my seventies mommy

Check out my beautiful 70s mommy!

That's my gene-dad there too but we don't know much about him so... he does look like my brother tho!

I guess my mum is just 21 here, big hair, love the hat! i believe she made that dress herself and folks i'm more than a twinkle on this special day ;)

i was at my uncle Alan's the other day and talking about how i would go about tracking down my long lost gene-dad... seems i have to get me to the library to trawl electoral rolls etc, all seems very dull with more rejection at the other end a real possibility! lol (yeah laugh it up jodester!)

so he says hey check out these old pics i have and dishes out 5 old family albums with pics such as above for me to coo over! pictures like these are priceless... i wonder what she was thinking when this was taken, another shot shows some serious platform shoes (i'm so proud!) so maybe her feet were aching after a long day of wedding nonsense... maybe she was looking fwd to the disco (she is still a party animal!)

i read an article a year or so ago about a photo website that was asking for pics of people's parents from when they were young... lots of cool snaps were loaded up from the 50s/ 60s/ 70s.. might just have to find the site and add my own folks to the collection!

Dennis

If you want to know what happened when I met Dennis... just click here!

billie

i just heard this Billie Holliday track for the first time that i can recall... and i just LOVE it!

it's so evocative of an era! it seems to draw me into a smoke-filled jazz club of old and a time of less sophistication and more earthy pleasures haha

it also reminds me of the rainy days i spent listening to Dina Washington on vinyl in my bedroom in Basingstoke back in 1993 (of all places! haha but that's where it takes me! what you gonna do?!)

i think it's funny how certain tracks can transport you to far off places in your mind.. what a strange and beautiful beast the human brain is.. the flaming lips will always take me back to London circa 96, the wannadies take me back to Cambridge, i'll always remember playing Sheryl Crow Soak Up The Sun at sunset on Pier Radio in Brighton... the list is endless but how does the memory attach a memory to a song?! crazy but fabulous i suppose...

the mix tape

So even though the mix tape has died a death due to hardly anyone having a tape player anymore, it's safe to say that the mix cd is alive and well... and while not as time consuming certainly still top marks for effort...

i was sent a mix cd by a friend just recently and it's so cool to think of a person concocting the perfect mix of tunes for you... altho in this case it's full of songs i never heard before and no track list! doh! need to get that by email me thinks...

on this particular cd i can even hear the vinyl crackling - how is that possible?! that's something i thought lost to tapes forever! i guess my friend has some fancydan vinyl to digital converter that i haven't bought into yet... but omg the crackle literally made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end... what a child of the 70s i am lol

it's been so long since i heard an actual record... i own many and used to trawl second hand places for those old portable box record players but they were way old and they always broke... my brother bought some 'decks' a few years back and said recently i could have them as he no longer used them but i haven't quite got round to picking them up and now i wonder why?! i need the vinyl crackle back in my life! if i wasn't broke i would head to Richer Sounds this very day and purchase me some hi-fi equipment! lol

this latest cd got me to thinking about all the mix tapes/cds i ever got and and made over the years... i made a birthday one just recently... and before that i think i made myself a few driving compilations... it seems like something i want to get back to... an ex-boyf of mine has a record club i might try and crash... think a few people make a compilation playlist* every month using a keyword for inspiration and then send a copy to each club member..

my jazz guru Chadders made me a cd a few years ago and i still listen to it... and i think if i for some reason had to chuck out my music collection i'd keep all the homemade stuff... it has heart in it after all... you don't make a mix tape for just anyone! lol

having said that - if anyone wants to make me a cd just for fun go right ahead!

*because to actually make these mixes is technically illegal and yet no monies has exchanged hands... silliness to criminalise sharing in this innocent capacity and the reason the music industry finds itself in such dire straits...

Best Valentines Ever

On Sunday I went to The Electric Cinema in Birmingham to see Breakfast at Tiffany's with my boyf. Since this is my all-time favourite film this was definitely the best Valentines Day Ever!

I first saw this film when I was just 17, I caught it by chance on late night TV and it had me hooked from the beginning... what's not to love? I cried like a baby at the end and made sure I got a copy on VHS asap.

18 years later and it still gives me goose bumps. I don't know whether it's because it reminds me of being 17 or just the gorgeousness of the movie itself, but it's timeless... I'm pretty sure all those shots of Carrie Bradshaw nipping into her brownstone in SATC are styled on the Holly Golightly version from all those years ago...

Seeing it at the cinema for the first time was a real treat. You get to see the edges of the scene my little TV can't cope with - hear the fantastic Mancini soundtrack to it's optimum effect... and wonder at what went wrong for George Peppard when it all went so right for Audrey Hepburn*

And the boyfriend didn't even fall asleep! Brownie points a plenty! He did raise an eyebrow to Mr Yoonioshi which is only fair (we'd all like to erase THAT character performance from Mickey Rooney!) but he said he could see it was a well made and influential film... (like he would dare slag off my fave film! lol)

And yes. I cried like a baby at the end all over again! How embarrassing, you can't take me anywhere!

*I read recently that this part should have gone to an English actress who died recently... (I can't remember her name, do you know it?) And that the reason she got the cold shoulder was she didn't service the casting couch properly! Eek! The dark underbelly of 50s Hollywood!

not only but also

i just did a new blog here

i also posted a picture on this blog

now i sleep.

homegrown

while i was in Manchester recently i visited the Urbis and caught an exhibition called Homegrown, the story of UK hiphop...

it was fab! i learned about shebeens, clubs in people's front rooms born out of racist door policies in British clubs at the time... a music rag article said of them you don't want to live next door to one but you should have one across the road!

it was interesting to think about the rise of a new art form in the 70s, it's spiral into mayhem in the 90s, american dominance, fall from grace and back to the roots for the millennium... funny how everything in western culture seems to be cyclical, like nothing is constant, everything must be fluid and reinvent itself forever...

i later learned that this is to be one of the last exhibitions to be shown at Urbis - that they will no longer be a gallery.. i hope they don't just turn it into another glass office block! how disappointing would that be?!

go see if you are in town before it ends...