Steve Litchfield

A while ago, I revelled in the process of digital remastering old 1970s music , enjoying it crystal clear in 2024. And the album I used as an example was  Steve Swindells  (wiki link) and Fresh Blood, along with a smattering of links (also included here). This is such an obscure release that, especially in remastered form, I thought it deserved further treatment in the form of an actual review. Albeit 44 years after release! Being a huge  1970s Hawkwind  fan, I was aware of Steve as a member of the band from 1978-1979, and particularly his use of Hawkwind's  Simon King  (of whom I'm possibly the biggest fan on the planet) and Huw Lloyd-Langton (for whose web site I was webmaster for a decade circa 2010) as backing musicians for his own (second) solo album  Fresh Blood . Also playing on the album was Van de Graaf Generator's Nic Potter. Steve was hailed as 'the next Springsteen' in some quarters, thanks to his lyrical prowess - all the songs are lyric h...

[Yes, yes, a little self indulgent, but I was musing on such a list recently and thought 'Why not do it properly and do it in a blog post?'] I was chatting to my daughter and talking about the 'old days' when we used to make 'mix tapes' on cassette, painstakingly copying on tracks from other tapes or LPs to create curated compilations. She paused for a brief moment and then said 'you mean like a playlist?'(!) Ah. So yes, turns out the mix tape is redundant in 2023, but the idea of picking 10 (or 15, as has ended up here!) favourite tracks from a band, an artist, an era, or a genre, and then theoretically putting them into a playlist is a good idea still. Not least because it filters out a lot of the rubbish that every artist inserts. Because none are perfect and all are guilty of putting in 'filler' songs, let's face it. The better artists or bands have less filler, but it's still there, and therefore warrants a retrospective curation. In...

As someone who started with vinyl records (LPs) back in the 1970s and graduated through cassettes to CDs, I get fed up with so-called audiophiles who say that vinyl recordings sound better than the same pieces on CD. They're simply talking rubbish. In favour of their argument, they suggest that the 44kHz sampling rate of digital music means that the 'full' analog waveforms of music aren't stored when on CD. They'd be right, but unless we're talking about piano music and the listener is a 20 year old afficianado with perfect hearing the difference is completely inaudible. Certainly for 99.999% of people, and especially those who like listening to music a lot (and fairly loud), hearing won't be perfect. Even more so as we all get older. In favour of CD 44kHz sampled music, there are many factors, including: These days, most CDs are either recorded digitally in the first place, or digitally remastered, which means ZERO hiss, ZERO wobble/wow, PERFECT graphic equ...

I don't often crawl out from under my rock and stick my head up to be shot at, but if you fancy coming along to say hello or to enjoy what'll hopefully be a good night of original music, note that Shed Music (couple of our videos here ), in which I'm 'guitar and vocals', is playing the 3Bs in Reading on October 17th, we're starting to play at 9pm. Go on, come along, buy some beer and make the landlord a happy man....