Trollheart

Let me tell you about television when I was growing up. No, not the programmes, but the actual sets themselves. Yeah, we called them “television sets” back then. Those of you who have grown up knowing a television has a flat screen, is very thin and can be controlled remotely do not know how good you have it. I lived through an era where even the concept of remote control was once unknown, and if you wanted to change the channel (or “station”, as we had it back then), you had to --- gasp! --- get up out of your chair! What, I hear you say? Was this the Stone Age you lived in, Trollheart?

It’s true though. It was some time into my teens maybe before we got our first telly with remote control, and it wasn’t the compact flat little thing you think of today as being your remote. Oh no. This was big. Probably about as big as one of those 200-packs of cigarettes you get when you go away on holiday, and about as thick. It was heavy and --- wait for it --- was tethered to the television by a cable, something like they used to use for operating camera shutters remotely. You probably don’t remember that either, do you, in these days of electronic digital timers. Indeed, even digital cameras were not always here and people had to use manual cameras and get the film “developed”. But that’s a story for another time.

I can’t find an exact picture, but it was something along these lines:


Of course, our old remotes did little more than change the channel and control the volume, possibly the brightness too. After all, our tellys were serious beasts. You wouldn’t lift one on your own. They were fat, wide things with no real handgrips and the only way you could take a hold of one was to tip the screen towards you and grab the back of it and then stagger along with it hoping you didn’t trip over anything! The screen was curved. There was no flatscreen back in my youth. Everyone was used to seeing the very edges of the picture bend out very very slightly, and the screens were thick! The television was also set in a cabinet of sorts. Whereas today your telly is basically a big monitor/screen with some controls and a stand, back in the seventies and eighties they were made of wood, fashioned like a cabinet into which the screen sat, with the controls either under the screen or to one side, and often more on the back.


You’ll note that the screen appears green. Well it was. Don’t ask me why. Probably something to do with the kind of glass they used in them. And it was glass too: if you pinged your fingernail or rapped your knuckles on the screen you would hear the hollow, slightly ringing sound glass makes. The speaker (mono only of course) was down there at the right, with the controls, such as they were, above it. Mostly these consisted of a volume knob, channel buttons and brightness control. Most channel buttons were pushed in to select the channel but could also be turned. Why? I’ll tell you in a moment.


That’s what they looked like around the back. None of your USB jacks or stereo audio inputs, and HDMI was an acronym that would not be invented for decades. As you can see, there are ventilation slots in the back, and they were necessary because these machines got HOT! If you touched the back of one while it was running, well you wouldn’t burn your hand but you would certainly feel it. You can see this one had knobs on the back too. They were for tuning.

Unlike today’s tellys, which come either pre-tuned or which, with a touch of a button can find all the channels and tune them in to pin-sharp clarity, older tellys were not generally tuned in. If you rented --- or, if you were quite well-off, bought --- one, you would usually have to look forward to more than an hour of trying to tune in the television. If your tuning selectors were on the front of the unit you were lucky, if not then you would either have to have someone else turn them at the back while you watched the screen, or stretch your arm around the back of the set while craning your neck to see if the reception was coming in. Channels didn’t just appear: you tuned and tuned till you heard a ghostly, whistly noise and then slowly the image would appear. Once you had the station, and knew which one it was, you did whatever it was you had to do to commit it to memory: some TVs worked on the basis of you popping out the selector knob (ooerr!) turning it and then once you had tuned it push it back in, and the selection was saved. Others worked different ways. To be honest, I don’t remember the fine details: it was a long time ago, and each set worked differently in this regard.

Once you had one channel tuned in you moved on to the next, selecting the next knob down after making either a mental note of the name of the station you had just tuned in or marking it with a sticker on the button so you knew where to go when you wanted to get that channel again. Inevitably, as all the channels were broadcast on the same wavelength, you would come across the channel you had already tuned as you went, and cries of delight would quickly turn to disappointment as the family realised we had already got this channel.

And on it would go, till all channels were tuned in. Then we would sit proudly back and confidently press button 1 for BBC 1, button 2 for RTE and so on, and be very happy with ourselves. Of course, if someone accidentally tuned the station out afterwards --- I’ll explain why that might happen in a moment --- then you had to go through the whole process again, at least for that station. And if someone mislabelled the buttons, or the stickers fell off, well just hope you had a good memory otherwise you were due to spend more time clicking around, trying to find the programme you wanted, usually thirty seconds before it was due to be broadcast (for the one and only time).

And then there was what we used to call “ghosting”. In these days of digital television and High Definition channels, everyone expects and gets perfect pictures every time. But not back in my day. We used to have to rely on a company now called UPC and previously Cablelink, but I can’t recall what it was originally called, to provide us with television channels other than the local one. This was generally referred to as “The piped”, as it was piped into our homes. “Piped --- often shortened to pipe --- TV” was the thing to have. Ireland had at the time only one channel, RTE, the national channel and if you wanted more you had to have a television aerial on your roof.

These were tall, unwieldly things which stood usually on a metal stand or tube and had to be on the roof in order to get any sort of reception. They rarely failed, but if a storm took yours down, or if birds messed with it, your tv could be knocked out. Those wishing for a simpler solution, and willing to receive only the national channel, could use a pair of “rabbit’s ears”, a small indoor aerial that plugged into the back of the telly and then stood on top of the set. The drawbacks of these were many. First, they were anything but stiff as time went on, and the times I remember trying to force one arm to stand up while the other collapsed and fell over, the picture for a moment sharp (or as sharp as you could get with rabbit’s ears!) on the screen before it dissolved in a sea of static to a chorus of disappointed groans. Secondly, although most TVs were flat on top they weren’t very wide --- wider than today’s almost-not-there models certainly, but the base of a pair of rabbit’s ears was quite wide itself, so often you would stick it on the back of the TV, as in the second image above. Problem with that was that the back of the TV was curved and sloped downwards, so inevitably after a while the rabbit’s ears would begin its slow journey down the TV, slip off the end and bang would go your reception! Not only that, but with a pair of rabbit’s ears you could ONLY get your channel in if the ears were positioned a certain way AND LEFT THERE. The slightest deviation of even one of the “ears” and your programme was gone. So when the unit fell off the tv naturally the arms flopped all over the place and you were looking at some time trying to get the channel back in. All the while, of course, your never-to-be-repeated programme was continuing without you!

“Just get it on the plus one channel!” I hear you youngsters yell knowledgeably and perhaps a little derisively. Would it surprise you to know that there have not always been plus-one channels, that they are in fact a relatively recent invention? So indeed are repeats of the same show either that day or later in the week. When I was growing up if you missed the show you missed the show. There was no catch-up channel, no repeat and they didn’t even do those “previously on…” segments. You really were lost, unless you could find someone who had seen the show and fill you in.

But back to ghosting. What was it? Well, before digital television became the norm, we all received analogue signals. Since they all transmitted on the same wavelength it occurred rather regularly that the signal for one would become stronger than for the other, and it would bleed in to the weaker channel. I don’t know the technical specifics; we just knew it as “bad reception”, probably a figure of speech that would be totally alien to some of you, unless you were thinking in terms of a badly-planned wedding. But it happened all the time, so much so that when you got home and wanted to watch your favourite programme you prayed silently to the television gods that not only would the reception be good, but that it would stay good for the duration of your show, as ghosting could occur at any time and at any point during transmission.

The net effect was that you were looking at, say, Captain Kirk walking along an alien desert,, while in the background a faded, grainy image of a newscaster could be seen. Or “Match of the Day” was suddenly invaded by ice skaters or cartoon figures. The sound would also be affected, so you would hear the programme you were watching (or trying to watch!) and then a buzz, a hiss of static, and “Luton Town, nil. Shrewsbury Rovers two, Dagenham, one.” and so on. Very annoying but very common, and there was literally nothing you could do about it. Not that we didn’t try. Screaming, shouting, cursing, and when none of that worked, blaming our mother and finally trying to “tune in” a channel that was already perfectly tuned, often losing the signal in the process so that the channel that had been ghosting through suddenly came through strongly, as Mister Spock turned to Captain Kirk with a concerned look on his face and a glance at the sky, and say “Sir I think THAT WAS A FANTASTIC GOAL! OH CITY REALLY HAVE IT ALL TO DO NOW!” Cue much cursing, banging of the top of the telly (this always worked) and frustrated noises, threats to “put me foot through that effin’ thing!” and a general air of grumpiness descending.

We had no twenty-four hour television either. Usually around midnight or 1am the Irish national anthem would play and we would know there was no more to be seen that night. Test cards replaced the final programme like this one

and pop, classical or sometimes supermarket music would take over. Also, the channel would not be on-air during the day, so until maybe early afternoon if you tuned in this is what you would more than likely see, again accompanied by music

Finally the music would fade out and the announcer (a real one, not just a voiceover) would appear and welcome us to the channel, telling us what was on that day and then the first cartoon or whatever of the day would begin. If you were off sick from school you could not rely on the telly to keep you entertained, that’s for sure. Unless you enjoyed shopping music.

There were of course no video recorders. We didn’t get our first one till I was about fifteen, and then it was a big event. The idea that you could tape a show and then watch it later? Pause it? Rewind it? Man, state of the art! What a time to be living in! And by now we had progressed on to infra-red remote controls, which were much smaller (generally; some were still bloody huge) and needed no connection to the TV in order to work. The Space Age had arrived!

So now we could record all the shows we enjoyed and keep them, for watching whenever we wanted! Cool! I remember renting two video recorders, specifically so that I could wire them up together with SCART leads. I would record my shows on one, then wind the tape back, put a blank one in the second VCR, and go through the show again, recording it but this time stopping the recording at the beginning of each advertisement break and starting it again when the break was over. In this way I made shelves full of tapes of my favourite shows --- Buffy, Angel, Star Trek, Babylon 5 etc --- with no breaks at all, and yes, I made special covers for them. I was a super nerd!

You may or may not be interested to know that I only made the move to a flatscreen TV a years or so ago. Up till then I had been fine with my big chunky CRT (Cathode Ray Tube, basically a wide fat TV) set until one day it just died on me, and I was forced to make the switch up to HD and flatscreen. While I would not wish for those days back again --- the idea of ghosting is now gone forever, and good riddance: it ruined more than one programme for me --- I still think fondly of those old cabinet televisions and wonder if they’ll ever make a comeback, even in a “retro” style, with maybe a flatscreen inside the cabinet? Probably not though: they were, I have to admit, bulky, heavy, often ugly, loud and they got hot easily. And yet, they broke but seldom. In these days when we buy a new TV and expect to be replacing it within five or ten years, our old sets back in the 70s and 80s were very reliable and were usually only replaced due to upgrade rather than necessity. And screen size was not the social status symbol it is now. Some people had small TVs, some had portable ones (fourteen-inch screen or less) and some had big, ostentatious twenty-eight or even thirty0two inch ones. But nobody who had a small telly was that bothered if their neighbour had a bigger one, or if they were, didn’t show it that I saw.

So next time you plug in your brand new HDTV and watch the channels pop up in front of your eyes, or next time you view your favourite HD channel and marvel at the clarity --- or bitch that it isn’t quite pin-sharp enough for you --- spare a thought for what these televisions had to go through to get to where they are today. They’re not the pinnacle of technological evolution, far from it. But they began from very humble origins, and they owe their dominance of our viewing habits to their elderly grandfathers, who at one time would not even have recognised the term remote control.

Happy viewing, you lucky people!

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Der gefallen stern --- Flaming Bess

I have something of a problem with this album. It’s not that I don’t like it: I do, very much. The music, that is. But there appears to be some sort of narration running through the album --- could be a story, could be a poem, could be anything --- and it’s all in German so I have no idea what’s being said. That’s bad enough, but without meaning to cause offence and with apologies to any German readers, or anyone who understands or enjoys the language, I’m sorry but as I said in a thread recently on the subject I just find the German language one of the harshest and most ugly in the world. I mean, I can’t speak Spanish or Italian or French (or indeed any language other than English and a very little Irish) but I could either guess the basic idea by picking up on certain words I know or can guess at the meaning for --- much of the usage of words in the “romantic languages” sounds pretty similar --- or at worst just listen to it and enjoy it.

German, not so much. It’s just so hard on the ears. Even to be honest if I understood it I think I would still consider it a terribly gutteral language, full of hard consonants and phrases that sound like they’ve been spat from a machine gun. I recognise this is my problem and that many people will have no difficulty with or dislike of the German language, but when you have to listen to literally minutes of someone spouting something in German, with no idea what he or she is saying, it gets tiresome. I have asked for a translation and Kartoffelbrei has said he will oblige, but he’s busy and I’m not holding my breath. He did mention that the narration seems to be part of an ongoing storyline, huge in breadth and covering several albums, so the chances of me getting the gist of it seem slim at best.

From other reviews I’ve read I’ve discovered that the idea, or part of it anyway, seems to concern the journey of the lead character through Hell, guided by a shining star, voiced by a lady called Mirjam Wiesemann, on some sort of quest. This is, apparently, the second in a triilogy of albums that seems to be titled overall “The music of the spheres”. The fact that I have no clue what’s going on makes the review very frustrating, and it’s just as well the music is so bloody good, otherwise I would not have bothered, which would I think have been my loss. To directly quote the contributor known on Progarchives as PleasantShadeOfGrey in his (or her) review of this album: ”Thus unfolds a mysterious quest, that, at its best moments, is utterly beautiful, endowed with a lyricism that will unfortunately be lost to those not familiar with the German language.” And he/she is right. I would love to know what is being said, I’d love to be let in on the mystery, find out what the story is, but I know nothing of the German language and until Kart comes back to me (if at all) with a translation I remain in the dark.

Even more impressive then the fact that I have really grown to like this album. The musicianship is completely flawless, with the main band already a five-piece and an extra seven players on this album making this a real almost cinematic experience. The album is made up of either three long tracks or fifteen shorter ones. I really don’t know which. There’s a title for each of the three parts but --- surprise, surprise! --- I don’t know what they mean. So they could be movements, chapters, sections, anything. As for the titles of the “songs” themselves, I can guess at one or two but that’s about it.

Before we get to the album though, let me just tell you that Flaming Bess have been together since 1969 would you believe, and have in that time released a total of six albums, of which this is the latest. Why such a relatively small output over such a long period of time, you ask? I don’t know. All I know is that their first album didn’t come out until 1979, ten years after they formed, and after that 1980 saw the release of their second, though sixteen years would pass before their third album hit in 1996. Then another nine years for the fourth, with the fifth out in 2008 and this their sixth. Guess they must be perfectionists or something. On the basis of this album you’d have to say that it was the right idea not to just rush out an album every other year, but even so, a hell of a wait between certainly the third and the fourth.

Wind sounds usher in a lonely piano before trumpet peals sweetly across the tune, the percussion cutting in powerfully as “Erwachen” opens the album. Now this is prefaced by the title or legend “Verloren im dunkel”, so we could be listening to part one of whatever that means, I don’t know. Strong guitar takes the tune as the tempo ups a little and breathy synth lays down its own flavour in the background. Then in the third minute there’s a sharp intake of male breath and the first narration begins. Behind the voice of Markus Wierschem, the character known as The Nameless, soft atmospheric synth and echoing, doomy drums in a slow pattern create the backdrop. A female voice joins the male, this being The Star, the female spirit that guides the Nameless through Hell --- apparently --- and voiced as I said earlier by Mirjam Wiesemann.

The next track, if it is a track, is the title of the whole section, so to speak. Um. It’s called “Verloern im dunkel” and it’s a slow but measured drumbeat with spacey keys and a vaguely AOR sound on the guitar when it comes in. The guitars are handled very ably by Achim Wierschem, surely the brother of the voice of the Nameless? Nice keyboard run, then it gets more dramatic and oppressive … oh wait a moment. This is very confusing. I think (though I can’t be sure, it is very disorienting trying to sort this out when you don’t have a word in the language to work from) that the first track was as I said, but the second part of it, from where the Nameless comes in and starts talking, is actually called “Verloren im dunkel”. Now this track I’m listening to and have been describing above is I think called “Nosce te ipsum”. Maybe. Anyway, there’s a running keyboard riff going through it which is nice but the guitar pretty much holds court here. Nice squeaky, sort of brassy synth ending and it seems there will be no speech on this track. Thank god for small mercies!

It’s not that I don’t like the talking, but I just don’t know how to talk about it, as I have no idea what’s being said, or why. Anyway, next up is, I think, “Verzweifelt und Vergessen”, and here Flaming Bess hit you with yet another surprise. No narration (yet) but a vocal, which is in English! Sung by Jenny K, it’s a joy to hear something other than music that I can understand, and the song itself is an uptempo AOR style song, which seems to question why the character is not in Heaven but in Hell, as she asks ”Where are all the stars in Heaven?/ Where are the golden rays of light?” Sort of a funky dance feel to it too, with samply synth and ticking percussion. The song kind of puts me in mind of Daft Punk, especially when they employ some vocoder, then a Lizzy-style guitar break from Achim which soars into quite a solo that takes us into the last minute of the song.

The title track is next, and I did at least find out that “Der gefallene stern” means “the fallen star”, so that’s something. A very emotive guitar solo opens the song, and Jenny K makes her return for what will be her last performance on the album as the track hits into its second minute. Very Genesis feel to this as it gets going with dark, dramatic keyboards and thundering drums. Despite, again, the fact that the title is in German I’m glad to find the lyric is in English. It’s a slower, moodier piece than the last, with a really nice melody. Achim really shines on this, putting in a fine shift on the guitar. It slows right down then in the last three minutes or so, with flutelike synth and wind sounds, before picking up again on a keyboard line almost ripped out of Tony Banks’s playbook.

If I understand anything about the structure of this album --- and I don’t --- then this song ends the first part of the triplet, and part two is made up of five tracks, as was part one. If they are parts. “Anderwelt” opens with, well, “Anderwelt”, a lovely acoustic guitar playing over broody synth, then the voices are back, sadly in German this time, talking to each other with me rolling my eyes and sighing. I honestly couldn’t even make a guess as to what they’re saying: they could be reciting poetry or their shopping list. But the acoustic guitar keeps a nice atmospheric background behind them, a little light percussion complementing the dark synth as Mirjam and Markus jabber on about whatever it is they’re discussing. They seem to get very animated, excited, but it’s lost on me.

A sort of Parsonsesque instrumental then in “Lichtpfad”, with some stabbing synth and hard guitar and a gorgeous thumping bassline from Hans Wende, before Achim sets off on another superb guitar solo. More vocoder is brought in for the last two minutes, with peppy squeaky synth leading the way to the finish line. We then get a different vocalist as Mike Hartmann takes the, er, mike for “... wie Wüstenregen”, which opens with a fine guitar line and then it’s great to hear that the vocal is again in English. Hartmann’s voice is soulful and powerful, complementing the music here perfectly. Some really nice keyboard work on this from Peter Figge, then what sounds like violin leads into a very Pink Floyd-style guitar solo from Achim. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that “Identropie” means identity, and it features more spoken passages from the Nameless as a very new-wave style reminiscent of maybe Duran Duran or OMD takes us into a nice instrumetnal with some Brian May overtones on some quite superb guitarwork from Achim, more vocoders and more Lizy influences on the guitar. “Erlösung ?” is obviously a question but what the question is I have no idea. It does however feature a sort of far-off vocal that’s not too distinguishable, but I think is again in German, as well as bassy piano and echoey slow percussion. This gives way to a very gorgeous piano line that’s almost classical in tone, leading into a deeply sumptuous strings section that nevertheless reminds me of the closing track on Genesis’s “Invisible touch”. Hmm.

Powerful guitar from Achim then takes up that melody, giving it real teeth as the strings keep going. We’re back to solo piano then for the last two minutes of the song, as it all quiets down, with some flutey keys joining in, Achim adding his own touches on the guitar while the distant vocal returns. And so we move into what I guess may be the third movement, “Am Fluß von Sein und Zeit”, which again opens with the title with some Mike Oldfield guitar and choral vocals giving way almost to the opening to “Shine on you crazy diamond”, then the vocal is back, behind a soft lush synth line that reminds me of Pendragon’s “For your journey”.

It all kicks up then for the rockiest track on the album, so different to what has gone before that I’ve wondered if it is really on the album or if I have inadvertently downloaded the wrong track somehow. “Die kyberniten” however makes sense when you listen to the lyric, which is sung in English, Mike Hartmann making his return. The title seems to translate as “cyborg nation” and it’s jammed full of guitar riffs, solos and keyboard arpeggios, with a driving beat and a sonorous organ too. The epic is next, the longest track on the album -- assuming you don’t take this as an album with three tracks; you know what I mean. Don’t you? --- at over twelve minutes, “Haravienna” keeps Hartmann behind the mike for the final time, as a heavy, ominous intro on synth and then howling guitar gives us the final English vocal. It again reminds me of the best work of the Alan Parsons Project, particularly on “The turn of a friendly card” or “I robot”.

You get some part of the story here in the lyric as Hartmann describes, or seems to, the journey these lost souls are making and the quest they are on. There’s also a sense of Asia in the song, though it does get a little repetitive in the third minute or so; after the fifth or so it becomes mostly an instrumental, allowing first Figge then Achim to shine as they go through a workout on their individual instruments: even Wende on the bass comes more to the fore. It’s well into the eighth before Hartmann comes back with the vocal, but to be totally fair it’s nothing more than a reprise of the chorus, the bit that had bored me before the instrumental break and it probably was not needed. Nice acoustic guitar passage from guest Julian Küster, then in the tenth minute it gets really stripped down, to just flute and piano, before kicking up for the big finale with guitar and choral vocals and ending with lone piano and wind noises which carry us into the penultimate track and turn into a rainstorm with pealing church bells as “Rückkehr” opens on flute from guest Markus Roth, who had been responsible for that fine organ in the epic just now. Another really nice acoustic guitar solo before harder electric guitar from Achim joins in, then the closer features the return of Markus Wierschem as the voice of the Nameless. Against the backdrop of synth and crying guitar, “Friedhof der Träume” seems to feature an exchange, argument or realisation between the Nameless and the Star. I think I can figure out that he’s trying to discover who he is and the final words ”Ich bin musique!”, well, they tell their own story, don’t they?

TRACKLISTING

Verloren im Dunkel:
1. Erwachen
2. Verloren im Dunkel
3. Nosce Te Ipsum
4. Verzweifelt und Vergessen
5. Der gefallene Stern

Anderwelt:
6. Anderwelt
7. Lichtpfad
8. . wie Wüstenregen
9. Identropie
10. Erlösung ?

Am Fluß von Sein und Zeit:
11. Am Fluß von Sein und Zeit
12. Die Kyberniten
13. Haravienna
14. Rückkehr
15. Friedhof der Träume

Truth to tell, I feel slightly cheated by this album. It’s my own fault and nothing I can blame the band for --- they’re singing after all in their native language --- but precisely because of that, and the fact that I can’t understand what’s being said, what it means and how it ties into the album, I feel like I haven’t really experienced the full effect of “Der gefallene stern”, and I think it would be so much better if I could follow the story.

Which is high praise, as this is one amazing album, even notwithstanding the above. The wealth of talent on display is staggering, and the album has clearly been carefully constructed over a number of years to ensure they provide the very best result to their fans. It’s just a pity that I’m not one of them. I think the music is excellent but though I made myself listen to this several times for the purposes of this review, it’s not something I would do for pleasure. Nothing to do with the music, and those sung in English are great. But the overpreponderance of dialogue in German just makes it hard to keep listening. As I said at the beginning, were this any other language I could probably just listen toit, but German is way too harsh for my ears to have to deal with for any protracted length of time.

Still, I can see why it’s on the list and if the rest of their albums are this good it explains why there are so few of them over a more than forty-year period. Flaming Bess may not release too many albums, but when they do, it looks like they’re masterpieces.

The rating sadly has to reflect the problems not being able to speak or understand German caused me. Were these just German lyrics in a song I would not be so harsh, as I could still listen to the music. But though music did accompany the spoken parts, it was very much in the background and you couldn’t really concentrate on it, so you were forced to listen to two people ramble on, with increasing passion and excitement, about something you had no clue about. So anyway, given that I enjoyed the music but not the spoken parts, I think the best I can award this album is a probably undeserved 5.5/10. Sorry guys!

Acknowledgement: Thanks to Kartoffelbrie for offering to translate this for me. Maybe someday he’ll get back to me with the full story, but even if not, the intention was there and that’s what matters. Thanks man!

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018