Martin Cockerham visits my Castle

Martin Cockerham visits my Castle!

12 - 14 April 2013


An interview with the Maestro fill follow,
where he tells the story of Spirogyra band,
starting from their old house in Canterbury,
he describes places, people, happenings, etc.

Including some original pictures
done by the Maestro himself!

- soon to come -

Your COUNTESS VANESSA

LIMELITERS - Panorama on their discography

For me one of the best folk trios of the 60's

Practically each album is a must for folk music lovers.

As usual, this is just a parade of some of their albums, no links for downloads, sorry

- UNDER CONSTRUCTION - 

"London Concert", RCA, 1965 - one of their best LPs.

COUNTESS V

DR. STRANGELY STRANGE - "Heavy petting" (Vertigo, 1970) - CD reissue with bonus tx

Good news from a good Friend, Mr. Vishangro: the II album of the band is soon going to be reissued with some bonus tracks. 

Here is a panorama about this famous multi-folding cover

 

The new album cover, courtesy by Mr. Vishangro

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HOW TO DETECT IF YOUR "HEAVY PETTING" COPY IS ORIGINAL OR A FAKE?

TWO WAYS, ABSOLUTELY UNDISPUTABLE

Stay in tune, coming soon

The three pictures below:

"KIP OF THE SERENES" (Island, 1969)

An extraordinary album, absolutely a 'must' for any folk lover, in my opinion much more beautiful and inspired than the second, but not such as famous.

Your  COUNTESS  V

PETER HAMMILL - Happy Birthday

Thanks for those unforgettable masterpieces that helped me discover new directions through my adolescence years :-)

Foto above:
The book "Killers, angels, refugees", first edition, was released in 1974.  I met Peter for my first time, in 1975, during the sound check of the fresh reunited VDGG concert, he was changing the strings to his guitar, and I asked if  I could keep the "old" ones :).  Once again, I recorded that concert. He also signed the book for me, and from that time I know that his birthday falls today. 62 years so far.

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I will never forget the very first time that I saw Van Der Graaf live, it was in 1972, in Florence, at the Space Electronic! I recorded the concert, the COMPLETE concert, and I still have it today.  But in those middle-age years, some friends borrowed the tape from me and one of them (named DP, who was a fanatic trader) did a scrap copy on a C-60 cassette and let it tour the whole world.  Therefore today we have the bad copy of that concert around, where the gig is incomplete, and also the title sequence is wrong. You can find it even in one of these blogs! They claim that the concert is entire - LOL!  The worst is that "Refugees", marvellous song that the band played as an encore, is cut, because this "friend" didn't have a C-90 tape to copy my concert on, in its completeness...  So, maybe one of these times I'll make a new scan of this recording and will post it here :-)
For REAL VDGG fans only! :-)

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For HAMMILL and VAN DER GRAAF lovers, please see my "Hommage" that I posted months ago:

HERE

BERT JANSCH - "L. A. Turnaround" and "Moonshine" (1974 and 1972)

The song you hear as you open my main blog "Countess Vanessa's Castle, is "Fresh as a sweet Sunday morning", by Bert Jansch, from this fabulous album:

It's the album where BJ somehow "betrayed" all us fans of him, he merged his splendid and personal  exquisite folk vein with some elements of country... the result was anyway superlative.

What a shame that so many CD reissues don't reproduce more than the 30% of the original covers and inserts and inner artworks...

Above: the insert sheet with lyrics, and the label

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Also strongly recommended:

"MOONSHINE" (Reprise, 1972)

"Moonshine" is a real milestone, not only in the discography of BJ, but also for the general development of British Folk Music.  For some people this is even the highest point of his artistical production.  Speaking for myself, I never could get decided, I always loved "LA turnaround" too much, but also, how can you leave out things like "Birthday blues" and "Rosemary lane", and "It don't bother me"...??   As you know, some LPs of BJ were issued in the USA on various labels with different covers and/or titles  (IE: "Strolling down the highway", "Jack Orion" on Vanguard, etc etc), but for this album it's something you wouldn't expect: the USA edition sleeve was gatefold while the UK wasn't, as you can see in the following pictures, and included a short Curriculum Vitae of BJ (not present inside the UK edition) probably meant as a further divulgative push to conquer the American public... The LP was produced by Danny Thompson

above: the UK edition with label, not gatefold cover.

Above: the back cover of the UK edition

above: the UK edition includes a gatefold insert with the lyrics.

above: the spread outer gatefold sleeve of the USA edition, where front and back coincide with the UK issue.

above: the USA edition's innere sleeve, where the lyrics are reproduced.

above: the two album covers and the biography sheet, in an unusual A4 format, included only in the USA edition.

As usual, I won't post these album, as I'm sure you can find them all on some other blogs.

BELOW: The six Bert Jansch albums favourite of mine [fronts and backs]

Your COUNTESS

JOHN LENNON - Self Portrait

John turns 70 today. Difficult to find words for or about him that yet haven't be said or written, so I'll let his pinsel expresss something visual for himself in my place.

This is the particular of a self portrait that he made in 1971.

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I always wondered - "What among his records would he choose to represent himself, if he was here now to decide?" -  And I often thought that the early years with Yoko must have been the most happy and creative for him, if her closeness allowed him to conceive masterpieces like "JL & Plastic Ono Band" and "Imagine". And the three "impossible " records full of alternative sonor material which he published in 1968 and 1969, give a precise characterization of his mood and inspiration, something complementary that can't be separated from his exquisitely musical albums, they should be considered part of the same artistic "construction". Therefore, in a way, I consider them representative of those years, important in the same measure of "Imagine".

For these reasons, I also feel like saying a big 'Thankyou' to Yoko, a Lady I always admired.

Above: the famous CAKE present in the box of "Wedding album": it was just a photograph, but the album wasn't too easy to find - not even in those early 70s - and I remember of certain people who just read a description on some magazines, but never saw a copy of it, nor ever heard it from other owners, who were asking me: - "But rrrreally there was a REAL piece of REAL cake inside the box?!?!?!".....

above and below: the giant poster, front and back

below: one of the many pages of a booklet named "The Press"

Impossible to take pictures of all the gadgets and books present inside "Wedding album" ;-) ...

Above: the big poster included in "Imagine".

Below: the postcard inside "Imagine", meant as an unspoken but direct attack to Paul McCartney (specifically: a parody of his cover of the album "Ram", released five months earlier), as if the text of "How do you sleep?" wasn't enough. 

COUNTESS V