Category: Entertainment

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Morning Tunes In Honor Of Its 50th Anniversary

Elton John – Blue Moves (1976)

Like many others, when  Blue Moves first came out—and for many years after—I had a love/hate relationship with this album. The sound was so different from all of Elton’s previous work, and yet still so fresh. It also annoyed me no end back in the day that all four sides of the album wouldn’t fit on a standard 90 minute cassette tape, requiring that you buy a notoriously thin and prone to breakage and entanglement-in-the-player 120-minute cassette.

Now, of course half a century later and the initial shock of it has long worn off, I think this collection is brilliant.

Favorite tracks to play at bleeding-ear volume: One Horse Town, Boogie Pilgrim, Crazy Water, Shoulder Holster, Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word, If There’s a God in Heaven (What’s He Waiting For?), and Bite Your Lip (Get Up and Dance).

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Tuesday Evening Enigma

Enigma – The Greatest Hits (2001)

Y’know how if you haven’t heard some music in years, and you put it on and you’re immediately taken away to another place and time? Yeah, it’s like that.

I have a love/hate relationship with this player. On one hand, I think its classic mid-80s design is unmatched and it has a certain amount of nostalgic affection, the D-10 being the first second portable player I ever owned. On the other hand—and I’ve written about this ad nauseam—the damn thing skips if you so much as look at it funny. How I lived with this behavior back in the day is beyond me. Maybe it’s because the technology was still so new and borderline magic (when it worked) that its sensitivity to knocks and jolts was just something I lived with. I suppose that also explains why I went back to a cassette Walkman in 1990—at least for my commutes. I know I still loved it for stationary listening at work.

It also refuses to play certain discs without error all the way through. CDRs produce a constant hissing sound, and even commercial discs have to be pristine; no dust or—gods forbid—fingerprints, or they’ll glitch.

So why do I keep using it? The sound. It has one of the best, if not the best headphone amplifier of all my players. And it—along with my D-15—can easily drive my Sennheisers to a satisfying volume without having to be cranked up to 9 to get there.

Some of the sensitivity to dust and dirt no doubt is attributable to the unit needing routine service and a tuneup. The grease on the laser sled’s wormgear looks okay, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t dried bits of grease that require more disassembly and cleaning than I’m comfortable with. Fortunately, “I know a guy” who’s worked on this era of machines for me in the past and everything works like new after he’s worked his magic on it, but I don’t have the money right now. Maybe after the first of the month since there’s really no urgency since I have several other players I can use.

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A Rarity

Sony adopted color with abandon in the 90s and 00, but back in the mid 80s they were more reserved, usually offering only a rare, red option when they offered anything except black, silver, or gunmetal. This example I spotted on eBay:

It’s a rare item, but that price is still ridiculous (and has dropped nearly $500 since it was first posted). The D-10 is the same model I bought new in black in 1987 and paid something like $350 (a little over $1000 in today’s currency).

I have another black one now, and I was kind of surprised when I got it’s such a sensitive little flower. You scarcely breathe on it and it skips. And it most certainly does NOT like CDRs (not surprising because those weren’t even a thing until several years later). Still, of all the old school Sony players, it remains my favorite, if only for the nostalgia factor.

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Not Even Remotely Accurate

Using the “/explode” prompt.

I’ve been inside this model (dirty!) more times than I care to admit and can say without reservation this isn’t even remotely close…but an impressive guess, nonetheless.

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It’s A Sin

Pet Shop Boys – Actually (1987)

I remember listening to this on my bicycle one evening as I was heading home down Market Street from downtown. Funny how that particular memory is burnt into my memory, but the actual year this happened (91? 92?) or why I had been downtown on my bike after dark remains lost to time. All I know is that this disk was part of a trilogy of recordings I’d actuired and had on heavy rotation at the time. The other two were George Michael’s Listen Without Prejudice and Bette Midler’s Some People’s Lives—not that either of those help me pinpoint a specific year.

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And Down The Rabbit Hole I Go

What follows is a series of photos I took over the course of several weekends at Hotbods in Phoenix during April 1983 when Steve invited me up to the DJ booth. Magic moments frozen in time that tie directly into my musical selection above.

I was working in very low light conditions with the fastest color film I could get my hands on, but even so a lot of these shots required extensive tweaking to get them looking this good.

In an unguarded moment. I call this “The Look Of Love” (with apologies to the group ABC)
This one is almost art…
The Universe was trying to send us a signal with that record in the background.
He was such a flirt.
I like this one.
My favorite of all the shots of Steve I took
The ONLY picture of Steve and I together…and it would’ve been so good under better lighting.

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Toot Toot, Beep Beep In The Afternoon

Donna Summer – Bad Girls (1979)

As I opined a few years ago:

I was sorely disappointed with this album when it first came out. I couldn’t help but think, “She followed up Once Upon a Time with this?!” Even now, nearly four decades later, it fails to move me the way OUAT—or for that matter, even I Remember Yesterday or Four Seasons of Lovedoes.

And then to have it followed only by the greatest hits album, On the Radio, which seemed like nothing more than a contractually-obligated release to end her relationship with Casablanca Records…

While Donna did put out a few very catchy, danceable songs afterward, IMHO there were never again any whole albums that spoke to me the way her mid-Casablanca releases did.

Over the years my opinion of Bad Girls almost did a complete turnaround. While it’s still no Once Upon A Time it’s still a damn fine album, along with Four Seasons Of Love, I Remember Yesterday, and Once Upon a Time, bookending the epitome of her career.

SO MANY NIGHTS under mirror balls!

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