My first encounter with the music of Mike Oldfield was around 1984 when I was twelve years old. I can’t remember the exact moment but I have a few memories that I will share with you.
QE2
When I was in 6th grade I was at camp. One night before we went to sleep in the dormitory one of the staff members put some music on. The music he played was from QE2 and I remember enjoying very much. It felt like a whole new world was discovered and looking back at it now it certainly was. I have been back to this place several times after that and I always remember that particular night. Perhaps it is because of this experience I rank QE2 as one of my all time favourite Oldfield albums.
EXPOSED
Around 1984 I was at a friend’s house and he borrowed some LPs from his older brother and we listened to them in his room. One record in particular caught my interest and when I asked him what it was he answered
- It’s Exposed…
For several weeks after that I looked in record stores all over the place trying to find an album by a group called Exposed. Not a single one had it or had ever heard of a group by that name. When I finally met my friend again I asked him again and this time I found out that the artist was Mike Oldfield and that the album was called Exposed. At this time we also listened a lot to, in my opinion excellent compilation, The Complete. 
Every two months my friends and I ordered records from a mail order company and split the postage. I saved up money and tried to get records by Mike Oldfield whenever they were listed in the catalogue. This is how I got a lot of my 7″ singles.
VINYL vs CD
After I while I had almost all of Mike Oldfield’s official LPs and a bunch of singles. That collection was far more complete than what I own at the moment. When the CD started to take over I was very quick in updating my stereo and sold almost all of my vinyl to friends at school. I managed to turn the vinyl into some cash and started to buy CDs with music that I just had to have and Mike Oldfield was certainly one of them. So in time I had all official Oldfield albums up until Tubular Bells II.
HDCD
Many years passed and suddenly in 2000 Virgin decided to re-release and re-package the Mike Oldfield back catalogue. My thought was that if I can get fresh new editions of the music that I love I will get it. So I sold almost all of my older edition CDs and started to buy the remastered HDCD’s. I could not sell all of the CDs because some of them where a little to worn out and the used record stores would not accept them. At this time I was studying so I could not afford to get all the titles that I wanted, so I decided to get them once in a while as they turned up in the used record stores or on sale. Still to this very day I have do not have all the titles that I used to. But every time I do find one it is a great moment and I listen to it and it awakens many great memories and I enjoy the music very much. I recently found out that there are some mistakes and errors to the HDCD’s that you would not expect coming from a major record company as Virgin. It is somewhat disappointing that the HDCD project was not handled with more respect, especially in this era of reissues and remastered series coming from almost every artist out there. I still enjoy the HDCD’s though and am still dreaming of a remastered series from Mike Oldfield with the same quality as the new Yes reissues from Rhino with great sound quality, bonus tracks and interesting and expanded liner notes.
For more information on the HDCD’s visit Amadian’s excellent HDCD remasters page.
TUBULAR.NET
Some weeks ago I surfed the internet and visited some Mike Oldfield sited and got more and more interested in learning more about his music, different releases and the possibility of hearing more of his music from the 70s and 80s. I frequently visited Amadian’s great website and got inspired to do my own CDs of “private recordings”. I transferred my old VHS tape of The Essential Mike Oldfield to CD and it felt good to have yet another title in the “Oldfield collection”. At amadian.net I also learned about different mixes and rare recordings etc. and this got me thirsting for more.
Then I stumbled upon Tubular.net and from there on to the Mike Oldfield Forums. I read some of the posts and decided to register and started a few topics. The response and the information I got from other Oldfield fans out there from all over the world was great. This is pretty much where I am right now.
UNIVERSAL/MERCURY
In 2005 Mike´s entire Virgin back catalogue was transferred to Universal/Mercury and started in 2009 to reissue the older albums with the classic Tubular Bells from 1973. If that release will set any kind of standard of what we will be seeing in the future we are all in for a big treat. The idea is to dig deep into the archives and, with the help of Mike himself, release some very special things.
In the summer of 2009 I decided to part with my enormous CD collection and started to auction it of on eBay. The albums by Mike Oldfield sold well and now my Oldfield collection is the smallest it has ever been. I went through a period of not listening much to his music at all but as before it goes in waves. So once again I am in a period of my life where I am listening a lot to his music and of course enjoying it immensely. During the fall I have also bought some new equipment that will enable me to listen to vinyl again and it has been quite a while.
WEBSITE/BLOG
A few years ago I started working on a website dedicated to my very un-impressive Mike Oldfield collection and related things. During that time I became a father and was very busy with my family and work. So that project never really got of the ground. I did thankfully save my work and documents and have just recently been going through some of it.
Two years ago I started robtch.wordpress.com, a personal blog which I have been using as a place to share my thoughts and reflections on music, movies, TV and all kinds of other things I read, hear, see or feel. It is a lot of fun and the WordPress platform is an excellent tool to use. Two weeks ago I decided to register another blog on wordpress.com called Oldfieldish and that is pretty much where we are today. I will use this blog pretty much the same way as my intentions were when I started to work on my website a few years ago. So to quote myself and what I wrote as an introduction to that site:
“I can’t really think of a good reason for why I have this site… my Mike Oldfield collection is pretty pathetic… I don’t have the latest news… I just like his music and I like making websites, so there you have it!
COVER ART
A couple of years ago I started to make my own custom cover art for various live recordings I got from the internet. In many cases the included cover art was just hideous and nothing I ever wanted to print out. So I slowly started to make some covers of my own and later grew confident enough to make them available on my old cover art site.
I started making some Mike Oldfield cover art and posted some previous of them on tubular.net and got some really nice comments and feedback. I will include them here on this site and you are welcome to follow them as they develop. Any input or suggestions are welcome as I am in no way an expert on Mike Oldfield and all the different mixes, versions and all those things. I do however love the music and this is my little way of giving back to the community of Oldfield fans that are out there.
A word of warning though… it might take a while and I might start working on other covers at the same time as I am an expert in starting things and not finishing them.
This site is my little personal space online where you can get to know me and my very tiny Mike Oldfield collection, it is pathetic if compared to other´s that I have seen on the internet. I don´t even have all the official albums for god´s sake…
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please feel free to leave me a comment here on the blog.
I hope you will enjoy my blog and make yourself at home!
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