Estonian Beatles Club

This being the week when all the remastered Beatles albums have been reissued I thought I should jump on the bandwagon while I had the chance.

As it happens this was also the week when I acquired the complex piece of technology (otherwise known as a cable) that enables me to convert cassettes into mp3 format.

So the obvious thing to do was to dig out "Eile Veel: Estonian Beatles Club Volume 2". This is a cassette I picked up while visiting Tallinn in the early 1990s and, as the name suggests, features Beatles covers by Estonian artists (well mostly Beatles covers - for some reason it also includes a version of Paul's "No More Lonely Nights" which is almost as dull as the original). The cassette was issued in 1991 and features tracks recorded between 1966 and 1985. The two I have selected are both from 1985 - clearly a vintage year.

Please excuse the quality. My remastering skills don't match those of the people behind the big event, and I have had to turn the input and output volumes right down to remove most of the distortion, so you may need to adjust your controls.

When you do you will hear Hubriid's version of "Roccy Roccoon" (as it is spelt on the cassette), and Silvi Vrait & Levimo with the decidedly groovy "Narr Mae Otsas" - better known as "Fool On The Hill".

Silvi is evidently a bit of a star in Estonia and went on to represent them in Eurovision in 1994. Here she is in action (you will want to skip the first minute or so unless you are interested in seeing Irish craftspeople at work with accompanying commentary in Dutch):