Author: DOuG pRATt

Their Time of the Season

The Zombies have finally made it into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame! A long overdue recognition, considering some of the acts that have been in for ages. The late Tom Petty was a huge fan of the band.

How absolutely incredible!!
At long last I can uncross my fingers and enjoy this great honour!!!
I’m feeling quite emotional remembering all the many years we’ve been touring and recording which have brought us to this career defining moment!
I would like to give my most sincere thanks to all our loyal and tenacious fans who have supported us so wonderfully through the weeks of the fan vote and to all the members of the Rockhall who have voted for us to join this most exalted institution!

-Colin Blunstone.

I REDD the News Today

REDD was the Recording Engineering Development Department at EMI in London. Most Beatles recordings were made using a custom-built REDD.51 mixing console. Their first 4-track console was a REDD.31. Much later, after Magic Alex — the self-proclaimed genius of Apple Electronics — was revealed to be a fraud, the Beatles borrowed a couple of REDD.31’s to begin recording “Let it Be.”

Here’s some history of what happened to one of the consoles, starting ten years after the Beatles were done with it.

How Green Was His Spinach

I’m late in promoting a few things for Christmas gift-giving — gifts that I’m giving to myself!

All of the Popeye cartoons produced by the Fleischer Bros. studio from the 30’s and 40’s are available on DVD. All of them, with a couple of notable exceptions, are in black & white. Being out of print, good luck finding volumes 2 and 3 without spending a small fortune.

A new Popeye disc is about to be released on Blu-ray as well as DVD. It picks up where Paramount called in its loans to the Fleischer brothers and took over the studio and began producing Popeye cartoons in Technicolor.

Animation maven Jerry Beck and others behind this project, discuss how it came to be and the considerable efforts that went into making it a must-get release for fans like myself. As you would expect, the business side of the deal had to be worked out before the restoration work could begin.