I did it My Way
Posted by: seagull on 24 April 2004
I spent a very pleasant evening Chez Davey last night. I had been invited over to play some music. Malcolm said, "Bring some things I haven't heard before, I don't mind what but do bring some Chameleons and Porcupine Tree".
I duly obliged. I didn't have much time to put together a definitive selection of seagull favourites so I just went along my collection and thought I'll have one of those, one of those and some Porcupine Tree, a mixture of LPs and CDs.
As is traditional on these occasions, I stopped off at The Local Pub to pick up some beer. I was given a taster of one of the special beers T'Ale of the Dragon by the Hampshire brewery, 4.5% abv and very good it was too so I bought some to take with me. Mrs Malcolm had kindly offered to give me a lift home so Mrs Seagull dragged herself off her deathbed to take me (she is suffering from a bad chest infection).
I arrived to find that Malcolm had also been in The Local Pub earlier and had purchased some rather excellent Summer Lightning. We filled our glasses and started the session.
Already playing was a sampler CD by Mostly Autumn. I'd not heard this before, fairly inoffensive, well-played and produced, melodic prog rock. We moved on to 'Strange Times' by the Chameleons, I had intended to just play 'Swamp Thing', but Malcolm seemed to be enjoying it so much we played the whole side.
Malcolm dug out some of his purchases from his recent trip to the States. One was a bootleg of an acoustic concert by The Boss accompanied by Nils Lofgren and CSN&Y as backing vocalists on one song (if the sleeve was to be believed). Poor quality recording, the tape was frequently overloaded but there was something beguiling about the music, if you closed your eyes you could have been there.
We moved on to a CD by Van Morrison (my memory is not what it was I don't remember which album) it was very good though.
Malcolm started rifling through his record collection and pulled out a Frank Sinatra box set (I always get to the subject in the end...). He said "I must play you a track off this one, I've not played this copy, I got it from a car boot sale a few years ago".
Malcolm went over to the hifi and turned down the volume then carefully took out the disk and placed it on the LP12. He lifted the Aro above the start of the last track and gently placed the stylus on the spinning record. He then turned up the volume to about 11-o'clock. First impressions as the track started - it was a very loud, Malcolm turned the volume down a little and looked puzzled. He went back to the box, scratched his head and said, "This isn't the right song".
He took the record off the deck and had a look at the label, it agreed with the box so Malcolm tried a different track. I'm no expert, but this one didn't sound like Old Blue Eyes at all. Malcolm turned down the volume again and removed the record. "Looks like I was ripped off! It's not Sinatra at all" he said with a grin putting the record back into the box.
Malcolm then picked up the next record, something by Suzanne Vega. He put it on and turned up the volume again. This didn't sound much like Suzanne Vega either. In fact, it sounded very much like Van Morrison. We looked at each other. Slowly, the coin was dropping. The 'Frank Sinatra' song had also sounded very much like Van Morrison. We both collapsed in fits of laughter having realised what had happened.
Malcolm looked at his 82, he still had CD selected and the Van Morrison CD was still playing! It would explain why it was so loud as well!
More beer was called for and much more music played. This had happened surprisingly early in the evening so too much beer was not the cause!
I duly obliged. I didn't have much time to put together a definitive selection of seagull favourites so I just went along my collection and thought I'll have one of those, one of those and some Porcupine Tree, a mixture of LPs and CDs.
As is traditional on these occasions, I stopped off at The Local Pub to pick up some beer. I was given a taster of one of the special beers T'Ale of the Dragon by the Hampshire brewery, 4.5% abv and very good it was too so I bought some to take with me. Mrs Malcolm had kindly offered to give me a lift home so Mrs Seagull dragged herself off her deathbed to take me (she is suffering from a bad chest infection).
I arrived to find that Malcolm had also been in The Local Pub earlier and had purchased some rather excellent Summer Lightning. We filled our glasses and started the session.
Already playing was a sampler CD by Mostly Autumn. I'd not heard this before, fairly inoffensive, well-played and produced, melodic prog rock. We moved on to 'Strange Times' by the Chameleons, I had intended to just play 'Swamp Thing', but Malcolm seemed to be enjoying it so much we played the whole side.
Malcolm dug out some of his purchases from his recent trip to the States. One was a bootleg of an acoustic concert by The Boss accompanied by Nils Lofgren and CSN&Y as backing vocalists on one song (if the sleeve was to be believed). Poor quality recording, the tape was frequently overloaded but there was something beguiling about the music, if you closed your eyes you could have been there.
We moved on to a CD by Van Morrison (my memory is not what it was I don't remember which album) it was very good though.
Malcolm started rifling through his record collection and pulled out a Frank Sinatra box set (I always get to the subject in the end...). He said "I must play you a track off this one, I've not played this copy, I got it from a car boot sale a few years ago".
Malcolm went over to the hifi and turned down the volume then carefully took out the disk and placed it on the LP12. He lifted the Aro above the start of the last track and gently placed the stylus on the spinning record. He then turned up the volume to about 11-o'clock. First impressions as the track started - it was a very loud, Malcolm turned the volume down a little and looked puzzled. He went back to the box, scratched his head and said, "This isn't the right song".
He took the record off the deck and had a look at the label, it agreed with the box so Malcolm tried a different track. I'm no expert, but this one didn't sound like Old Blue Eyes at all. Malcolm turned down the volume again and removed the record. "Looks like I was ripped off! It's not Sinatra at all" he said with a grin putting the record back into the box.
Malcolm then picked up the next record, something by Suzanne Vega. He put it on and turned up the volume again. This didn't sound much like Suzanne Vega either. In fact, it sounded very much like Van Morrison. We looked at each other. Slowly, the coin was dropping. The 'Frank Sinatra' song had also sounded very much like Van Morrison. We both collapsed in fits of laughter having realised what had happened.
Malcolm looked at his 82, he still had CD selected and the Van Morrison CD was still playing! It would explain why it was so loud as well!
More beer was called for and much more music played. This had happened surprisingly early in the evening so too much beer was not the cause!
A genuinely DOH!! moment 