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Topic: New Mike's interview in Prog magazine< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
Olivier Offline




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Posted: June 04 2013, 17:49

The new issue of Prog magazine features a brand new interview with Mike as well as articles on the 40 years of Tubular Bells and Virgin Records. It is on sale now. Magazine wallet and cover.

Thanks, Jerry Ewing of Prog!
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ingresman Offline




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Posted: June 07 2013, 07:47

Bought this in Tesco (UK) last night.
Only about 2 pages of TB, rest is about Virgin and Branson.
The two paqes contradict (as ever) much of what I've ever read.
E.g I've read more than once that the bells were being taken away and our hero says "Can I keep them?", the new article seems to suggest he wanted to use the bells because he used them before. Maybe my interpretation but there you go.
Second one is conventional wisdom about record companies wanting to put words on, new article seems to suggest Branson sugested it.
Sorry if para pharased but I assume most people knows the history!
I'll have another read tonight.
Sound on sound (uk studio magazine) featured TB as its classc track in april, some interesting stiuff in there. It's at http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr13/articles/classic-tracks-0413.htm but it's not complete (you haver to signup) but I would think in a month or two the full story will be available to the public
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Korgscrew Offline




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Posted: June 07 2013, 13:48

Quote (ingresman @ June 07 2013, 11:47)
The two paqes contradict (as ever) much of what I've ever read.
E.g I've read more than once that the bells were being taken away and our hero says "Can I keep them?", the new article seems to suggest he wanted to use the bells because he used them before. Maybe my interpretation but there you go.
Second one is conventional wisdom about record companies wanting to put words on, new article seems to suggest Branson sugested it.

This is the issue with history, really...there are a whole lot of stories that float around and there's not always a lot more behind them than one person's memory. There can be all sorts of reasons that might not be accurate, and of course it gets even more complex when two people have very different memories of an event!

I think from a historian's point of view, it's good to closely examine the commonly held interpretations of events to see if there's not a bit more too it than has been told before...but of course, to do that by just going with a different person's memories without attempting to even analyse the discrepancies isn't going to be helping a whole lot!

The story about the bells could perhaps be investigated further, I know the receipt for the hire of the instruments for the album was kept, so the thing to do would be to see whether there's a receipt for the session beforehand to see if the bells were hired for that or not. That, of course, wouldn't conclusively prove that Mike didn't just happen to ask for some without having seen them in The Manor, but it would at least go towards proving whether there would have been a set leaving the studio at the time he started recording, which he could have requested to keep.

I think there have been other things Mike's said which suggest he'd already tried some tubular bells in Abbey Road, so that would certainly support that part of the reason for wanting them was that he'd tried them before (which isn't incompatible with him seeing a set and asking to keep them...but I'll have to read the article to see whether the interpretation put forward there is incompatible).

I can say in general, from having talked to certain people who've been close to Mike...sometimes people's recollections are very different to the story that's been told through Mike's recollections (including Changeling) and the other published histories to date. I can only say that it goes to show that it can be a real minefield, and there are things which perhaps need some more careful analysis, ideally with the help of some archival sources (though how much is in existence is another question I don't know the answer to...). It's all very intriguing...
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chrisdewey Offline




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Posted: June 09 2013, 05:14

I have found exactly the same whilst compiling the new Mike Oldfield biography, as I did not want to take anything for granted just because one person had stated it once - different people have (sometimes significantly) different memories of the same events, which can directly contradict each other.

As many of the historical 'artefacts' such as receipts from forty years ago are long gone, the only viable strategy was often to ask more of the people involved to try to find the odd one out with the less accurate memory, which for me was a fascinating process in itself!

There were too many examples of this to list them all, but memories of the Queen Elizabeth Hall premiere and the BBC Second House TV performance had become muddled for some, resolved by quizzing four of the people involved in depth!
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ingresman Offline




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Posted: June 17 2013, 07:45

I know this isn't the place (I can't email you at the moment) to do this but...

Mark Kermode the UK file critic is holding a concert in Birmingham (UK) of his fave file music, one of which is the excorcist so the concert will include TB. Details are at http://www.cbso.co.uk/?page=concerts/viewConcert.html&cid=2704
Mark was on BBC breakfast time this morning talking of how TB became the theme music (Friedkin didn't like the composed soundtrack, looked through some white label albums and came accross our hero's album and the rest is, as they say, history
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