UPDATE FEB 2011

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DEAR FRIENDS, AFTER RECEIVING FIVE NOTIFICATIONS FROM DMCA, I HAVE DECIDED TO CLOSE MY BLOGS, SO ALL THIS SHARING-LINK ACTIVITY IS FINISHED. YOU CAN READ THE COMPLETE TEXT I POSTED ON MY PILOT BLOG - - > HERE

FOR THE MANY MANY PEOPLE WHO KEEP ASKING FOR RECORDS: I'M SORRY, I CAN'T FULFIL THEIR REQUESTS, IT ALL CAME TO A POINT THAT'S 'S TOO DANGEROUS FOR ME. I HAD TO REMOVE THE 97% OF THE ALBUMS I HAD POSTED ON THE SERVERS. The few exceptions are: the bootlegs and the few studio albums authorized directly by the copyright owners.

FOR ALL THE OTHERS, Cyrus (who wants to buy some of my vynil records), Maxoom, Caroalt, Jiro, Trolley Dolly, Phil (who wants my copies of the COB albums), Marnie (who wants my copy of the original "Ptooff"), XJ64, Antiamnbient, Arman, Nicolas, Rick, etc etc , please WRITE ME AGAIN WITH YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS, AND I WILL ANSWER YOU, OKAY?

Last: I RE-UPPED THE FOREST'S LIVE ALBUM FOR THREE PEOPLE WHO ASKED FOR IT, SO IF ANYONE'S INTERESTED, HERE'S YOUR CHANCE.


VAN DER GRAAF FANS? - Click ==>> HERE

KISSES - YOUR COUNTESS VANESSA

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No pretention of completeness in mind, this blog sees the light with the idea of filling a good number of gaps here and there, where I notice that certain music that I particularly like is missing in other blogs. Therefore my intent is avoiding posting albums that are present elsewhere. Exceptions are: where I'm reported of dirty record scans, incomplete reissues often remixed and unfaithful to the originals, or when I can offer higher bitrate scans, or also when posting a title is necessary for the completeness of a thread or a discography.


Here you won't find links leading to downloads, whenever the "Link" is featured, the album is available, otherwise, it means "work in progress".... If you want an album, please write me a request in the comment section including your email address and where in the world you visit this blog from.

...and if you don't get an answer from me after a certain time, please write again - I'm sorry, but it's not rare that some emails get lost in outer space, unfortunately...

After seeing that certain people keep using some of my pictures (which are not first class, I admit it, but nevertheless were made originally by me) for their blogs, without mentioning me as the owner, I decided to apply a "watermark" on some of them.

Thanks for existing

Thanks for existing

07 October 2011

BERT JANSCH

... Just devastated for the death of one of my heroes...

Here is a modest anthology, packed in a hurry.
Some of his songs I love most.
The difficult thing was deciding what numbers to exclude...

TITLES:
angie - blues run the game - chambertin - fresh as a sweet sunday morning -
go your way my love - kingfisher - lady nothing  - looking for a home -
moonshine - needle of death [1974 version] - nottamun town - of love and lullaby -
oh my father - ring-a-ding bird - rosemary lane - silly woman - the bright new year -
the first time ever i saw your face [1972 version] -
there comes a time - wishing well - yarrow

[NOTE: This is a torrent link. I'm not keeping it for long here, so go for it.]

THE SIX BERT JANSCH ALBUMS I PREFER
"It don't bother me", "Birthday blues", "Rosemary lane", 
"Moonshine", "L.A. turnaround", "A rare conundrum"
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Some other read-only links that may be interesting:

V

01 August 2011

McKENDREE SPRING - The first five albums [1969-1973]

  - - under construction - -






Under Construction - more photos & info will come
YOUR COUNTESS V.

27 April 2011

PROG 'n' FOLK BLOGGERS....


TWO FANTASTIC OLD FRIENDS OF MINE [Mr. F. and Mr. F.] visited me last weekend! :-)


TWO GIGANTIC VYNIL COLLECTORS (mid-50's thru mid-80's).

I preferred not to put myself in the same frame, although I'm an ex-blogger as well today. I got permission to publish this foto, but I cannot say their names here; enough to know that putting all their LPs together, you can practically find EVERY good album (of a certain artistical importance) you want.
Many of their LPs have toured the world and made other music lovers happy :-)
 BLESSINGS TO YOU
 Hopefully we will meet again soon, 3some, 4some, etc :-)

 Yours ever, the Countess V

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13 February 2011

RICHARD THOMPSON - "Guitar, Vocal" [2 LP, Island, issued 1976] and "Live (more or less)" [2 LP, Island/Antilles, 1976]

In order to dissolve any doubt about the release of these two double albums...
If you wanna read the whole article, click on this LINK


The two pictures above:
"GUITAR, VOCAL - A collection of unreleased and rare material 1967- 1976" 
front and back covers

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The two pictures below:
"LIVE (more or less)"

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Your  COUNTESS  V


ZUPFGEIGENHANSEL - "Kein schönes Land" (EMI Musikant, 1983)






V


17 November 2010

Dear Friends, and dear Visitors, and also dear UN-friendly people,

A “few” words for you all together:
I started these blogs of mine exactly one year ago, on the 20th November 2009. Since then, many things have happened, many troubles but also many satisfactions. Whom ever of you liked to follow the chronology (real good friends like Fabio, Peter, Gurnemanz, Nikos, Ellen and Christina) know exactly what I mean.

Since last December, after I opened this new Pilot Blog, the Countess Vanessa’s Castle, things had started to develop much better, without the continuous and extremely disgusting messages of schizophrenic people, (the top of them was this one named “Maeshyfryd”, you can still read all his attack-of-delirium-tremens scribbled stuff on my first blog:

As a final-solution enterprise (which he was extremely proud of), as you can read, in his lust-of-might agony, maeshyfryd reported my blog as an abuse-blog, and as a consequence, I decided to close it. Right after, I re-opened these new ones. The fact is that some other people – if not him again – must have followed his example.  In coins, I have received FIVE mails from DMKA, the text is always the same, and you can read it here:

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Blogger DMCA takedown notification
support@blogger.comBlogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium C... 28 ott
Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that certain content in your blog is alleged to infringe upon the copyrights of others. As a result, we have reset the post(s) to "draft" status. (If we did not do so, we would be subject to a claim of copyright infringement, regardless of its merits. The URL(s) of the allegedly infringing post(s) may be found at the end of this message.) This means your post - and any images, links or other content - is not gone. You may edit the post to remove the offending content and republish, at which point the post in question will be visible to your readers again. A bit of background: the DMCA is a United States copyright law that provides guidelines for online service provider liability in case of copyright infringement. If you believe you have the rights to post the content at issue here, you can file a counter-claim. For more information on our DMCA policy, including how to file a counter-claim, please see http://www.google.com/dmca.html. The notice that we received, with any personally identifying information removed, will be posted online by a service called Chilling Effects at http://www.chillingeffects.org. We do this in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). You can search for the DMCA notice associated with the removal of your content by going to the Chilling Effects search page at http://www.chillingeffects.org/search.cgi, and entering in the URL of the blog post that was removed. If it is brought to our attention that you have republished the post without removing the content/link in question, then we will delete your post and count it as a violation on your account. Repeated violations to our Terms of Service may result in further remedial action taken against your Blogger account including deleting your blog and/or terminating your account. If you have legal questions about this notification, you should retain your own legal counsel.
Sincerely, The Blogger Team
[I was unsure what colour to choose, if grey or dark brown.. this probably fits better.... ;)]
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I actually suggest you all to skip it, because we are here for the love of MUSIC, of the ART, not for a trainload of recited codes, or for a list of organized punishments, not for the love of DESTRUCTION, but rather for the sake of CREATIVITY, to gift as a present it to the posterity, as integral as possible. 
And throughout - possibly - the centuries to come.
You may say: "It's the law and it must be respected".
Respected yes, but also changed if it doesn't work.
What I see is that this is fundamentally a bad-composed law, a bad-engineered  law.
What I see is that the only laws "respected" are the ones where no toil at all is supposed to be done.

Difficult is to have real criminals locked up.
Let's not forget Robert Schumann and his piano cycle against the Philistines.
Let's not forget how many masterpieces we received from grandios MEN like Wagner, Verdi, Mozart, Bruckner, Bizet, and many more, but they had to pay the price, they had to struggle all their lives against bigotism, obscurantism, financial problems, official "critics" who wrote continuously acid and insutling reviews, only full of PURE POISON against the musical geniality of an Artist, and so on.
Where are today those CENSORS, those bigots???

What positive influence have they casted on SOCIETY, on HUMANITY?
Where is their incredibly important, seminal, contribution that they left us as a precious heritage, for the purpose of saving humanity from the apocalypse?
Did they leave any trace in the evolutive history of humanity?
Or did they rather just do their best (aka worst) to suffocate, to kill any innovative, modernist, spirit?
Today we are lucky to have Wagner, Verdi, and many more, and we get HUMANIC LYMPH from them, they gave us jewels and values that are ETERNAL!

The reason why humanity could make steps forward, instead backwards to the cavern age, it's ALSO thanks to great musical spirits like those I mentioned.
If you take away the human side away from the functionment of our body and soul, well, it remains only the animal, the beastly component.
You may tell me, with a grin on your face, that these things used to happen centuries ago, nowadays things go much better...
Oh, really???
Why, what did they do with John Lennon?  Has any of you seen that documentary "The USA vs Lennon"?
Well, first SEE it, and then let's see what you have to say.
Critics, spies, censors, inquisitors...
THERE WILL NEVER BE A "CRITIC" THAT BECOMES A STAR!
Same things for bigots and all those honoured cathegories..
One glorious exception was John Peel, originally a Disc Jockey and a critic as well, who, after noticing how many great musical talents were obstensively  neglected, not able to find a major label, after seeing how blind and abstruse the discographic industrial system was, he suddenly decided to do something, himself, for these people, and opened a new label, the Dandelion!
Great people were also those men who were running Radio Caroline, based on a ship, transmitting tons and tons of fabulous music, while sailing offshore on the British sea, in extra-territorial waters. The new generations are too young to know it, but I remember at the time, these news made "furore"!
Oh you can be sure, for them they DID change the law, they found RIGHT AWAY a trick to dismantle the whole task, to order their death...!
THESE are people who gave music a chance, and not only to music- a chance to progress, in general.
While certain laws, in last analysis, work only for the people-of-law, not for the artists.
The main problem for me is that I wish I could understand WHO protects WHOM from WHOM.
To shield the rights of those who own a copyright, you say? 

OK, very noble, I agree!
But have you seen for example that great video on Youtube:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I&feature=related
Give it a look, it's very recommended!
where these 3 fantastic guys from Oz make a charade of songs, many of them became worldwide hits, all songs constructed on four chords, ALWAYS THE SAME four chords?
So where is the protection against those who keep stealing melodies from others?
Who was the very first composer, who used  these 4 chords?
Why didn't anyone make anything to avoid that these successful 4 chords were eternally copied afterwards, in order to make "new" hit parade numbers?
Who protects the very first composer??
Why dores the law privilege only SOME people?

It takes ART to make ART. 
It takes CULTURE to make CULTURE.
It takes PROGRESS to make PROGRESS.
It takes MUSIC to make MUSIC.
Not OBSCURANTISM.
Not a cathalogue of organized punishments.
We are supposed to destroy in order to RECONSTRUCT something better.
Not destroying for the sake of giving death to the forms of ART we love.
It's a law that doesn't work, doesn't bring new lymph neither to the artists nor to the audiences.
An artist needs support, publicity, airing, etc, otherwise he/she is doomed to remain unknown.
And in my modest opinion, laws that don't work in the right direction are supposed to be changed.
I still have somewhere an interview - I guess from 1976 - where Jimmy Page used to insist that no matter how many albums you can sell, without the CONCERTS, all this (referring to all his properties, including his wonderful country house, etc.) would never ever exist.

And if you want the people to come to see you live in concert, you must let your music be spread around!That's why  I conclude, the law is wrong. Must be substituted.

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Back to our dmca, it all got started with the bootleg of Captain Beefheart, they removed it from the server, then it was the turn of other albums, and then things went on and on…
Now, I don’t want anymore to receive stuff like that. This must be the last time! I have a lot of other things to do, to follow my work, lead a normal life with the woman who is my Lady, but most of all I need my sleep at night, troubles are not lacking in my life, I really have no will to increase the number.  Maybe I'm too old (I have already passed the half-century of age, small secret that at this stage I have no problems to reveal), or maybe too annoyed, really, but the task is not worthy anymore.  As you all know, I did all this not for my personal incoming, I am fundamentally a purist, I never gained a coin from all this (I even refused to apply any kind of publicity to my pages!), but I did it rather for the huge love I bear to the music I love, and for the pleasure in sharing it with other real music lovers.

So, in short, I'm closing, and this time for good.


The only Blog that I think I will keep opened is the “Diary”, because it doesn’t hold entries related to posted albums.

Of course, Friends remain Friends, I deeply cherish the marvellous contacts I have with them. Thanks to the activity of my blogs, I had the chance to get in touch with new wonderful people, in some cases there are oceans separating us, nevertheless with a few of them we even met in person! …. But for the others, what else can I say, other than “I’m sorry, but the Inquisition stroke again”… ?
"Malleus Maleficarum slaughtered and tortured" - evergreen lines, by Peter Hammill.

Thank you all for your presence, happy to know that it was a magic time for you as well as it was for me.

Your COUNTESS VANESSA

07 November 2010

BROTHERS FOUR - a preview on some albums

I'm currently preparing a retrospective on the Brothers Four albums, it will take obviously some time because they are many and all worthy of being posted. For the time being, here's a parade of some record sleeves, just a preview, meanwhile waiting....
 

Their second LP, "ROAMIN'" (double sensed titled - the fact of wandering and being dressed as ancient Romans), one of their best.

One of their best albums, "SONG BOOK"
probably the first ever published which contained a booklet with lyrics and chords!
The UK edition was not gatefold but had still the booklet inside


The album of them I love most: "THE HONEY WIND BLOWS"






More albums will come.

Your COUNTESS V

05 November 2010

PETER HAMMILL - Happy birthday


click

The COUNTESS

04 November 2010

PETER PAUL & MARY - Live at the Stadium, Sydney, 1964 (b/w Film, ca. 90')

A black and white film, 83 minutes of music with some short comedy sketch (for completists see Paul Stookey's performance on the official double live album, Warner Bros. 1964), never officially released, recorded through a broadcast on BS2, a Japanese TV network. Good video quality, steady images, stereo sound.  Long spoken parts by the smiling woman who presents the TVprogram... I didn't cut them away, my proverbial lazyness...


These stills are taken from the film, this collage is mine
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I coudn't yet load this video on the server, due to its size (about 700 MB), but it's coming more or less soon.





Your COUNTESS
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27 October 2010

GOOD NEWS - Good News (CBS, 1968)



Very inviting cover, Folk Guitar and Cello... The album doesn't betray expectations

I won't be posting much for awhile, I'm away for the next three weeks, nevertheless I'll now and then come and see here what happens :-)


Your COUNTESS


26 October 2010

MIKE GIBBS - Directs the only Chrome Waterfall Orchestra (Island/Bronze, 1975)

Special request, for Chris, who now won't have to pay a "small fortune" to purchase the vynil LP ;-)
The bitrate is @320


Enjoy

Your COUNTESS







BEECHMONTS - In a concert of folk songs (Fortuna, 1965)









COUNTESS V

25 October 2010

JUNIOR'S EYES - Battersea power station (Regal Zonophone, 1969)

A quick look around and I noticed that this album lacks in the world of blogs.
Anyway, this is a temporarly file with a very low bitrate (96 !!).  In the next days I will upoad here the real 320 version. For the moment, no links and no PW, just click on the cover and you get the album

My copy is the USA one, released on A & M records.
For the back cover, I use here a picture "stolen" from the band's official MySpace site (below)




Your  COUNTESS  V.