Another selection for the season – get fit and book your holiday!
Ive collected a few of these old postcard flexidisc records over the years, mostly the audio on them bears no relation to the image or the places shown as far as I can tell. An exception is this one from York.
Many more flexidisc postcard records in this youtube playlist here
A New Year brings promise and hope. Hope of self improvement, of happiness, a new start, a fresh look at life, opportunities – learn that, stop this, go here – no pressure.
A new selection of records in Bara Menyn Bakehouse to help us get motivated for the new year.
I found these recently, the story of Aladdin didnt have a sleeve unfortunately and they’re both very well played and in poor condition. They almost played without any sticks or jumps…almost.
As it’s panto season I thought I’d share these Selcol flexidisc versions here. Discogs describes Selcol as a ‘UK plastics manufacturer active during the 1950s and 1960s.’
The discs are made from what seems like a very soft, light plastic film (compared to other flexidiscs) backed with printed card.
You can see they have ‘Cut here’ printed on the sides to indicate they were originally cut from something larger, but I dont know what.. I was quite surprised how playable they are though!
Heres the the final selection of vinyl in Bara Menyn Bakehouse until Saturday when they close for a well deserved Christmas holiday.
I have so many more Christmas records that didn’t make the show, many are photographed and up here in my Flickr set including this fab Partridge Family Christmas album.
I couldn’t resist trying it up in a pear tree on a portable player some years ago..what could be more Christmassy!
For something a bit more experimental you could try this…
nothing like a nice Christmas jingle!
Looking forward to exploring my collection of 70s records for this event in Oriel Myrddin Gallery on the 29th November.
I made this Aphex Twin inspired extra graphic for it from a 70s toy record player box…
I selected this to play as part of a performance at the Glynn Vivian gallery in Swansea for the ‘End of Empire‘ exhibition preview.
The record includes the famous wartime songs (mentioned in this previous post) ‘Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag’ written by Welshmen George Asaf (aka George Henry Powell) and his brother Felix Powell, and ‘Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty’ written by Swansea born Fred Godfrey (aka Llewelyn Williams).
1930s 8 inch Eclipse gramophone record playing on a Numark PT01.
At first manufactured by the Crystalate company (later taken over by Decca) for the Woolworth store chain, Eclipse was launched as a replacement for the Victory label. It was the first to be packaged in a brown paper sleeve, and featured dynamic promotional designs. Even so, the product was still pegged at a low price, even through the ‘slump’ or depression-era years of the early 1930s, finally disappearing in 1935.
Text from http://www.tedstaunton.com
Photo by Kathryn Campbell Dodd
Despite a few technical hitches I really enjoyed playing with records at the Glynn Vivian for the End of Empire preview. My audio recorder failed unfortunately so I decided to continue working with the selection of records in the studio and post some recordings of them as I go. This first mix from the studio uses 3 Swansea based Welsh Teledisc records and ‘Freedom Fanfare’ by the Band of the Nigeria Police, recorded to celebrate Nigerian independence.
Time wasn’t on my side and I didn’t get to play a number of things that I’d hoped, one was this Vistasound postcard record with a view of Snowdon from Llyn Llydaw.
On the balcony above where I was situated in the atrium is a series of landscape paintings by Sir Kyffin Williams, including views of Snowdon. I had planned to play this on a portable record player with them, here it is playing in the studio instead..
Theres a nice write up on the Soul Safari blog here https://soulsafari.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/freedom-fanfare-the-band-of-the-nigerian-police/
I found my copy in Cardigan market while in the process of moving into town back in 2010. I used it in the first mix in the new studio and the recording became the soundtrack to the second short film documenting the move.
The found of music 