Play It Again

Play It Again is a documentary television series on BBC One, featuring celebrities trying to learn to play musical instruments. The series is produced Diverse Production and started on 25 March 2007 and is narrated by Tamsin Greig.

Episodes

1: Jo Brand, playing the organ.

Jo progresses in a series of steps starting with playing a piece for a church service, then she plays the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ the magnificent Blackpool Tower Ballroom, guided by resident organist, Phil Kelsall ("From Russia with Love") where she does not perform well, She also accompanies the "Ave Maria" for a wedding service before her ultimate challenge, which was to play Bach's "Toccata" in D minor in front of 8,000 people at the Royal Albert Hall. After a faltering start she managed to finish the piece with no further mistakes. Jo was given a tutor for regular lessons and also met up with Jools Holland for some tips on the Hammond organ. She began by thinking that she could practise in between all of her other commitments, but soon found that she had to devote much more time to rehearsing than she had expected.

PIAS Recordings

PIAS Recordings was founded in 1983 in Belgium as Play It Again Sam by Kenny Gates and Michel Lambot.

Play It Again Sam expanded along with other European independent labels in the early 1980s. Play It Again Sam's early artists were Front 242, Meat Beat Manifesto and Young Gods. They added artists such as The Sound, Soulwax/ 2ManyDJ's, Sigur Rós and Mogwai.

The first release on the label in 1984 was the mini album Faces in the Fire by the cult experimental psychedelic band The Legendary Pink Dots. This was immediately followed by the 'Four Your Ears Only' EP, an aural map of Northern England, featuring Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Red Guitars, Party Day and Luddites. This laid the ground for releases from many other artists with very diverse musical backgrounds and geographical origins including the Butthole Surfers, Parade Ground, The Neon Judgement, The Sound, Skinny Puppy, Taxi Girl, Bill Pritchard and The Cassandra Complex.

In 1988 the label released the album Front By Front by Front 242 including the single "Headhunter" (with a video directed by Anton Corbijn).

SAM Records

SAM Records was a New York-based independentrecord company active between 1977–1983 and 1989–1991. The label was operated by Sam Weiss and Daniel Glass, who worked as a Vice President.

In the late 1970s, Columbia, as a CBS subsidiary, had a distribution deal with SAM for about 18 months. The most successful artists of SAM include John Davis and the Monster Orchestra, Glen Adams Affair, Gary's Gang and Komiko.

History

Founder's biography

SAM Records was founded in 1976 by Sam Weiss. He was born on September 19, 1926 in Romania and together with his brother Hy Weiss he became involved in record label business throughout the 1950s; the highlight of doo-wop and rhythm and blues music.

Somwehere around the year 1950, Weiss was accused of plagiarism over the parts of his song called "Sam's Song" he presumably copied from Elmer Albrecht's "Elmer's Tune".

In the 1990s, Weiss helped his son, Mike Weiss, to found Nervous Records. SAM Records catalog was later brought into Nervous Records.

Description

Cassandra (metaphor)

The Cassandra metaphor (variously labelled the Cassandra 'syndrome', 'complex', 'phenomenon', 'predicament', 'dilemma', or 'curse') occurs when valid warnings or concerns are dismissed or disbelieved.

The term originates in Greek mythology. Cassandra was a daughter of Priam, the King of Troy. Struck by her beauty, Apollo provided her with the gift of prophecy, but when Cassandra refused Apollo's romantic advances, he placed a curse ensuring that nobody would believe her warnings. Cassandra was left with the knowledge of future events, but could neither alter these events nor convince others of the validity of her predictions.

The metaphor has been applied in a variety of contexts such as psychology, environmentalism, politics, science, cinema, the corporate world, and in philosophy, and has been in circulation since at least 1949 when French philosopher Gaston Bachelard coined the term 'Cassandra Complex' to refer to a belief that things could be known in advance.

Usage

Cassandra Complex (disambiguation)

The Cassandra complex is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual's accurate prediction of a crisis is ignored or dismissed.

Cassandra Complex may also refer to: