Happy new year?

Eh, yeah right. I hope you’re all doing better than me, I’ll just leave it at that.

If you’re subscribed to my YouTube channel you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t updated it in a while. Sorry about that. Life (and omicron) got in the way. I have a lot of footage shot, I just need to edit it and record voice over. Hey, it turns out that making good YouTube videos is really hard! There’s like, work involved, and stuff. How come more people can’t read blogs dammit! Writing is fun and easy! And no one has to hear my voice!

But if you do want to hear my voice, good news, you can do that on not one, but TWO podcasts this month. I’m still doing new episodes of Cinema Oblivia every other week, and there’s a new episode of my progressive rock podcast, Alexander’s Ragtime Band this month too! I’ve been taking over hosting duties as of late, and it’s been a lot of fun. The latest episode features Dr. Sparkle of Chrontendo fame. He, along with my regular compatriot Elliot Long, discuss three bands who only had one album of note: Affinity, Babe Ruth, and England.

Of all the podcast work I’ve done in the past year or so, I’m most proud of this episode from an editing standpoint. I think it turned out great, give it a listen if you have time.

After that, listen to some weird covers!

Planet Earth
Doctor Who
Telstar
Across The Universe
Here’s a weird one.

Planet Earth only released one album, a self-titled record that came out in 1978. I don’t know if they were even a real band, or if they were just a collection of musicians assembled by a producer or something like that. It’s not a bad record, kind of mellow disco-influenced instrumental rock, although to be honest, the highlights on the record are the covers I’m sharing now and not the original tunes. I might just think that because they happened to cover three songs that I absolutely love, including “Telstar,” I can’t even tell you how many versions of “Telstar” I have.

Wait, they’re all on my computer, yes I can. I have 10 versions of “Telstar.”

This isn’t the best one, but it’s a really good one! “Telstar” is a hard song to fuck up though, ditto for the other two tracks they cover. Have you ever heard a bad version of the Doctor Who theme? I thought not.

One thing is for sure, this is a really strange collection of musicians.

The album’s main guitarist is Colin Green, who was a session guy who played for a few different acts in the 70s up through the early 2000s. He’s the one playing guitar on Elton John’s “Your Song,” and apparently he’s one of 8 million people featured on Bjork’s “It’s Oh So Quiet.” Drummer Barry Morgan also played on “Your Song,” and in addition to his work with Elton John he also played with David Bowie, The Walker Brothers, and Harry Nilsson.

The most surprising credits on here though are probably synthesizer players Karl Jenkins and Mike Ratledge. They were both in Soft Machine! That’s just…what?

Keiko Nosaka
Greensleeves
Auld Lang Syne
I’ve discovered that I apparently have a thing for reworkings of Western music on traditional Japanese instruments. I got a Beatles on bamboo album that’s decent (maybe I share some later) and I’ve previously shared koto harp reworkings of works by Vivaldi and Bach. I don’t know what it is about them. I find them oddly soothing I guess. I know I would never listen to more traditional versions of these. It’s really the koto that puts them over the top for me.

These tracks are from an album that koto player Keiko Nosaka released in 1980, simply entitled Koto Greensleeves. The album is comprised entirely of traditional English compositions performed on the koto. It’s quite pretty.

Nosaka released many albums during her career, and apparently she specialized in non-traditional music. She has a record that features her interpretations of Debussy and Ravel, and acclaimed Japanese composer Akira Ikafube (Godzilla) composed music for her. I think that her Discogs page is woefully incomplete, her personal site lists far more records. I hope I can track them down sometime.

Also, not gonna lie, when I hear “Greensleeves” on koto, in my head I imagine a feudal era Japan remake of the original King’s Quest.

THAT WOULD BE SO DOPE.

Tokyo Solisten
Yesterday
Eleanor Rigby
Here Comes The Sun
In 1978, this group released not one, but three albums of classical re-imaginings of Beatles tunes. These albums are really something. Their not just classical reworkings of Beatles tracks, actually, they often incorporate or interpolate classical compositions into the Beatles tunes. Don’t ask me which classical pieces, I’m bad at that. By anglophile boyfriend could compile a whole list of which songs pull from which Bach pieces, or whatever, but he has better things to do I imagine.

I’m not a giant fan of The Beatles, but I love these tracks. Like the koto tracks, they are very soothing. It’s been a rough year (already).

I don’t know who most of the individual performers in Tokyo Solisten are, but I can tell you that the conductor for a few of these tracks is Tadaki Otaka, who has served as the conductor for both the BBC and Wales. Additionally, if Discogs is to be believed, the harpsichord player on these tracks also played harpsichord on a Fire Emblem soundtrack album. Weird.

Like I said, there were three of these albums. I only have volume one and volume three. It’s safe to assume that I’ll acquire volume three soon. I also might try to seek out the CD release, but that’s sadly only a greatest hits compilation, and doesn’t include everything. Maybe I’ll share more of these at some point. I really love them.