Apparently these recordings, or highlights thereof, are scary, and if you found the other two scary then this one will be no different, nor will any of the future releases, so if you find them scary, then keep clear of this category.
Now that I have the disclaimer and warning mumbo jumbo out of the way, on with the recording. This particular recording is called “A Decade Of Samuel” as it was recorded as a special event as part of my tenth birthday. My birthday parties were always small and unconventional, my tenth was no different, in fact this recording took up a fair chunk of it.
The party was on the Saturday before my birthday (May 31, 1997), and that morning I started the recording by randomly starting recording at the start of a song on the radio and then recording the whole song. This was back when 2CC were half way between being a music station and a talk station. The first part of the highlights package has the tail end of the song (Moody Blue) and then the announcer, whose voice I recognise but can’t quite work out, announcing “1206 2CC” at which point that segment ends. By the way, if anybody can enlighten me as to the name of the announcer I would appreciate it.
It then cuts to a small section of the recording session which took place in my room as part of the party. My tenth birthday was the smallest one on record with one guest, which probably made the recordings easier. The segment contains me and my guest (Thomas) singing in Opera, I perform the high pitched sections whilst he performs the low pitched sections.
Obviously there were large parts of the party which were not recorded, but the end of the party consisted of our efforts in commentating the AFL match which was on the TV, this was somewhat amusing and continued even after he left (albeit with just me), dad came over a couple times as various boundary riders, and the highlights of the AFL coverage are included in this highlights package.
Those few things took up all of Side A of the tape, and my plan for Side B consisted of starting off by recording all of the Television news themes, and some others, I did this on that Saturday and Sunday, and I have chosen a couple for this highlights package. At that stage I absolutlely loved the David Young’s Garden theme, so I have an extract of that, if you listen carefully you will notice that the voiceover mentions the “Bruce Bond Investment Program”, I always found that name to be quite fitting for someone handing out financial advice. I also have an extract of one of the many bits of theme music Channel 7 used for the AFL…not only did they have the best AFL coverage (something that nobody has been able to match to this day) but they also had fantastic taste when it came to music.
The rest of Side B was recorded on the Monday of the following weekend (Queens Birthday Monday, June 9, 1997) and a very short segment at the end which was recorded the next weekend, on one of the two days.
As was the style of my recordings, this was all “The Samuel John Gordon-Stewart Program”, the highlights of which include an interview with one of my new toys, Dinosaur, a segment called “Teddy’s Major And Almost Major Issues” which was my take on the commercial television current affairs programs, the news (Including the news theme which was me singing “The News” in my opera), a horse race with two horses paying astronomical dividends and various other things. I had a bunch of callers who all tried to guess what the time was ten minutes ago from the time I announced the competition, as well as talking about such amazing topics as how much a chop weighs. The final segment was just me talking.
I haven’t included any callers on this occasion (there will be plenty of time for that on future releases) but I have included a section where I have to wake up my panel operator/receptionist (and don’t ask how he does both jobs at once…he just does) using a bicycle horn.
[audio:http://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/tape_highlights/ADecadeOfSamuel.mp3]Samuel