She's a star collector, collector of stars (The Monkees)

12 Zappa albums (the other 48 not pictured)

Wie geht's?

This one is about fatal attractions and a peculiar set of obsessions. 

It's also dedicated to Noel Forth (an Aussie friend from the mid seventies who I've never met but he's still a close friend because he certainly gets me and shares my obsession) and Greg Knowles/ Kevin Simms (two of my close friends who recently told me that I need to write longer posts on this blog - get yourselves a beverage boys and strap in).

On my phone I have a list of records that I'm searching for. That will not be a surprise to anyone who knows me.

It's divided into two parts: really hard to find ones that I need to find to complete certain parts of my collection or Noel's (yes - 'need'). The second part has the ones that are more readily available and I'm keen to buy them if I come across them but only for the right price. I love a bargain.

An example from that first list are rare Beatles records or albums on the Apple Records label. Some are things that Noel is searching for - NZ Apple albums with an orange apple on the record label or a NZ copy of Ringo's Beaucoup Of Blues on Apple Records. That sort of thing.

That first part is made up of albums that we need because we are obsessed with owning everything that was ever produced by an artist, like the Beatles. And we are special slaves to Apple Records (Parlophone doesn't grab us like Apple does).

Okay, now that's impossible if you factor in every Beatles record made in every country of the world for the last 60ish years. So we rationalise our way through this dilly of a pickle (we're not crazy). In Noel's case he wants to own every album that was released in NZ using the orange Apple label. Fair enough.

I don't care about the country - I just want a copy of every record The Beatles and Apple Records produced. 

This need is a strange one I grant you.

Many people collect weird and wonderful things - there are many arcane museums throughout the world dedicated to bizarre collections that appeal to some pretty esoteric people.

The choice is down to the individual but the same drive to accumulate stuff is common to us all.

Kevin is a fanatical collector of Split Enz material for instance. Something lit a fire in his imagination and that desire and purpose burrowed deep under his skin. I get it.

Greg collected Jim Croce and Monkees records until he gave all his Monkees albums to me - the force is strong in that one!

It was a growing obsession with John Lennon's records in the mid seventies that started it all for me. Once I had the easily accessible albums (Imagine, Sometime In New York, Mind Games and John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band), I wanted all his previous albums that were impossible to find in the early seventies.

So I wrote to music papers in the UK (which felt like posting to Neptune back then) asking where I could find The Wedding Album, Two Virgins, Live Peace in Toronto and Life With The Lions. They printed my letter and Noel Forth read it and wrote to me.

Then the obsession took root for good and proper because Noel turned out to be a godsend. He helped me find those records. But not only that - he was a musician - a drummer with his own band - Tortis (which changed into Vertical Hold) and he was/is insanely knowledgeable about music with some great rock'n'roll stories.

Weirdly we also have the same wider tastes in music and he's a fellow Arsenal supporter. Big brother figure? You betcha! 

Recently we discovered a shared interest in Frank Zappa's music, although neither of us are Zappa obsessed completists. He has 38 Zappa albums, I have 60. This got me thinking.

Out of all the groups who have ever been, why is it that I have a list of around 30 Bands/labels/musicians* that I call Fatal Attractions on my phone? What is special about them? And why is it Zappa isn't on the list, although I have 60 of his albums in my collection?

* It's mainly music I'm obsessed with - William Goldman is the only writer who I'd put in this category.

First though - let's compare two lists (yes, you know I love lists)

Here's List A:

• The Rolling Stones - I own 34 albums
• Bob Dylan - 39 albums
• David Bowie - 16 albums
• Grateful Dead - 17 albums
• David Gray - 13 albums
• The Kinks - 9 albums
• The Hollies - 21 albums 
• Crowded House - 6 albums

Let's call this the Zappa list. These albums are by musicians I love but I don't feel the need to own everything they've ever done (although I do need to own all of Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue albums - go figure).  

Yes, even though I own 60 records by Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention, for some reason I'm not drawn into getting Cruising With Ruben And The Jets, The Yellow Shark and the other missing pieces.

Here's List B - the Fatal Attractions:

• Apple Records label (+ Dark Horse Records)
• Bark Records label
• The Beach Boys (+ solo except for Mike Love)
• The Beatles (+ solo)
• Big Country
• Jack Bruce
• Crosby Stills Nash and Young (+ solo CSN)
• The Datsuns
• Deep Purple
• Emerson Lake And Palmer (not solo, but + The Nice)
• Faces 
• Rory Gallagher
• The Guess Who
• Hot Tuna
• Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starhip/ Starship (+ solo)
• The Marshall Tucker Band
• Moody Blues (+ solo)
• Mountain (+ solo)
• Porcupine Tree/ Steven Wilson solo
• Procol Harum (+ Gary Brooker solo)
• Raspberries (+ Eric Carmen solo)
• Santana
• Patti Smith
• Bruce Springsteen
• Tears For Fears
• Ten Years After
• Yes (not solo)

That's the list where I'll forgive shoddy and weak albums as I must have the complete picture.

How to explain all this? Why Steven Wilson but not David Bowie? Why Patti Smith but not Bob Dylan? Why The Datsuns but not Crowded House?

obsession

/əbˈsɛʃ(ə)n/

Learn to pronounce

noun

1. an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person's mind.

   • plural noun: obsessions

     "he was in the grip of an obsession he was powerless to resist"

Hmm - I'm not continually reoccupied, but I guess I am pre-occupied at times with the need to own some albums, but not others.

This differentiation doesn't make sense to me.

I guess, fundamentally, this is a manifestation of Obessive-Compulsive Disorder - but in my case it's a mild case, as it doesn't cause me distress. Quite the opposite actually - I get great great pleasure from collecting records.

Apart from some rare albums I lost in a house move a few years ago, I don't lie awake at night and dream of records I don't have. That house move will haunt me forever though. 

And I suppose I could go to Discogs with my list and clean up some of the few remaining holes in my collection. But, for some reason, I don't. I prefer to wait it out and experience the thrill of the chase. 

I love browsing record bins and finding another part of the jigsaw (like when I found a Beatles' bootleg at Real Groovy Records recently called No Obvious Title, a record Noel sent me some 50 years ago but was among those lost in that house move).

I'm also not prone to the compulsions part of OCD, nor have my obsessions taken over my life - apart from needing a room to house them that is. 

And so, back to those questions - why one, not the other? I can justify each one pretty succinctly.

Why Steven Wilson but not David Bowie? Why Patti Smith but not Bob Dylan? Why The Datsuns but not Crowded House?

Often a run of dire albums, or even one disaster, can turn me away. I was a keen Dylan collector until Self-Portrait did me in. I was with Neil Young all the way until the bizarre 80's albums on Geffin.

With a lot of the Fatal Attractions it's because they are constantly providing different looks with sustained quality - hence Patti Smith and Steven Wilson. Bowie is an interesting anomaly. I somehow lost focus on him around the mid seventies.

The Datsuns provide a personal connection (Cambridge High School) over Crowded House (even though I sat a few rows behind Neil Finn at the Auckland McCartney concert). 

But then there are the arbitary ones like The Marshall Tucker Band and Tears For Fears. Bands that somehow got their hook into me.

Like I said before: it often doesn't make sense.

Bottom line: although Jacky often introduces me as a 'vinyl junkie', collecting records is still a hobby for me. One that I share with hundreds of other New Zealanders if the Vinyl Lovers of NZ group on Facebook proves anything, and it's harmless enough, right?

Okay - now. Where's that copy of Frank Zappa For President? I have a hankering to play that one today!

Love and peace - Wozza

I'll just sit tight through shadows of the night - let it ring forevermore (Electric Light Orchestra)

Photo by NoWah Bartscher on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

Recently I changed  to a new mobile phone and woah Nelly - is that process a pain and a half or what???

My new phone is provided as part of my job (I returned from the UK 3 years ago with a phone that, until now, I figured I'd hang onto because of the trauma involved in changing it).

Jacky now has my old phone as she dropped hers in the toilet (a common occurrence I believe - people doing that...Jacky's only done it once - smiley face).

Swapping the SIM was okay and the swapping of data also a reasonably straight forward process once I'd figured out how to use Samsung's Smart Switch.

But then the hassle happens as it's a case of remembering passwords for various apps and in some cases, like Whatsapp, starting again.

The big trial was reserved for transferring to WeChat. Unfortunately it's a crucial link for the family as it's the only social media app that Keegan can use in China and therefore it's the only way to unite our family as far as instant group communication goes.

Luckily Keegan is a patient person because it took 90 zoom minutes to figure things out. Having messages appear in Chinese was decidedly unhelpful but we got there (well Keegan got there - I was poised ready to throw the phone at the wall a number of times).

Love and peace - Wozza

Old friends, memory brushes the same years (Simon and Garfunkel)

Wie geht's?

It's been a big week. Two days in Auckland for a series of meetings with my Principal colleagues gave me an opportunity to visit Real Groovy (pictured by Greg above) on the way to a dinner reunion with old friends (as in - we've been friends for a loooooooong time).

Knowing Greg from school was the key to meeting an interesting eclectic collection of people at Auckland University back in the late seventies. It was only three years of our lives but the bonds are strong with Kevin and Linley.  Even though I haven't seen her for 40 years it was instant repartee!! And Gregarious? Well Greg is the boy wonder to my Batman!

We realised as we laughed and ate, laughed and reminisced, and laughed some more that we didn't have a photo of the whole crew from back in the day. That's a shame but it also means our romanticised memories of our former glory days as a group are well and truly intact.

It was a great catch up. It's always a special time with this bunch of old friends.

Love and peace - Wozza

I read the news today, oh boy (The Beatles)

Terrifying graphics heighten the horror of one new case. Yes, one.

Wie geht's?

Seth Godin made some good points and poses some great questions in a recent post on watching the news:

The gulf between network news of 1968 and cable news of today is dramatic, far more than the shift in, say, a typical sitcom. The Dick Van Dyke Show is quaint, but it has a lot in common with a sitcom of today. The news, on the other hand, is completely different.

A generation ago, delivering the news was a civic duty. Now it’s a profit center.

The quick edits, the crawling text, the noise–it all exists to remind us of a thrilling movie, not of real life.

And the clickbaiting reality of online news multiplies that.

But real life isn’t like that. An actual house-fire or street demonstration is boring compared to what we’re shown in the media.

Does the increase in drama, tension and fear that these production values create produce anything of value?

Would it be possible to be an informed citizen without it?

Even more so: Is it possible to be an informed citizen with it?

Currently, Jacky and I tend to watch the nightly 6pm TV One news show (it is a show). Over the years I've stopped watching news from time to time.

Last week the network news featured a story on floods in Melbourne, where Adam and Ashleigh live. Via our family chat, I asked him if they were okay and he said, "Sure - the news will have made it sound worse than it was".

No doubt there were a lot of people affected by the storm damage and flooding but the news report - compressed into less than a minute with emotional voice overs and rapid editing, made it seen much more widespread and dramatic. Then it was off to the next 'story'.

So to answer Seth's last three questions: not often; yes; maybe.

It feels like time to start avoiding watching news broadcasts again.

Love and peace - Wozza

Boil us down to our essentials - we're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams (Arab Strap)

Wie geht's?

The reading pile needed restocking so a trip to The Little Red Bookshop was in order this long weekend, with a stop off at the Plaza Bookshop for the Mark Manson book - recommended to me by Karen Boyes.

I'm currently reading Nicholas Nickleby and The Arabian Nights compilation of stories a chapter/story at a time, as well as the latest Mojo and Uncut (couldn't resist the lure of a Pete Townshend interview).

Funnily enough it's my latest Dickens' novel that I really itch to read after picking up the other items. I'm glad I'm reading him in my sixties. I'm not sure I would have appreciated the deft plotting and characters during my youth or the child rearing years or the last twenty-ish years of OE . Far too many distractions, commitments or adventures respectively during those parts of my life.

But now, now it's an unspeakable joy to put on some music and read Nicholas Nickleby; Red Garland, Stan Getz, Cannonball Adderley, Coltrane or Monk all suit the mood extremely well - no vocals please - Dickens' prose is enough to absorb without someone else's verbiage.

Love and peace - WNP

If you ain't got the do re mi boys you ain't got the do re mi (Woody Guthrie)

Wie geht's?

Adam and Ashleigh have arrived at Maple Grove, as have Jade and Asher for a rare mini family reunion.

It hasn't been a catch up as such because the Sunday zooms keep us all up to date, more a 'remember when...' and a chance to play Monopoly Deal - a card based game without the board and dice of the real Monopoly game.

It's been fun, lots of good natured banter and ribbing. Honours were shared amongst us with Ashleigh cleaning us all out in the last game last night.

Board games/ card games have always been great for family times. Having some time to enjoy our adult children (and Ashleigh, Asher) is very precious.

Love and peace - WNP