Well, I did it.

On the one hand, it was very enjoyable to listen to the brilliant LP once more (only listened to it yesterday) and to read all the wonderful comments.

On the other hand, it was a bit of a ball-ache trying to screen-grab it, download and rename all all the pictures etc.
It didn't help when:

a) I didn't realise that Blue Monday is tagged on to the end, so had to queue that up into the playlist as an afterthought (*);
b) Realised that I didn't crop the screen grab, so it contains all my browser tabs. Now, not that I have anything to hide here, but I'd rather my web history wasn't being displayed for posterity ($)

(*) I ended re-doing Blue Monday, deleting the end of the initial video and adding the new video onto the end.
($) I'm currently trying to crop this using iMovie. I think it'll work but is taking an age.


Good job I've got plenty of time on my hands these days...

^ I'm a bit lost with how you did all that and what you've ended up with

So, you've now got a 40 or so minute movie clip with the Listening Party replay tweets popping up and synced with the album's music?

I don't get why you had to rename pics

I've now got a movie that's about 64 minutes long (the total run time of the 'feed'). I played the LP at the same time as the feed was going on, pausing at the end of the LP until Steve said to start playing again for Blue Monday. Seen as if he mentioned The Beach in his last tweet, I figure he played that himself too, so I did as well. And, funnily enough, his tweet about it reminding him of Crimewatch comes through right at the end of that track. So, yep, I have the music synced up on my recording.

As regards having to rename pictures, I clicked on each image (via the links on Twitter) and downloaded the full size images. Unfortunately, they were all in the format 'k6vx3pqr7823.jpg' or similar (i.e. no use or ornament when storing these on a hard-drive). So, I renamed them 'Stephen Morris 1', 'Kevin Cummins 1', so if I ever bother to watch the thing again (unlikely!), I can at least find a larger copy of the image relatively easily without opening each one.

I should point out that, when I did my first attempt with Safari, the images didn't display at all. I didn't realise that, with another browser (Chrome), it actually showed a proper image of the tweet including any photo posted. With Safari, it only showed the plain text and a link to a picture. So, at that point, I really needed to download the images to make any sense of it. If I'd used Chrome in the first place, I probably wouldn't have bothered saving the images. Still, no point in deleting them now, and they're nice to have.

Here's the difference between how the two browsers displayed the feed:

Chrome:



Safari:



Quite a difference, eh? I've learned my lesson and will use Chrome or Firefox for this type of browsing in future. Probably the latter as I loath using Google for anything these days (migrated months ago to DuckDuckGo for a search engine).



So, that's the answer to your questions as to what I did and what the end result was.

Now, the obvious question you should've asked was 'But why?!'
And the answer would be 'sheer boredom and a complete lack of having anything worthwhile to do in its place'.

Christ, I miss the pub.

Hmm, not sure either.

I wondered at first whether they were watching it at Britannia Row, in between recording sessions and marathon watches of '2001' and 'Caligula' (*).
But, it appears that Crimewatch didn't start airing until 1984, so can't be that.
So it's got to be some element of the theme music to that programme that reminds him of The Beach. Drums maybe?

(*) I may have said this before, but I watched the uncut Caligula for the first time about a year ago (well, bits of it at least).
Bloody Hell! It really is hardcore porn. I just assumed it had softcore elements. Bit of nudity, slight bit of humping etc.

But, no. It's full on hardcore porn. In graphic close up detail.
Crazy stuff for 1979!

No wonder the lads were keen to watch it. Poor old Gillian. Can't have been fun for her, being made to watch that film on repeat in the studio.

Edited by user 26 April 2020 13:10:53(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Yep. That's the one.
It's a fairly barbaric film in places. Coupled with the highly pornographic sectionss, you can certainly see why it was banned or edited in certain countries.
With this film and the obvious reference to 'A Clockwork Orange' in PC&L, it's fair to say the band must've been pretty keen on Malcolm McDowell (and why not? He's a fine actor).



Yep. I enjoyed it. There's some really interesting insights into how the band worked.
It's also pretty cool that the author left publishing these diaries until 30+ years later. Makes them seem like this great 'lost' glimpse into a band in their prime.

I only really had two issues with the book:

1) The first one is not really the author's fault. Mr Butterworth was only invited into the studio during the recording sessions. This means that, although he was able to chronicle what happened during these sessions, he was not present when a lot of the material was written. I know there's no way of remedying this; a lot of the songs were presumably written during either rehearsals (when he wouldn't've been present) or during the gigs themselves. I really wanted to read about the ideas that the band had when creating these masterpieces.

2) The author was running an 'underground' book store at the same time, publishing material that was considered seditious by the authorities (Manchester Chief Constable, James Anderton, specifically). Mr Butterworth often refers to events happening to his company in parallel to the Britannia Row recordings, even at one point having to leave the sessions to deal with business elsewhere. I understand his reasons for including information on this within the book, i.e. to help frame what was happening to him at the time and possibly to help 'fill out' the book. It's also of interest, as happenings in Manchester were probably pretty relevant to both the band and record label. However, I wasn't that interested in this element of the book. I wanted to read about Barney, Hooky and the Other Two creating magic in a studio.

Still, these quibbles aside, I enjoyed the book. Well worth checking out for those interested in this period of the band's history (any why wouldn't you be? :-) )

Hooky said in his latest Instagram chat that he'll be doing a #timstwitterlisteningparty for Unknown Pleasures in about 3 weeks.