Satellite confirmation that we're getting snotted with rain.

Love it!

now with extra cheese!

This one goes back a ways. A long time back. In fact it's the first equal CD I ever bought. Y'see I'd just bought a CD player...

No Jules, it doesn't play records...

...so had to buy something decent to play on it. I chose Love Over Gold/Dire Straits and Measure for Measure by Icehouse, this weeks pick.

Measure for Measure was released in 1986, the first year I spent as a super-introverted, self-absorbed brat teenager after getting dragged kicking and screaming over to Australia right after my final year of high school, but that's another story. Anyway, I first heard the single No Promises on Adelaide's SAFM and had to call the station to see who it was because they hadn't back-announced it. It sounded just like Iva Davies and the Icehouse guitar solos around the time were very distinctive thanks to the masterful Bob Kretschmer. Measure for Measure is almost another reinvention of the Icehouse sound. The guitars are still there and still great but the synths are leaned on a little more making the sound very atmospheric (I know, I keep using that word in AotWs, bite me.)

Around the time this album was made, Iva was also working with Bob, Masaki Tanazawa, Graeme Murphy and the Sydney Dance Company to produce a very striking modern ballet, Boxes. No Promises and another M4M track, Regular Boys make appearances and quite amazing reprises all throughout the work. The soundtrack was later released on CD some years later, but that's also another story.

Incidentally, here's the CD player I bought back then. One of the very few portable CDs at the time, ran on 4 (or was it six?) C size batteries which gave you about two CDs play time. Now after my iPod has finished laughing at that, I'll mention again that this was nearly a quarter of a century ago.

Sure looks... eighties...


Clockwise from top, battery pack, player, IR remote, IR receiver, AC power supply.

It hooked in to a radio cassette player I had at the time which looked very much like it. A National RX-C34, in fact. No, I didn't have to remember that because it's sitting just a few feet away from me, still goes as well as the day it was made, and serves as the speakers for our little merry band's iTunes box, Badger. But that's another story...

Tags: AotW

Both clans got along, Chappo was an excellent best man, and the birds didn't kick up too much of a fuss for us crowding their back yard. 'twas a lovely day.

Chuck an email this way if you'd like to see the pics.

Tags: w00t!