Nick Drake... Magic...!!!

[Haselsh1]

Well, it's a stunningly beautiful Friday afternoon and I've just had a vinyl session of Nick Drake's music. From 'Made to love magic' through to 'Bryter later' it's been an amazing afternoon. I'm using my Linn Basik with Alphason Xenon tonearm and Denon DL160 cartridge loaded with 220 Ohms and 100pf's and it's absolute bliss. I can't wait to finally get a Linn LP12.

Regarding Nick Drake though, does anyone out there prefer his later, darker stuff to his jollier, brighter earlier stuff...??? OK, we all know where the story ends and it's another of music's great tragedy's but I think personally, I prefer the earlier stuff. Riverman though is stunning.

[John]

I love all of his music but like you would tend to perfer the earlier albums
Love the Cello Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1YsFgDaEeo

[DSJR]

Lovely stuff and well recorded too as I recall (gotta get the discs out again).

He had a gorgeous sister, Gabrielle, who spent a lot of time in a purple wig on the series UFO........ She is still a very elegant woman forty years on IMO

[Haselsh1]

Ya know, I never knew about the girl in the purple wig being a relation. It was kind of at a time when I had a big right arm and was at an impressionable age so she made quite an impact on me (if you know what I mean)

[Beechwoods]

Cello Song is a beautiful one, there are so many of his tunes that are beautiful though, 'Northern Sky', 'River Man', 'Pink Moon' - his guitar is amazing in that it sounds simple, but is actually incredibly complex in tuning, phrasing and timing.

[The Grand Wazoo]

Yup, the early stuff does it for me.

'Time Has Told Me' was the first thing I heard by him when I was about 14 years old. It was on a tape made for my sister by her boyfriend. She never did find that tape again...........

Actually that tape introduced me to all sorts of stuff that was new to me at the time: The Doors, Van Morisson, Champion Jack Dupree, Fairport Convention and more.

[John]

Yes Nick guitar playing is nice and not as easy as it first appears

[Beechwoods]

Actually that tape introduced me to all sorts of stuff that was new to me at the time: The Doors, Van Morisson, Champion Jack Dupree, Fairport Convention and more.

I can bet your sister wasn't half as woo'd by the choice of music! I remember the loving care I used to take with comps in times gone by... I even used to pay attention to how long the gaps were so that the pace of the compilations wasn't spoilt by a gap too short or long... fat lot of good it did me most of the time When I finally met 'the one' we were too busy doing other stuff to have time for that sort of thing (and no, I'm not talking about rude stuff )

I did though burn Mrs B a one-track mini-CD of Syd Barrett's 'Love You' which I like to think said all that needed to be said without all the messing about

[The Grand Wazoo]

I can bet your sister wasn't half as woo'd by the choice of music! I remember the loving care I used to take with comps in times gone by... I even used to pay attention to how long the gaps were so that the pace of the compilations wasn't spoilt by a gap too short or long...

Aha..........so you went for the 'active gap technique'.
My usual approach was to have no gap at all and no fade - the old 'make 'em jump out of their skin' routine. The results were often varied, but sometimes the most unlikely track sequences were sublime like that!

[Beechwoods]

When I first got a Minidisc recorder I loved the fact you could do gapless edits. So I started creating 'micro-compilations' - basically cut-ups of bits of tracks I really liked. One I tried to keep every track under 7 seconds long it was good fun.

Getting from 'Eternal War' by Bolt Thrower to 'Lovin You' by Minnie Ripperton was a very proud moment

I subsequently discovered that I wasn't the only one doing this, and there were people out there making a living out of doing it a lot better than me, so I started buying their stuff instead