A: The name refers to the fact that MO sings like a caveman. The Piltdown Man was an anthropological hoax. The exact perpetrator of the hoax has never been revealed, although I read an interesting article on it a few months ago that listed a number of suspects. In any case, it's pretty apparent that, as with most hoaxes, it was specifically designed to embarrass one person (and his followers, presumably). As I recall, the hoax consisted of placing the jawbone of some neanderthal variant into the skull of a gorilla, or the other way around. In any case, the anthropologist who "discovered" it (keeping in mind that, of course, he was meant to discover it) trumpeted it to be evidence of the missing link between apes and humans and so on. To the best of my memory, it took several years before the hoax was discovered, and it certainly destroyed some credibility within the field.
Credit: Derek Kidd, Telekidd@aol.com
A: Exhaustive enquiries shows us it is Vanessa, sister of Richard Branson. Recorded at the Manor in early 1973. Tom Newman produced it and he should know. BTW it sounds nothing like Bridget St.John. (The Swollowed Up By A Big Fat Snake liner notes are wrong.)
Credit: David Porter, dporter2@compuserve.com
A: Yes. There's a very expensive private CD, called "The Space Movie", which holds these two complete parts.
It's a strange thing - the whole private 2CD is made of a copy of the Space Movie Testpressing, which should be released in 79 (right?), but was canceled. Strange is, that The real testpressing only contains part 2, part 1 is overdubbed by a speech of J.F.Kennedy and faded out after 3 minutes. On the private CD there are two complete Orchestral Hergest Ridge tracks. I think the man replaced OHR from the testpressing by another version, where all parts were available.
Part 2 of it is on the bootleg "Swollowed up by a big fat snake" (yes, I know that should be spelled with an a...).
Credit: Marcus Junglas, junglas@student.uni-kl.de.
A: If you have TB and O on either CD or LP, you have the original mix, while HR on LP sometimes is the original mix, sometimes the Boxed-remix. HR on CD is always the Boxed-remix.
If you have Boxed on LP, you have all the Boxed-remix (either quad or stereo), but if you have Boxed on CD, TB part 1 might still be the original mix. (If the number 1355 is part of the matrix number, like in SONOPRESS F-1355 CDBOX1-1 you have the Boxed mix. It seems to be an error, that you can tell the difference by looking at the matrix number and whether it ends with 1A or 1B.) Besides this, special editions exists with other mix (quad discs, picture discs). For further details: please see http://www.swcp.com/lazlo-bin/discogs?oldfield.
Credit: Morten Due Joergensen, mdj@login.dknet.dk, Jose Luis Gonzalez, JLuis@ThePentagon.com and the Spanish MO mailing list, Rainer Muenz, rainer.muenz@urz.uni-heidelberg.de, Alois Nusko
A: The easiest is to identify the different musicians by what instrument they are playing. If several musicians play the same instrument, they can be indentified by the colour of their outfit.
Mike Oldfield (guitars, green outfit, black t-shirt)
Nico Ramsden (guitar, white outfit)
Maggie Reilly (vocals, green outfit)
Wendy Roberts (vocals, red outfit)
Benoit Moerlen (drums/percussion, purple outfit with silly "hat")
Mike Frye (drums, yellow outfit)
Pierre Moerlen (drums, yellow trousers and striped t-shirt)
Tim Cross (keyboards, beige outfit)
Pete Lemer (keyboards, black outfit and hat)
Hansford Rowe (bass)
Bimbo Acock (flute/sax)
Credit: Svend Aage Petersen, obi@get2net.dk
A: Polka is a joining of two traditional Irish polkas (further details are welcome).
Credit: Terry D. Robinson, tfrobinson@mcmail.com
A: It does sound like Terry Jones but in actual fact it is John Gorman of Scaffold fame. The connection is that Mike appeared on Tiswas (probably the best ever Saturday kids show) the day before the concert and John Gorman was a regular on that show. This was on the 5th May 1979 and the Birmingham concert was on the 6th.
Credit: David Porter, dporter2@compuserve.com
A: Right. The film is called "Young and Innocent", and is by Hitchcock. (I think) the scene involves someone playing the drums after they have been drugged by someone else. Halfway through the piece they are playing this person stumbles and knocks over a drum or two in an unscheduled fashion. After they have finished playing the conductor walks up to him and utters the immortal line "Don't come in again like that, it isn't funny and I pay someone else to make the orchestration."
Credit: Jon Dunn, jondunn@speakeasy.org, Michael Lewis, mil@sophos.com (won't work from November 1998).
A: Listen for a guitar. About 48 minutes into the piece you can hear it spelling "Fuck off, RB", a farewell to Richard Branson of Virgin on one of the last releases from this record company.
B: _... C: _._. F: .._. K: _._ O: ___ R: ._. U:.._
There turned out to be a prize of 1000 pounds for hearing this morse code. And it went to a Roy Rashbrook from Swindon (who probably hasn't collected it). Seems this contest was used to promote the album.
Lesser known morse codes: SOS at 15:09 and 23:18.
Or is it? It was reported there was "STAU STAU" or "STETU STETU" badly transmited in pure CW (continuous Wave -> only one pitch) over a mandolin or some other similar instrument:
STAU: ... _._ .._ or STETU: ... - . - ..-
Perhaps this is the "SOS". Anyway the international signal SOS must be transmitted as only one letter: ...---... and not as ... --- ...
Also another surprising thing is that the known "fuck off RB" is "transmited" the way we learn morse: We don't think in dots and dashes. We think in "dih" and "daaah". so "..-." sounds like:
ti ti taaa ti...
Credit: Maurice G. Lafleur, mlafleur@ommadawn.cegep-heritage.qc.ca, Morten Due Joergensen, mdj@login.dknet.dk, Matthew J. Sorell, msorell@ctin.adelaide.edu.au, Peter Evans, amarok@cableinet.co.uk, David Porter, dporter2@compuserve.com, Pedro, qwerty@arrakis.es
A: In fact, it's Janet Brown, a famous English comic that imitates Margaret Thatcher.
Credit: Matthieu Dhennin, dhennin@hol.fr
Credit, in alphabetical order (feels a bit ridiculous): Chris Dewey, cdewey@dsmag.win-uk.net, Kenneth Doolin, oldfield@maths.tcd.ie, Paul Edwards, p.edwards@its.unimelb.edu.au, Rory Ewins,rory_ewins@hotmail.com, Derek Kidd, Telekidd@aol.com, Lazlo Nibble, lazlo@swcp.com, Pedro, solo@esoterica.pt, Gareth Randall, gwr@easynet.co.uk, Matthew J. Sorell, msorell@ctin.adelaide.edu.au, Troy, who used to be at Taliesin77@aol.com, Patrick Wigfull, pwigfull@toucansolutions.com.
A: This is a typical Jimi Hendrix trick. A lot of people refer staring amazed at his hand as the pick suddnely appears. This is not easy to do, but you can roll up the pick in your "i" finger while using "p, m & a" to play fingerstyle, then just flip the pick using your your thumb and indicator and tada! there you have a pick to play with. However, Mike appears to use the palm of his hand to hold the pick instead of the "i" finger. "Palming" is a basic technique that magicians use to conceal objects (like coins) in their hands, it uses the skin on your palm, near the thumb to hold small object. It's not easy, although most magic books will tell you it is :). So, by pressing your thumb to the side of your hand you can hold objects in your palm. Try it.
Credit: Pedro, solo@esoterica.pt, Rory Ewins,rory_ewins@hotmail.com
A: Let's start with the credits in the TSODE booklet, and add to that.
Some of the Vocalists: The Tallis Scholars. These are responsible for the Gregorian chant. The man himself: recorded specifically for this album, the group, that specialises in Gregorian singing.
Extracts from:
Bill Anders quoting from The Book Of Genesis aboard Apollo 8, whilst orbiting the Moon, Christmas 1968, with fellow astronauts James Lovell and Frank Borman.
Saami chant - (Ofelas-theme) composed and performed by Nils-Aslak Valkeapaa (the last 2 a's should have double dots over them), for Ofelas (Pathfinder) Film. This song is in the genre Sami Joik (pronounced and maybe spelled Yoik). The man himself: The "Prayer For The Earth" is a recording of a song they sing in Lapland.
Vahine Taihara - Tubuai Choir. "A New Beginning" is the Tubuai choir (from an island in French Polynesia). The singer would be a woman, possibly younger, possibly older.
Credit: Svend Aage Petersen, obi@get2net.dk, Rory Ewins,rory_ewins@hotmail.com, Harald Hougaard, harald.hougaard@ub.uio.no, Erkki Ruohtula, ruohtul@ibm.net, the man himself in different interviews.