Welcome to the latest newsletter where we set a new competition, prepare for next weeks vinyl release of Passengers On Trains, open the cupboard to find some unexpected collectable vinyl items, and look behind the playlists!
Last week as we celebrated the 100th issue of the newsletter, we set a new special competition to win a really rare 'Get Ready To Go' single White label Test Pressing together with a 'The Young Idea' Tee Shirt!!!
The question is in two parts, and is really easy!:-
We have held competitions for all but two of the coloured vinyl single releases.
- Name one of the missing records!
- What has been your favourite newsletter so far?
Email your answers to info@squirenet.co.uk and please mark the subject line as ‘competition’ so we can spot them easily! We will announce the winner on Saturday 22nd April and you can see who wins live on screen!
We are especially keen to know what type of articles you enjoy so we can include them amongst the news, gig, archive dives and release info.
Next week sees the arrival of the vinyl copies of Passengers On Trains Vinyl LPs! If If you have ordered already, they will be sent straight out. If you’ve been waiting for the actual physical LP release, its next week and we urge you to buy a copy immediately! Click on the above picture to get to the collection page.
We have been tidying up the Hilo cupboard in preparation for the delivery, and have discovered not only are we down to our last ever 5 yellow vinyl copies of Get Ready To Go LP, but we have also found some interesting rarities that may be of interest to collectors, and we have set them aside for you to see on this special Vinyl Easter Eggs page! Click on the picture above for a deeper dive!
Last week Anthony Meynell - Passengers On Trains was featured in Detail magazine beside such luminaries as Ronnie Lane, Matt Deighton, Paul Weller, Nick Drake et al, as Peter Jachimiak traces the journey from the modernism of the city street to the leafy lanes of folk-mod in his excellent meditation on 'Modernism & the Rural Idyll'.
We are very proud of being included in the discussion of ‘escape to the country’, as the juxtaposition of Squire and Anthony as ‘two sides of the same coin’ allows us not only to broaden the fanbase and find new listeners that may fall outside the usual Squire circle, but also understand their wider tastes and appreciate the diverse interests and how we fit into different worlds, now music is less genre based and more playlist fed.
For example whereas the Squire Spotify is mostly made up of 1960s and mod oriented tracks, the Anthony Meynell Spotify radio playlist has picked up artists such as Elliot Smith, Jack White, Green Day, Belle & Sebastien, Johnny Thunders, The Coral, Edwin Collins, Squire(!), Squeeze, etc. and it provides a fascinating glimpse of artists that share the same musical DNA.
Whereas the algorithm defines the Squire playlist in terms of how some tracks sit on curated mod playlists, and in users collections, the Anthony one starts from scratch so has no underlying bias and so connects on a more musical level. It will be interesting to see if the two converge or follow their own path based on new found listeners.
You can compare the two here by clicking on the pictures:
Regardless of how they are constructed, we are in good company with both! However, It is always fascinating to understand how music is discovered and shared, as it gives us confidence that music will always find its own audience regardless of what you think you sound like, or try to direct it!
The Every Noise at Once scatterplot of genres and band examples derived from Spotify, below, provides a fuzzy example of how algorithms lump together bands based on underlying meta data, and provides an interesting glimpse of who you may, or may not realise you are connected to, inadvertently or otherwise!
Prepare to be engrossed for hours clicking on bands and genres (6,078 genre-shaped distinctions!) to hear a representative soundbite, gasp at the many mistakes, and be amazed at the sheer macrocosm of music you never knew existed!
Happy Easter from Squire!