Model Citizen

It's an era that get's a lot of stick, but I really liked the 80's. Sure, it had some very strange hairstyles, some even stranger clothes and some even, even stranger music, but I liked it.
Could be I'm just getting old, but when I hear modern music, on the whole I look back with more fondness at the music I grew up with.
I'm not a great music lover, I very rarely buy albums these days and I listen to Radio 4 more often than not (man, I'm turning into a History teacher or something!)
Recently though I've bought 4 albums in almost as many days.

So, what's got me all excited? Well it's The Human League. I was a fan of there's way back when, when Simon, the guy who ran the record stall in Newport Market gave me Empire State Human and told me it's the best! I loved Dare, Hysteria, Crash, not so keen on the orchestra record and then stopped buying records as I approached my wilderness years towards the end of the 80's.

How did Phil Oakey get away with it though? I mean, remember the stick Boy George used to get, or Maraliyn, but Phil would don make up, ear rings and get nothing but applause! Watching the best of DVD (reviewed somewhere to the left) you see the changes over the years, now he has the look of a CID officer. Still, he has the deep voice which more talks than sings his way through tracks. Anyway, the last song on the DVD "All I ever wanted", was off an album I'd never heard. It sounded great, looked great, the girls who started off as night club escapees, now looked like supermodels, and the whole thing could easily be a track for a Bond video. So I went to Amazon and looked it up, only to find great reviews and a really cheap marketplace price (about £3), well, you can't go wrong for that can you?




What can I say, the first track on the album is the one I'd heard, then the first of 3 instrumentals, which feel more like intro tracks and then song after song of quality music. It's got to be said, this is the best of there albums. There are so many good tracks on it, like Never give your heart, Sin City, Liar that it's hard to stop listening to it, which is why it's not left my CD player yet.
Also, I bought Octopus a short time later for an even cheaper price!



Anyway, the other group I've been buying is The Divine Comedy. I loved Absent Friends when I heard it on Radio 2 a few years back and was also a fan of Something for the weekend.



I recently picked up both albums combined for under a tenner. Money well spent.



These 4 will last me well into next year without another CD coming near the machine. I kid you not, I have the rare ability, known only to a few, to listen to the same peice of music over and over all day, every day, for weeks whilst driving everybody around me crazy....if only Spencer could tell you what I drove him to with his own Medusa album LOL
So, got a few quid spare? then Human League it!

I think the older you get the less surprised you are by life. Everything becomes a bit so-so, nothing standing out that much as different or unique, maybe I'm on my own in that. Anyway, I write this because these days I feel I'm surprised very little in life, so when I am, it's a big deal.
Well CRT Projectors surprised me.
I'd just bought myself a Lumagen Vision Scaler . If you dont know what this is I'll have to explain it in another post sometime. Anyway, I needed 2 leads for it, and these can get very expensive. So I went to AV Talk where you can find trusted traders aplenty. So I rang CRT and spoke to a guy called Henry.
I landed on my feet here. Henry turned out to be one of the most thorough people I've ever come across. Bear in mind I was only after 2 leads, the amount of time he spent looking up my equipment, studying PDF's of manuals I sent him until he was completely satisfied that everything would connect up to give me the best possible image, was phenomenal.
Henry warned me as well they were very busy so it would bve about 2 weeks, which I did'nt mind. I was sent e-mail confirmation before each lead was sent, and finally received 20% off the second lead when it took a bit longer to come.
Just incredible service that is so rare these days.
Highly recommended. Click the image at the top to visit the store.