Wednesday 9 October 2013

Belle & Sebastian - The Boy with the Arap Strap

Old Pa's Wednesday Club


Don't like yours!!


 

BELLE AND SEBASTIAN - The Boy With the Arab Strap (1989)

I did a post a few weeks back about making up compilations for Old Ma, they were called 'Michele Friendly'.

Compilations have always been a big part of my life, I started with cassettes in the early seventies, the first series was what I called  'All Time Greats',  I thought of an artist and would get hold of what I thought was the best track by that artist. Not always easy back in those days.

It was usually quite straight forward. For example Procol Harum would be a Whiter Shade of Pale, The Byrd's and Mr Tambourine Man, Led Zeppelin with  A Whole lot of Love,

 "Hold on" you may say, but what about Stairway to Heaven? But it was my choice and I did try to be as fair as I could be.

I continued with the task until a few years ago, but have not updated the file for several years. The file of MP3s is now over 32gb. I did relent and later I included all the best tracks for each artist. It was my labour of love. The Beatles and Dylan files, went into the hundreds.  If any stranger came round and music was required, it was easy to slip on some ' All Time Greats' as eventually your were bound to get a 'hit'.

There were compilations for the Best of the Month, compilations for going on Holiday, compilations for World Cups and compilations for Weddings, Funerals, anything . Probably one of the best was  Don't Like Yours, shortened to DLY.

This started because, when we all came back from the pub or a meal out, we always had to play music and we all wanted to be first to get our tracks on. 

This developed into 3 each, when you selected 3 tracks, then the next person selected their 3 tracks and so on. It meant that there was no 'hogging' the music.

If you went to the toilet or left the room when somebody else's tracks were on, well that just was not done and was frowned upon and could even result in missing a round of three.

The DLY was great, we each selected say 5 tracks, we sometimes had themes or you had to include an oldie. We ended up having many DLY Cd's which could easily be slipped on when we were all together. This stopped all the talk about 'hogging'.

I suppose Tune Doctor was a bi-product of this.

Each Christmas we all prepare our best 20 tracks of the year and we play them on random on Xmas Day and News Years day. This is also always met with great fan fair and excitement.

If we go on holiday together, well we always chose 4 or 5 tracks each and then we can play the official holiday Tape/CD/MP3, (what ever makes you comfortable) when we are in each others room for pre-evening or after anything. We have on tap, music we will all love, apart from London Scouser's of course.

I chose Belle and Sebastian, as this was a track on an early DLY which was not my track, but one from London Scouser and I loved it.   

By the way I don't like Yours.
 

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Belle & Sebastian - The Boy with the Arap Strap
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Oleh

4 comments

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9 October 2013 at 09:05

We truly are peas in a pod Old Pa. I too had compilations for all occasions, but your DLY variable is a particular stroke of genius.

'The Boy with the Arab Strap'? London Scouser, I like yours.

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9 October 2013 at 10:23

Thanks TS, it is truly a great song.
OP - if introducing you to this is the only good thing I do in my musical life. Then I'm fulfilled

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9 October 2013 at 10:34

LS - Consider yourself fulfilled
TS - bad move...LS will be walking on air all day now!!

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9 October 2013 at 11:39

Yes a fantastic song! Excellent post too. I remember it all very very fondly, it was an absolutely must to go for a number two while London Scouser's tracks were on. Tunedr is a direct result of all this now that we hardly see each other anymore. Is the art of the mixtape/playlist dying? I rarely make any CD's now and only compile playlists on Spotify of my own personal tracks of the month. I have only recently started doing them for the blog which has been thoroughly enjoyable, hence why I'm trying to recapture some of that magic on playlists.net with themes, a picture etc. mixtapes are not dead yet.

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