#i will redo parts and possibly edit instrumentals etc

[autumnwhistles]

hehehe i have her...

[gojiro]

The Vinyl of the Day is ‘Welcome To The Pleasuredome’, the debut album by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, 1984.

Damn I don’t even know where to start with Frankie, talking about the history of this band could take up 4 or 5 editions of ‘Vinyl of the Day’, even though they had a short history. But let’s start at the beginning I guess. The band formed around Holly Johnson in the Liverpool punk scene in the late ‘70s, but took a number of incarnations before they hit their stride, and began to have a string of hit singles that became extremely popular in the club scene in 1982, and then in 1983 they exploded and became a worldwide phenomenon. Who here still DOESN’T own a ‘FRANKIE SAY RELAX’ T-shirt?

“Frankie” broke absolutely huge in a manner seldom seen in music, and part of it was the unabashed marketing of them as openly homosexual. From Wikipedia;

ZTT Records co-founder Paul Morley mapped out the marketing campaign fashioned as a “strategic assault on pop”. Morley opted to tackle the biggest possible themes in the band’s singles (“sex, war, religion”), of which “Relax” would be the first, and emphasized the shock impact of Frankie members Holly Johnson’s and Paul Rutherford’s open homosexuality in the packaging and music videos.

Morley intentionally courted scandal with the promotion of “Relax”. ZTT initiated the ad campaign for “Relax” with two quarter-page ads in the British music press. The first ad featured images of Rutherford in a sailor cap and a leather vest, and Johnson with a shaved head and rubber gloves. The images were accompanied by the phrase “ALL THE NICE BOYS LOVE SEA MEN” and declared “Frankie Goes to Hollywood are coming … making Duran Duran lick the shit off their shoes … Nineteen inches that must be taken always.” The second ad promised “theories of bliss, a history of Liverpool from 1963 to 1983, a guide to Amsterdam bars”.

The song ‘Relax’ was famously banned by the BBC, along with the original video on music video stations - although ‘Relax’ was still continuously being played as a massive hit on the charts. Actually at the time, the band firmly denied that ‘Relax’ lyrics were sexual at all! It wasn’t until 1985 that the band admitted what everyone else already knew;

Everything I say is complete lies. Like, when people ask you what ‘Relax’ was about, when it first came out we used to pretend it was about motivation, and really it was about shagging.— Mark O'Toole, Welcome to the Pleasuredome album liner notes

Finally the group grew so popular that it was a must to release their first album, and the double album ‘Welcome To The Pleasuredome’ was the result - but also not without controversy, because the album was almost completely made up of new versions of the band’s previous hit singles, along with numerous cover versions of previous hits (like Edwin Starr’s ‘War’ and Springsteen’s ‘Born To Run’). That might have angered Frankie’s existing fans, but for new listeners it was great to basically start off with a ‘greatest hits’ collection, which ‘Pleasuredome’ certainly is! 

A very interesting fact about Frankie and the records, is that almost none of the actual band plays on the songs - when the band was discovered by producer Trevor Horn, he saw them as more of a marketing campaign of a ‘strategic assault on pop’, and wound up either hiring studio musicians to play the instruments, or recorded them himself. The band was too intimidated by him and his reputation to object, and for all intents and purposes Trevor Horn WAS the band Frankie Goes To Hollywood, only keeping Holly Johnson’s vocals from the band itself. It wasn’t until their second album ‘Liverpool’ that the band members actually recorded their own songs!

Overall, ‘Pleasuredome’ is a genre-spanning, sometimes wacky, kinda weird, highly original but very musical epic ‘concept’ example of 80s synthpop at it’s peak. “Frankie” (Trevor Horn) was highly original in the efforts to produce 'dance' music with more of an edge, using substantial electric guitar work and aggressive rhythms. This is even more impressive when one takes the time to listen to the expert ways that they intertwine and phase in-and-out similar rhythms, syncopate,etc., keeping things far from the monotony that plagued a lot of synth of the time. If you’re ANY kind of fan of the 80s, this album is a must-listen and must-own - over 30 years later it’s still a masterpiece. MAKE THE WORLD YOUR OYSTER!

AllMusic Review by Ned Raggett

Strip away all the hype, controversy, and attendant craziness surrounding Frankie -- most of which never reached American shores, though the equally bombastic "Relax" and "Two Tribes" both charted well -- and Welcome to the Pleasuredome holds up as an outrageously over-the-top, bizarre, but fun release. Less well known but worthwhile cuts include by-definition-camp "Krisco Kisses" and "The Only Star in Heaven," while U.K. smash "The Power of Love" is a gloriously insincere but still great hyper-ballad with strings from Anne Dudley. In truth, the album's more a testament to Trevor Horn's production skills than anything else. To help out, he roped in a slew of Ian Dury's backing musicians to provide the music, along with a guest appearance from his fellow Yes veteran Steve Howe on acoustic guitar that probably had prog rock fanatics collapsing in apoplexy. The end result was catchy, consciously modern -- almost to a fault -- arena-level synth rock of the early '80s that holds up just fine today, as much an endlessly listenable product of its times as the Chinn/Chapman string of glam rock hits from the early '70s. Certainly the endless series of pronouncements from a Ronald Reagan impersonator throughout automatically date the album while lending it a giddy extra layer of appeal. Even the series of covers on the album at once make no sense and plenty of it all at once. While Edwin Starr's "War" didn't need redoing, Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" becomes a ridiculously over-the-top explosion that even outrocks the Boss. As the only member of the band actually doing anything the whole time (Paul Rutherford pipes up on backing vocals here and there), Holly Johnson needs to make a mark and does so with appropriately leering passion. He didn't quite turn out to be the new Freddie Mercury, but he makes a much better claim than most, combining a punk sneer with an ear for hyper-dramatic yelps.

Here’s the original uncensored video of ‘Relax’;

[dezid744-blog]

Free Imaging, Backup and Recovery Software for Windows 10

The Windows working structure consolidates worked in gadgets that let you fortification and make copies of your records and make a system picture. It right now also fuses a System Image Backup Tool, with which you can now support or clone an image of your circle. In any case, it is found requiring in specific features, office.com/setup and that is the reason many like to use either free support programming open.

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We have recently been independently covering various such freeware support game plans on this site. Today, I am going to show some free Imaging/Backup/Recovery programming here, for the solace of our perusers.

Free fortification and recovery programming

Here is a summary of some free fortification and recovery programming for Windows 10/8/7/Vista. Do beware of the remote possibility that they continue running on your variation of Windows OS.

Areca Backup

Areca Backup is an Open Source archive support programming that continues running on Windows and Linux. It empowers customers to pick and make fortification copies of archives, which can be mixed and stuffed, or files for securing them on external drives, pen drives, FTP servers, and others. Areca furthermore gives mechanical assemblies required to Archive recovery – with or without deleted records.

Clonezilla

Clonezilla relies upon DRBL, Partition Image, ntfsclone, partclone, and udpcast, empowers you to do uncovered metal support and recovery. Two sorts of Clonezilla are open, Clonezilla Live and Clonezilla SE (Server Edition). Clonezilla Live is fitting for single machine fortification and restore.

Cobian Backup

Cobian Backup has a lot of decisions which we generally find in business support programming. The interface is essential, and we find

it easy to set up the fortification. You don't ought to be an IT wizard to set this up; the specialists have made it direct.

EASEUS Todo Backup for Windows

EASEUS Todo Backup Home is a free report fortification and disaster recovery programming, verifying your data, including photos, music,recordings, documents, cash related data, and applications. It gives support, restore, plate clone limits reliant on Windows working structures effectively and resolute quality.

AOMEI Backupper

AOMEI Backupper offers three guideline limits: Backup, Restore, and Clone. It is definitely not hard to find them on the left 50% of the standard interface.

Macrium Reflect

Macrium Reflect Free structure is a most adored of many. It offers the going with features: Compatible plate imaging programming with BartPE and Linux-based recovery decisions; Create a plate picture while running Windows using Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy

Organization (VSS); Image to Network, USB, FireWire drives and DVD; Built-in scheduler; 32 bit and nearby 64 bit structures;

To know more about: techwebpassion

Industry-driving weight levels and speed; Linux-based Rescue CD with Network access and full GUI. Only 6.5MB in size;

Worked in CD/DVD group making engine. Sponsorships package staying in contact with DVD DL media; HTML log records, etc.

DriveImage XML

DriveImage XML is A "Norton Ghost Alternative"! It is a HDD fortification and modifying programming like Norton Ghost anyway FREE; the item engages you to make a complete support image of any drive or section, You can restore later restore the image to same, or another package, you can in like manner clone a drive to another. The program moreover consolidates an image pioneer like Norton Ghost Image Explorer that allows you to research as of late made support pictures and concentrate solitary archives.

DiscWizard

DiscWizard is an "Acronis Clone"! Most think about Acronis True Image, which is an outstanding hard-drive fortification programming. Regardless, you can get a re-checked type of True Image with the name DiscWizard as a free real download from the Seagate website.

GFI Backup

GFI Backup – Home Edition, is a freeware fortification game plan which has as of late been impelled. GFI Backup 2009 empowers you to back up the entirety of your indispensable reports, photos, music, messages and program settings using a direct yet sharp wizard-driven interface to pretty much every limit device, including neighborhood and external plate drives, LAN, CD/DVD, removable devices, remote FTP servers, etc.

PartImage

Partimage is a Linux utility which saves bundles having a reinforced record system to an image report. Most Linux and Windows filesystems are maintained. The image record can be compacted with the gzip/bzip2 ventures to save circle space, and they can be part into various records to be copied on CDs/DVDs.

PING

Ping is considered by some as the best available Linux toolbox for shielding a system. Features include: Backup and Restore bundles or reports locally or to the framework; Backup and Restore the BIOS data likewise; Either duplicate a bootable CD/DVD, either organize inside a PXE/RIS condition; Possibility to Blank close-by head's mystery key; Create your own special revamping bootable DVD; Partition and Format a hover before presenting Windows and that is only the start.

Paragon Backup and Recovery

Paragon Backup and Recovery Free Edition is an astonishing plate imaging and recovery game plan. It declares to be the exceptional case that can do differential fortifications; make a bootable USB/streak drive and execute customized data dismissal decision. It moreover supports all present fortification techniques, performs hover imaging to any fortification objective and sponsorships Windows 10/8/7 also.

Re-attempt Backup and Recovery

Re-attempt Backup and Recovery is a free open source instrument subject to xPUD and part-clone, which works with Windows just as supports Linux. It is a recovery gadget which even works when your hard plate crashes since it boots from a live CD. Re-attempt offers various distinctive instruments which are very valuable if you are playing out a system restore. It sports a web program, IM device, a Facebook application, hard plate manager, and Google applications. To say it obviously, Redo is a completed heap of must-have instruments required at the

time of a disaster.

[janicefosse]

Writing Lives: Mica Scotti Kole

I attended the Chicago Writers Conference in 2015. It was my first conference ever, and I was both excited and terrified. Not being a particularly social person, the idea of spending three days mingling with and talking to total strangers with no familiar friends or my husband to hide behind was almost enough to prevent me from attending the conference.  But I was determined to enter the writing world, and so I stepped boldly into an unfamiliar bar in downtown Chicago on Friday night for the first mixer of the conference.

Throwing caution to the wind (and ignoring the gurgles of terror in my stomach), I walked up to the first friendly face I saw and said hello. That face belonged to the fantastic Mica Scotti Kole, and I am so glad that I was able to overcome my fears and meet such a fantastic person.

If you don’t know Mica, you’re missing not only a super cool person and a talented writer, but also an invaluable resource for other writers. She is the face behind Free Writing Events, aka @Writevent on Twitter, the clearinghouse for all free writing events on the Internet. Her website has not only the same calendar of free writing events, but also a plethora of other writing resources, from agent lists to conference recaps, writing advice, and more.

She is also the founder of Beta Frank, the “super-affordable editing service where the author sets the price and duration of the services – not the editor.” I had her go over my manuscript before I began querying and now I have an agent. Her invaluable insights and in-depth notes were instrumental in getting my book into its best possible shape, and I would recommend her to anyone looking for a high quality editor (she should really be charging at least triple what she charges – just saying). I decided to kick off my interview series with a writer, editor, and person that I admire and I’m proud to call friend. So, without any further ado, here is my interview with Mica.

The fabulous Mica Scotti Kole!

JF: Tell us how you got started in writing - what inspired you early on, what inspires you today, etc.

MK: When I was little, I used to play with Duplos - like giant Legos with animals - and write stories about the animals' adventures. I just unearthed one of these "books" recently while unpacking for a new house. The animals in my "Miracle Zoo" made hover-cars out of coconut juice. I'm pretty sure I was doomed to write fantasy from the very beginning.

JF: How did you become the queen of writing events?

MK: Aw, thanks! Well, when I first started Twitter, I discovered hashtag games like #1linewed and events like #PitMad, which were fun writing challenges and incredible networking opportunities that I had never heard of before... meaning that piles of other writers had never heard of them, either. I saw a need, and I started filling it, and the response was so stellar that I just kept going, widening my promotions to any events that were free and useful for writers. I'm highly organizational, so the resulting @writevent turned out to be pretty cool.

JF: Name one book that has influenced you in life, as a writer, etc.

MK: I always say The Golden Compass. I remember walking into a giant library, having no idea what to do, and asking a librarian. She gave me that book of the thousands available, and I was sold on fantasy forever... the accompanying His Dark Materials trilogy has it all: diversity, religious questioning, talking animals, multiple dimensions, death, and irreconcilable heartbreak. The Golden Compass taught me that an imaginary world doesn't need to be contained. It can be as big as you want it to be. I dislike writing contemporary to this day!

JF: What is your daily writing routine like? Do you have any particular rituals, must-haves, etc?

MK: I'm one of those one-track-mind people. I'll kick out 20,000 words in a few days, then veer off into another project and forget to write for a week. But my daily ritual involves cereal, loose-leaf black tea, and consuming some type of media: books, anime, or often the Daily Show with Trevor Noah. It takes me an hour at least to get through this ritual because that's how long it takes me to finish my tea (yes, it gets cold). Then I open my laptop, pull up Word, and dive in.

JF: How much research do you do for a writing project?

MK: None during the first draft, except when naming characters or the occasional "What type of feather is at the tip of the wing?" question. I do most of my research in revisions, with a special eye for the diversity-related research. But I do have an aversion to general research due to a decade of writing all A+ papers in every English class ever. I think some part of me believes I've paid my dues. That is not a good thing, lol.

JF: Are you a planner, a pantser, or a plantster?

MK: Depends on the project, but I think that inevitably we all become plantsters in the end - a hybrid. I'll either outline a book and end up down a rabbit hole, or I'll run down a rabbit hole and end up plotting my way out. I leaned primarily toward plotting early on, though, and I do recommend that. Plotting gives you a feel for pacing and structure that pantsing doesn't. You can learn a great deal about writing from plotting, but pantsing mostly just teaches you how to revise!

JF: You’ve written characters from underrepresented groups - please elaborate on the importance of that and what challenges you’ve faced writing these characters.

MK: I could say SO MUCH about this, but will try to limit myself. To start: writing diverse characters terrifies me. So many authors, either white/cis/nonreligious like myself or themselves diverse, have faced incredible vitriol for trying to write diverse characters. The fear that trying to elevate other voices might actually ruin my career - and even my life - is real. The fact is that mistakes will be made if one writes diversity, and writers will be hated for writing diversity no matter what they do. You can't please everyone, and you can only do your best. That said, one's "best" must involve sensitivity readers, research, and humility. Frankly I have said and done insensitive things without any idea I was doing it - and to learn my own failings and misconceptions, and have to apologize, is both painful and important. In addition, #ownvoices books must be elevated above non-#ownvoices books. I cannot possibly write about a transgender woman the way a transgender woman can write about herself, and I need to recognize that. All that said, despite the hate campaigns and the social justice warriors/bullies and all the other risks, if white/cis writers don't at least try for the most basic of inclusion, then our literature will be whitewashed. And white is the most boring color.

JF: What would you suggest as an essential bit of reading for aspiring writers?

MK: The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho will inspire you to chase what matters. This is my favorite book, and no, it's not a book that tells you how to write. For better or worse, I don't believe those kinds of books have ever helped me personally. Although if you're fresh to the writing scene, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott is a must-read, and absolutely hilarious to boot. She'll warn you about all those things you need warnings for...

JF: What is the most useful writing advice you’ve ever received? The most destructive?

MK: Useful? To structure according to the Hero's Journey (or the 3-Act Structure, whatever works). This is such a game-changer and has helped me write better first drafts and get a keener eye for story... although, as I said, over time plotting may become more instinctive. And the most destructive advice, for me, was specific advice from an agent on how to redo my opening. The advice itself wasn't bad, but taking her word as gospel caused my opening to founder for ages. To that end, I'd advise second opinions if a change doesn't sound like it would work for you... remember, you know your book better than anyone else! But do pay attention if the second opinion matches up!

JF: The publishing world is a strange one right now - what do you see for the future of publishing in your genre?

MK: I see more diversity. They're afraid, now, to take these books on... but those that have succeeded, have done so very well. And as much as people love the same old tropes, a blurb about a police shooting or a Muslim teen catches the eye and sets the book apart more than "oh look, another clumsy female protagonist in a love triangle." Publishers want a hook, and that's the key: do you have a hook? I also see a shift toward YA over adult books in most genres. Virtual Reality storytelling isn't too far off, either.

JF: What do you suck at?

MK: Humor. At least, putting humor into things. I lean toward dark stories, and I need to work on the comic relief. I also struggle with getting the reader to connect to the main character early on. I work much harder on voice than I used to, and it still seems like it isn't working - but I have improved, and will continue to do so. Like Lisa Scottoline said about writing, "You never hit your stride."

Check out Mica on Twitter: @MicaScottiKole

Be sure to follow Free Writing Events: @Writevent

Mica Scotti Kole’s website: Micascottikole.com

Beta Frank Editing Services: Beta Frank

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