Category: Music

Possibly the single best piece on the impact — and necessity of — file sharing I’ve read is Salon’s Embrace file-sharing, or die (long). So many good points… “Why is it that record companies pay dearly for radio play and fight Internet play?” and Tim O’Reilly’s : “Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.” Worth the read.

I think 2003 is going to be the year the music industry either figures out how to give customers what they want (not to be spoon-fed, not to be gouged, not to be told they can’t play the music they’ve purchased through multiple vehicles…) or implodes under the weight of its own fear and stupidity.

The beeb is running a piece on the virtually unknown pioneer of electronic music and soundscapes Daphne Oram, who hooked up with BBC radio in the early 1940s and immediately began finding creative ways to hook up tape decks and other equipment to create sounds no one had ever heard before. Her job eventually brought her into contact with modernist / experimental composers Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage. Later, Oram pushed the envelope of the audio-visual bridge with “Oramics” :

Daphne continued composing and developed a system to convert pictures into sounds. It involved drawing on 10 strips of 35mm film, which were then read by photo-electric cells and converted into sound, and became known as Oramics.

Discussions of early electronic pioneers usually center around people like Robert Moog, Raymond Scott, Clara Rockmore, and the like. Interesting to see how far back this stuff goes.

A milestone in the family record collection — got the Anthology of American Folk Music (aka the Harry Smith collection) for Miles, Amy and myself. Originally released in 1952, this was a six-LP (now CD) set that included some of the most raw, authentic, real-deal American roots music recorded between 1925 and 1932. Not field recordings. Not stuff “approved” by academics as being representative for classroom purposes. This is the stuff that real people were buying and listening to and growing up on between the wars, when gramophones had found their way into most homes, and after recording technology had become good enough to preserve sessions accurately.

The original set included a book of boiled-down “essences” of the artists and their songs compiled by Harry Smith, like this one for Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Rabbit Foot Blues.” So out-there.

(Click)

A second book is also included, which contains essays by Greil Marcus, John Fahey, Peter Stampfel, and so on. This set is like the Bible to many folkies, and was played over and over in clubs and cafes in the 50s and 60s. Been listening and reading all day and it’s affecting me in unexpected ways. The collective consciousness in this period was far from innocent – musicians were way out there, and lyrics were unexpectedly surreal.

Great Folkways site about the recordings here.

Every year I forget how much effort goes into the holiday CDs – building the perfect playlist, burning a pile of non-coasters*, making the playlist fit onto a printable square, selecting cover images from old National Geographics, gluing playlists to backs of pictures, labeling discs, finding envelopes, writing notes, going to the post office… and I love it all. Great way to spend a rainy weekend.

* Never made coasters on the Mac before, but for some reason having a lot of trouble lately – I always liked Sony blanks best, but they’re crapping out now, one after t’other. Switched to Memorex and turned down the burn speed, seems fine. What the heck has changed between last year and this?

It is surprisingly difficult to get rid of old classical LPs. When I inherited the capiz shell stereo console, a couple hundred of grandpa’s old classical records came along for the ride. Most of them are very good, but neither Amy nor I are huge classical fans, and we have no place to store them (I’ve already consolidated my LPs to just what will fit in the console).

So I selected out a few keepers and took the rest to Amoeba and Rasputin’s. Each store wanted about 2% of the collection, and offered nickels and dimes. As in, $1 for a big stack of great old records. The problem is:

• This stuff was being pressed for decades – there are zillions of LPs out there.
• So few are in good condition today.
• Most people have replaced their vinyl collections with CDs.
• Classical music appreciation is at an all-time low.

Put these factors together and there are way, way, way too many classical LPs on the used market. My problem was not that I wanted money for the records – I couldn’t care less. What I wanted was to find a good home for them – I didn’t want them to end up at the dump, or unappreciated. It was the music collection of my grandfather’s life, the LPs I remember him listening to in the 60s and 70s. Amoeba said they would be willing to take them to the dump for me if I agreed to take less money for them. Rasputin’s agreed to take them all for free and put them in their discount bin. I just wanted someone to listen to them again, so left them on a counter and walked out.

It’s over. LPs are over, classical is over, grandpa is 15 years dead. Moving on.