Category: Music

Michael & Elisabeth Mainelli’s Wedding Tape Three, 19 May 1996

I made three mixtapes for Michael & Elisabeth Mainelli’s wedding, which were used at the informal party on the Sunday after the formal wedding. I kept track listings (dated 12 May 1996) and can therefore recreate the experience, 25 years later, mostly in embedded YouTube form. Occasionally such embeds get moved, removed or delisted, but you should be able to hear most if not all of them.

Here’s Tape Three, which I called “The Cynical Wedding Tape”. Side A continued the theme of a dance party mix from Tape Two, but all the tracks have an element of cynicism towards romance. Side B was intended to be an “after the main party” cynical selection, which I named “Sit Around & Think About It”.

A couple of the tracks on this tape have not yet found their way to YouTube in a suitable form (e.g. Ben Murphy’s recording of my own lyric, The Ultimate Love Song). I have uploaded MP3s of those tracks, so you can still hear them…if you dare.

 

Cynical Wedding Tape Side A: Dance
Que Pasa / Me No Pop I, Kid Creole & the Coconuts
Don’t Leave Me This Way, Thelma Houston
Money, Flying Lizards
I Heard It Through The Grapevine, Gladys Knight & the Pips
Just Don’t Want To Be Lonely, Main Ingredient
Why Do Fools Fall In Love?, Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers
Thin Line Between Love and Hate, Persuaders
I Will Survive, Gloria Gaynor
Mistra Know It All, Stevie Wonder
She’s Gone, Hall & Oats
One Day I’ll Fly Away, Randy Crawford
Will You Love Me Tomorrow?, Shirelles

Cynical Wedding Tape Side B: Sit Around & Think About It
The First Cut is the Deepest, PP Arnold
Falling In Love Again, Temperance Seven
Don’t Get Married, Roy Bailey & Leon Rosselson
Ever Fallen In Love With Someone…, Buzzcocks
Freebird, Lynard Skynard
It’s All Over Now Baby Blue, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band
I Used To Love Her But It’s All Over Now, Rolling Stones
Born To Shop, Guns ‘n’ Charoses
Single In Spring, Roy Bailey & Leon Rosselson
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, Neil Sedaka
The Ultimate Love Song, Ben Murphy

Side A

Side B

Born To Shop, Guns ‘N’ Charoses

The Ultimate Love Song, Ben Murphy

Michael & Elisabeth Mainelli’s Wedding Tape Two, 19 May 1996

I made three mixtapes for Michael & Elisabeth Mainelli’s wedding, which were used at the informal party on the Sunday after the formal wedding. I kept track listings (dated 12 May 1996) and can therefore recreate the experience, 25 years later, in embedded YouTube form. Occasionally such embeds get moved, removed or delisted, but you should be able to hear most if not all of them.

Here’s Tape Two, which comprised my idea at that time for a dance party mix with a bit of a 1990s feel to it but mostly rooted in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, which is the era of dance music for which I sensed that most of the guests, like ourselves, could not resist dancing if they heard the right sound.

Frankly, looking at the mix today, 25 years on, I would still happily put this mix on if I wanted to get people dancing. Might need a few leaning props around the dance floor and some stretcher-bearers on standby for people of my generation.

 

Michael & Elisabeth Wedding Tape 2 Side A: Dance Fast
We Are Family, Sister Sledge
Twist & Shout, Chaka Demus & Pliers
Harvest For The World, Isley Brothers
I Feel For You, Chaka Khan
Sex Machine, James Brown
Love Machine, Miracles
Incredible, M-Beat Featuring General Levy
I Want You Back, Jackson 5
This Old Heart Of Mine, Isley Brothers
Backstabbers, O-Jays
Pump Up The Jam, Technotronic Featuring Felly
Harlem Shuffle, Bob & Earl
Land of 1000 Dances, Wilson Pickett


Michael & Elisabeth Wedding Tape 2 Side B: Dance Varied
La Bamba, Los Lobos
Stayin’ Alive, N-Trance featuring Ricardo da Force
Sexual Healing, Marvin Gaye
Now That We’ve Found Love, Third World
Proud Mary, Checkmates Ltd
Ride On Time, Black Box
You Never Can Tell, Chuck Berry
I Knew the Bride…, Dave Edmunds
Easy, Commodores
I Say a Little Prayer, Aretha Franklin
Do You Love Me?, Contours
54-56, Toots & the Maytals
Shake, Otis Redding
If You Don’t Know Me By Now, Harold Melvyn & The Bluenotes

Side A

Side B

Michael & Elisabeth Mainelli’s Wedding Tape One, 19 May 1996

I made three mixtapes for Michael & Elisabeth Mainelli’s wedding, which were used at the informal party on the Sunday after the formal wedding. I kept track listings (dated 12 May 1996) and can therefore recreate the experience 25 years later in embedded YouTube form. Occasionally such embeds get moved, removed or delisted, but you should be able to hear most if not all of them.

Here’s Tape One, which comprised a fair amount from Michael’s own collection of recordings, mixed in with some of mine that I thought would go well with Michael’s own choices.

The other two tapes were more my own ideas.

 

Michael & Elisabeth Wedding Tape 1 Side A: Soft Rock
Moondance, Van Morrison
Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes, Paul Simon
Eternal Flame, Bangles
We Built this City, Starship
Lets Stay Together, Tina Turner
Modern Love, David Bowie
Downtown, Petula Clark
Cherish, Kool & the Gang
Keep On Loving You, REO Speedwagon
Come Monday, Jimmy Buffett
Don’t Fear the Reaper, Blue Oyster Cult


Michael & Elisabeth Wedding Tape 1 Side B: Harder Rock
American Girl, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
The Kids Are Alright, Who
More Than a Feeling, Boston
Just What I Needed, Cars
Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen
Travelling Band, Creedence Clearwater Revival
New Speedway Boogie, Grateful Dead
Rosana, Toto
Because The Night, Patti Smith Group
Total Eclipse of the Heart, Bonnie Tyler
Stairway To Heaven, Led Zeppelin
99 Red Balloons (irritatingly short excerpt) Nena (singing in English)

Side A

Side B

The Night That Günter Wand Changed The Programme & Conducted His Last Prom, Royal Albert Hall, 9 September 1995

The BBC Proms stub for this concert – click here – reminds me that we had booked to see  Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor, as well as Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. But instead we got:

Anton Bruckner – Symphony No. 8 in C minor (1890 version, ed. Nowak)

My log note describes “Brucknergate” as follws:

It was meant to be a different programme, but Gunter changed it.

Well, I suppose Günter was a Bruckner specialist and I quite often booked to see him conduct Bruckner’s works anyway.

Mercifully, The Duchess (Janie’s mum, Pauline) seemed to accept the change with grace at that time. She possibly felt that the change meant that she had dodged a bullet in the matter of procuring interval drinks, as there was no interval given that it was a one piece concert. Pauline’s idea of a fair deal was for me or Janie to buy the tickets, the other of me or Janie to buy the dinner and she would buy the interval drinks…

…unless we were at The Questors Theatre, where she was a member, in which case she would do the theatre tickets, while Janie and I would procure the drinks and meal. (The Duchess received a few free guest tickets each year as part of her membership package, we later discovered.)

But I digress.

Strangely, I have found a recording of this very concert on YouTube, which I can share with you right here:

According to the accompanying verbiage, this concert turned out to be Günter Wand’s last stand…in the matter of conducting BBC Proms.

Rick Jones waxed lyrical about this concert in his trio of Standard Proms reviews:

Wand Prom Jones StandardWand Prom Jones Standard 11 Sep 1995, Mon Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Martin Kettle in The Guardian compared this Wand performance of Bruckner 8 with previous ones a little unfavourably while still praising the performance. A case of “the Kettle calling the Wand slack” or something like that:

Wand Prom Kettle GuardianWand Prom Kettle Guardian 12 Sep 1995, Tue The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

In the end, I suppose I should be glad to have been there for this one. I had been following Günter Wand around the Proms for best part of a decade by then.

A Visit To The Proms By Some Big Norwegians, Royal Albert Hall, 12 August 1995

Of course Pauline (The Duchess of Castlebar & Janie’s mum) knew all about the big Norwegians. She’d have done all of that before, but, as we were suggesting it, yes, she would join us at this Prom.

Here is a link to the BBC stub for this Prom.

Latvian maestro Mariss Jansons conducting The Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra in the following programme:

  • Magnar Åm – Study on a Norwegian Hymn
  • Richard Strauss – Also Sprach Zarathustra
  • Jean Sibelius – Symphony No. 2 in D major

Were we excited? Were we excited!

I loved a bit of Also Sprach back then. Here is a video of Mariss conducting the Concertgebouworkest in that very piece:

Even more, I loved that Sibelius Symphony No 2. Still do. Here is Mariss conducting the Big Norwegians from Oslo in the first movement of that amazing symphony:

Bliss.

Adrian Jack in the Independent also thought the Sibelius was bliss.

Jansons Prom Jack IndyJansons Prom Jack Indy 14 Aug 1995, Mon The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Even The Duchess seemed moved, but perhaps that was an auditory illusion.

Young Australians Playing Instruments Not Cricket, Royal Albert Hall, 23 July 1994

It wasn’t even an Ashes summer, in truth.

Here is a link to the BBC stub for this Prom.

This will have been the very first time that Janie and I pandered to her mum’s (Pauline “The Duchess of Castlebar”) taste for seeing youth orchestras.

Yakov Kreizberg conducting the Australian Youth Orchestra.

We heard:

  • Brenton Broadstock – Festive Overture
  • Jean Sibelius – Violin Concerto
  • Béla Bartók – The Miraculous Mandarin – suite
  • Maurice Ravel – Pavane pour une infante défunte (Orchestral version)
  • Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov – Capriccio espagnol, Op 34

Cho-liang Lin was a superb soloist on the violin for the Sibelius, which was worth the price of admission alone.

Here’s the kid playing the first movement with The Philharmonia under Esa-Pekka Salonen:

Stephen Johnson in the Independent was full of praise:

Kreizburg Prom Johnson IndyKreizburg Prom Johnson Indy 25 Jul 1994, Mon The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

A Bit Of Schumann & Brahms, Royal Albert Hall, 4 September 1993

Janie’s first encounter with Günter, was this. Possibly Pauline’s too, although she “will have done all that” with Janie’s father decades earlier, no doubt.

Günter Wand had a close working relationship with the BBC Symphony Orchestra for the Proms for a long time.

Here is a link to the BBC stub for this Prom.

We heard:

  • Robert Schumann – Symphony No. 4 in D minor
  • Johannes Brahms – Symphony No 1 in C minor

It was good.

Robert Henderson in the Telegraph also thought it was good:

Wand Prom Henderson TelegraphWand Prom Henderson Telegraph 08 Sep 1993, Wed The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

So that proves it.

Bach At The Proms, Royal Albert Hall, 2 August 1993

Our first Prom together. BBC Prom I’m talking about. And when I say, “together”, that wasn’t just me and Janie – oh no – we also had her mother, Pauline, in tow.

In truth Janie wasn’t too keen on the idea of a “classical concert”, whereas Pauline was a keen music listener.

Still, Janie professed to liking Brandenberg Concertos, so this concert, entirely comprising J S Bach works, including three of the Brandenbergs, seemed a suitable entry point. This, despite my reservations about the Royal Albert Hall as a venue for baroque period music.

Here is a link to the BBC stub for this Prom. The Hanover Band with some cracking soloists: Anthony Robson, Benjamin Hudson, Catherine Latham, Robert Farley, Pavlo Beznosiuk, Rachel Brown, directed by Anthony Halstead.

This is what we heard:

  • Brandenburg Concerto No 2 in F major, BWV 1047
  • Keyboard Concerto in F minor, BWV 1056
  • Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major
  • Concerto for Two Keyboards in C minor, BWV 1060 (version for oboe & violin)
  • Brandenburg Concerto No 5 in D major, BWV 1050

Here is a later recording of The Hanover Band doing Brandenberg 5:

Meirion Bowen in the Guardian rated this Prom highly, while concurring with my view about the unsuitability of baroque music scaled authentically in the Albert Hall:

Hanover Prom Bowen GuardianHanover Prom Bowen Guardian 04 Aug 1993, Wed The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Baby Doll by Andrew Poppy & Tennessee Williams, Cottesloe Theatre, 8 May 1993

This piece was billed as:

a new chamber opera based on the original screenplay…

…perhaps we should have paid heed to that billing.

It was not to our taste.

It was part of the Springboards season, of which we saw three productions at the Cottesloe in two weeks. This was the second of the three we saw.

Below is a review from The Guardian – opera review rather than theatre review please note:

Baby Doll May 1993Baby Doll May 1993 Tue, May 11, 1993 – 28 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

The Observer review can be seen as part of the article (including the picture) below:

Observer May 1993 CottesloeObserver May 1993 Cottesloe Sun, May 9, 1993 – 55 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

We stayed at mine that weekend. Whether I cooked or we got a takeway on the way home is lost in the mists of time.

I do recall Janie trying to sound like the atonal operatic voices in this misguided Baby Doll production for some while after the show.

Oh dear.

The Ultimate Love Song, Ben Murphy Recording, 1993

As part of The Ultimate Love Song‘s 25th birthday celebrations (born 29 February 1992, so perhaps six-and-a-quarterth birthday…

…and because I find it hard to resist responding to requests (thank you, Andrew Poole)…

…I think I have fiddled around and successfully uploaded an MP3 of Ben Murphy’s rendition of The Ultimate Love Song, which was on Ben’s 1993 cassette album “Cover of the Rolling Stone” along with several other songs of mine.  More on that anon…

…here’s The Ultimate Love Song, sung by Ben Murphy.