Illektro Lab Entertaiment

Archive for the ‘albums’ Category

James van Praagh was born and raised in Bayside City in New York. He is the youngest in the family of four children. He considered himself to be average kid, and remembers to have had an intense fascination with the topic of death. He was actually raised a Catholic and even served as their Church’s altar boy. By the age of 14, he entered the seminary. It was when he was inside the seminary that his interest in the Catholic faith waned; basically his sense of spirituality started to flourish within him. Unfortunately, there were no institutions that will help prepare Van Praagh for such a rare vocation. However, he was very much interested in pursuing his gift of being able to communicate with the dead. Such a feeling and belief was basically affirmed when he found himself in an astonishing situation when he was eight years old. Young James was praying that God would appear to him, when he saw a hand that appeared through his room while radiating beams of bright lights. Incredibly, according to him, it was a peaceful and exciting encounter.

After James van Praagh graduated from high school, he then continued pursuing his college studies. Later on, he graduated with a Broadcasting and communications degree from the prestigious San Francisco State University. Anyone can say that he did end up working in the field of Communications, only on a unique capacity. After his graduation, James transferred to Los Angeles, California where he worked in the field of metaphysical and psychic phenomena. At the age of 24, he realized that the promise of the hand that appeared to him was fulfilled. Early in his life, he also attended San Francisco State for him to have a greater chance of becoming a comedy writer. He worked truly hard to become a successful psychic medium on TV. Despite all the successes that he gained, James was not truly happy; this is because of his ill mother. Actually, his mom was the one who prodded him to continue finding his luck on Television.

James van Praagh is considered to be most-loved spiritual medium in the United States today. He is a remarkable producer, author, and teacher. He is very famous for his special talent, which is the ability to connect the living with the departed ones. He considers himself to be an adept bridge between the living world and the deceased world. He acts as a conveyor of messages between these two separate and distinct planes. James tirelessly works together with his guides to bring about transformational psychic healing. He communicates information on a particular deceased’s state of being as well as health. Van Praagh likewise has appeared in a number of radio and Television shows, like Larry King Live, Oprah, Good Morning America, the Insider, Today, 48 Hours, Unsolved Mysteries, John Edward, and many others.

If you asked five different ladies what their most prized possessions were, I believe that memories contained in their volumes of photo albums would be at the top of the list. Today with the Internet and computers, there are an abundance of on line and digital photo albums. Sometimes a traditional photo album is not the easiest thing to find.

The photo album has seen as many changes as the pictures it contain. The first ones were typically bound books with thick pages. The photos were mounted with glue or little adhesive corners to the pages. Fading and discoloration to the photos was due to air exposure, acid in ink, and the presence of lignin in the paper.

Other albums are made with thick white cardboard like pages. Thin lines of adhesive line the pages. Then cellophane or plastic cover the photos. This is an improvement, but still the presence of acid can damage the photos. The glue strips make removing them or reorganizing them a hard task. Also the photos can bend and tear when dislodged from their original places.

Today there are several companies that offer photo sleeves. Made from a poly substance that looks like clear plastic, the sheets each hold several photos. Sometimes referred to as archival photo holders, the photos easily slip in and out. If choosing a photo holder, be sure to read the product information and choose one that is acid free. Though a little more expensive, the photos will be safer over the years. Pioneer Photo Albums is one company that offers the photo safe books and storage boxes.

Some people like to take their albums a step further and make scrapbooks. The photo sleeves are a great way to lay out the photos and rearrange them. Then the ideas can be turned into the scrapbooks. When scrap booking, attention should be paid to the acid content. Even some ink contains acid. When marking on photos a permanent black marker may be the best thing to write on them with. Craft stores also carry pens to test the pH level. With one of these pens you can check the pH level of not just the paper, but anything else you plan to use in the book. Little stickers, lettering, material scraps, and cards all should be checked before trusting your photos next to them.

Photo albums are a great way to protect your pictures and also put them on display. My kids enjoy pulling the books off of the shelves and looking at places we used to live, birthday parties, and baby pictures. Though a little more effort is required, paying attention to the acid and lining content will help preserve them for years to come.

These are the four Beatles albums you need if you are into psychedelic music. I will not put them in order (other than alphabetical) because you really need all four of them and I don’t want you thinking you can get away with leaving any of them off your list.

Magical Mystery Tour (1967)

This is probably The Beatles most purposefully trippy album. Almost every song on the album is bursting with mind melting madness of some type or another whether it be experimental production, unusual song arrangements, and/or unusual songwriting. “I Am The Walrus” & “Strawberry Fields Forever” are arguably John Lennon at his most “mad.” These are the songs where he went full out with the “kitchen sink” production, the bizarre lyrics, the unexpected song arrangements. It’s all there. “Flying,” “Blue Jay Way,” and the title track “Magical Mystery Tour,” these are songs designed to melt minds and they do just that.

Revolver (1966)

What brililant songs. And what an amazing variety in music in such a compact album. There’s more variety in this 35 minute album than in most band’s whole careers. And it’s all done so incredibly well. And then there’s “Tomorrow Never Knows” which could very well be the most far out song The Beatles ever recorded.

Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

This is a trip. Sure the “concept” isn’t really all that tight, but I think that’s why it works so well. It’s like you are in a carnival going around hearing these different incarnations of the same band. Again a wild selection of different styles of music but unlike Revolver, each of the songs somehow sounds connected to each other as well. It’s an amazing trick to make “Within You Without You” & “When I’m 64″ make sense together on the same album.

This is an album that has become so legendary that sometimes I think people don’t properly appreciate how great it is. It is not overrated. It really is that good. If you think otherwise, you may have not got out of that stage where you want to be different just for it’s own sake.

The White Album(1968)

I talk a lot about variety in this article because that’s one of the things that I love most about The Beatles music and it’s one of the things that I think makes listening to their albums so trippy. Well this is the peak of that variety. There’s 30 tracks here and a vast majority of them are completely different than the other 29 songs on the album. In many ways this is the ultimate Beatles trip and I think it’s their best album ever (psychedelic or not.)

And then there’s “Revolution #9.” It’s hard to get much more psychedelic than that. If you really listen to this track closely on headphones you are likely to get yourself quite a scare and I think that makes the song quite a successful piece of sound art.