Newsletter December 2001

Newsletter December 2001/January 2002

Every time we add something new, you'll see a linked guide to it here,
with an archive of past additions.

If you have joined the Stereo Society, you will receive a monthly newsletter with direct links to everything new and announcements about fresh downloads etc.
Please forward a copy to a friend.

This month, we can celebrate a record visitation in March, of 14,073 sessions (that's 162,202 hits). Thanks for the support. We’re doing something right, because each month now seems to jump over the one before, but please let us know your comments and ideas as usual, via the Contact page.

We’re slow off the mark again with our update this month, mostly due to our being buried in the studio polishing three coming CDs. Time seems to stand still when you’re making fun noises, especially when they’re loud, but rest assured that sonic trouble is on the way.

In various forms, we’ve recently enjoyed the talents of Kit Hain, Sarah Jane Morris and BETTY in the studio, as well as entertaining Richard Barone for a track on his forthcoming CD co-written with Mike Thorne. The Ives Universe Symphony project ploughs on, with 84 musicians now in place in this 70 minute piece. That’s an awful lot of getting together, but we’ve done it. Now to sort it out, mix it, and put it on a CD. London sessions included congas and bongos with Nigerian master drummer Johnny Folarin (look for an interview soon), and Lene Lovich (whose CD is finally on the home stretch).

Most of the site improvements this month are under the hood, such as update and refresh of our geek-speak-free Help section, which takes you through computing and the internet with a vocabulary that the intelligent lay person may be expected to possess, but with no jargon. We could run a competition to spot jargon here, a tough one, but we won’t take the risk. Just tell us if you don’t get the plot anywhere, and we’ll fix it.

One new exclusive this month, following up on our raucous interview last month with Genya Ravan, is her own account of an extraordinary session on which she sang in 1966. A casual end-of-session vamp turned into a hit in Jamaica on Chris Blackwell’s Island label, thanks to his quick-witted presence at the session. For this one, Genya morphed into Patsy Cole. We can’t provide an mp3 download, for copyright reasons. Nor can we direct you to a place you could purchase the recording, since it’s long deleted. But we can play you it in streaming form so you can hear what she’s talking about. It’s an unusually good recording, especially for the time, but strictly a one-off.