, you really won’t be taking care of the rest if this is the best you can come up with. Each offering was pretty appalling. It was obvious that the art department had never heard our music and based all its creations on our name. They read ‘Dire Straits’ so assumed we were all about disaster and gloom, possibly a punk band or a Satanic heavy-metal band. One of the mock-ups showed a passenger jet heading now down into the sea, but the biscuit-taker was the red stiletto with the heel impaling a hand. We told them to leave it to us and we’d find something more suitable.
We didn’t completely neglect it, but we were by no means obsessed with our image. In the days before music videos, before MTV and the growth of public relations, record companies were not quite so interested in image either. I remember us all being in terrible mood, maybe hung over, when we had to assemble for a photoshoot in an old warehouse in south London. We had no press pictures to use, and I’m afraid we weren’t looking our best. This was all new to us. You can see the results of that flippancy in the final images on the artwork of the first album. We look like a comedy version of something out of Crimewatch UK.
This album cover, however, was a big wake-up call, and we realized we needed to take control of our identity before a couple of our friends from the marketing department, without even listening to our music, turned us into a parody of Black Sabbath. The cover image used in the end was hardly ground-breaking, but we liked its uncluttered simplicity, which reflected the music inside: a hazy, impressionistic picture of a girl leaning against the pillar in an empty brightly lit room. I believe it was taken from a photograph, and all the other details of the room were edited out. I would become more interested in the artwork of our albums later on, but this was one or two levels up from ‘fine’; it didn’t say too much, didn’t make a grand pompous statement, and best of all, it wasn’t a stiletto heel nailing a hand to the ground or a jet crashing into the ocean.” …
"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us." ~ Bill Watterson
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Love the percussion in this - https://youtu.be/BUh7ulgY5E0
Somewhere between right and wrong there is a garden. I will meet you there - Rumi
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Somewhere between right and wrong there is a garden. I will meet you there - Rumi
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^^
great artist Jerome?
are you familiar with Jewel at all?
"BTO....Bachman,Turner,Overweight
They were big in the 70s....for five minutes,on a Saturday,after lunch..." - Me 2014.
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I know the name but not the music.
Somewhere between right and wrong there is a garden. I will meet you there - Rumi
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okay,
go listen to the album "pieces of you", singer/songwriter folkie type stuff
"BTO....Bachman,Turner,Overweight
They were big in the 70s....for five minutes,on a Saturday,after lunch..." - Me 2014.
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Today's pick - just love the whole feel of this track - https://youtu.be/i6d3yVq1Xtw
El Condor Pasa - translated - The condor flies / the condor passes by.
Somewhere between right and wrong there is a garden. I will meet you there - Rumi
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![[Image: 220px-Rod_Stewart-Atlantic_Crossing_%28a...ver%29.jpg]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/89/Rod_Stewart-Atlantic_Crossing_%28album_cover%29.jpg/220px-Rod_Stewart-Atlantic_Crossing_%28album_cover%29.jpg)
ROD STEWART "atlantic crossing" cd, 1975
his sixth of 32, i own 24 or 25 i guess...
from the box set containing around 14 studio albums from this one in 1975 thru to 2001's "human"...
the first side (on vinyl) is the "fast side", the second side is called the "slow side"...any guesses why?....
so the rockers take up the first half then in comes crooning/balladeer Rodney, and that is the side of his music i like best...
as is typical of his material there are almost half the tracks that are covers (he was a great covers artist IMO!)...
the covers are:
Isely Brothers' "this old heart of mine".
Crazy Horse's "i dont want to talk about it"
Sutherland Brothers' "sailing"
Doby Gray's "drift away"....
nothing wrong with any of the covers, in fact he made them his own as he 'owns them' now....
good solid collection of tunes IMO....
I LOVE THIS ALBUM
we all know the major hits off this so heres the excellent opening track this time round:
"BTO....Bachman,Turner,Overweight
They were big in the 70s....for five minutes,on a Saturday,after lunch..." - Me 2014.
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