Saturday, July 15, 2017

The spatial effect of stereo (LP 124)

Phillips Presents Super Stereo Demonstration (Vinyl - Phillips, no date anywhere but it's old, okay) * 

Genre: Comedy (because of the sketches and sound effects)

Places I remember: My dad's collection. It has always been around. I can remember this being played when I was still in single figures.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles/Gear costume: Fab and gear is pushing it but the Philip Morgan Super-agent sketch was useful when Greg Knowles and I did our crazy tapes!




Active compensatory factors: A relic from a distant age, when mono made way for stereo and early adopters like my dad needed a stereo presentation record to...erm...actually I'm not sure why he needed this.

Its principal format is, on side 1, a narrator examining the benefits of stereo separation. There are snippets of songs and sketches - like a motel room skit (weirdly put onto YouTube by some weird weirdo above) and 'an overworked commercial traveller desperately trying to get some sleep' - cue the clock ticking, a tap dripping and a brigade of mosquitoes!

Side 2 features the New Westminster Orchestra playing standards, like Hello Dolly, in an easy listening style that my dad was particularly fond of, and I hated. Still doesn't do anything for.

But the whole record is all wonderfully comforting for me - a real, tangible link to my musical history. It's nuts, but I can't imagine my collection without this record.

Where do they all belong? File this in the barking mad category - which, I guess is why I have it nestled into the comedy genre.

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