Reading zen's journal

Still here on the web, looking for love and romance, and a little sanity in an otherwise crazed world.

what have i been busy with these days?
well, my music library. Everyone else is bored hearing about it, so I'll tell you so you too can get bored with it.
I've backed-up my and my sweetie's discs onto my hard drive--actually a number of drives. My library is quite large, literally expanding everyday. I can easily get 150 songs on the average day. a good day is 500 songs for me. I've gotten 5200+ in one shot; that being the complete Billboard collection from '46-05.

To be clear, I'm not using Limewire. I do not illegally download.
I simply get music that noone wants, adding it into the stew. It's amazing what I have got for free, or next to it. Sometimes bartering is involved. Sometimes it's a matter of backing-up a computer-less friend's 50 CDs or so. (There are those who are HARD on their discs, and need an external storage to counter-act their stupidity. [I like to provide this free service to my technologically-deprived friends.])
Not insignificantly, radio is a huge portion of my .wav captures. I digitize my tapes, LPs, 45s, 8-tracks, 78s, and any other electronic sound I can pass through my receiver I've caught. Even CB conversations were taped starting years ago.

I've actually saved alot of songs, good music, from obscurity (musical purgatory) through, well, surreptitious means. Our raids would yield promotional albums. These promos might well be listed in the category of things noone with good sense wants.
One story involves raids on the collection of promos accumulated by my friend's dad, Jimmy. Jimmy worked for record companies for a number of years. The UPS truck stopped by his house at least once a day. Most of the crap that he got was not worth saving, really; although a small slice of it was decent.

This massive store house of 45s, cassette tapes, lp records, cds, posters, teeshirts, ashtrays, paperweights, notepads--all bearing some band or subsidiary of the parent company: B.M.G. (formerly: A&M, Arista, RCA), has come to be know locally as the Jimmy Fund. Technically The Jimmy Music Fund.
All my promos, regardless of the origin, I still credit to the Jimmy Fund.

Did anyone say A&M Records? Yes, that was one of the companies. As I'm sure everyone knows, A&M was the brainstorm of Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss in 1962. The lable is most famous for introducing the album Frampton Comes Alive to the world. Subsequently, that album sold more than almost any other single album.
That album sold so many copies that Jimmy put an addition onto his house to hold his rapidly growing music, specifically LP collection. This room was dubbed "The Frampton Room." On the walls was hung, among all the spoils was his collection of Gold and Platinum disks he wa awarded with from the company.
We remember, musicals soundtracks can go gold and plat.

I'm not necessarily advocating for a company, especially not a record-business one. However, in there case i make an exception. They were a very progressive, and fair company. The artists and acts got complete creative control over the finished product, and a royalty rate that was second to none.
The company is a model for all businesses, but the record-business specifically.
They were generous with the employees, and field reps, like Jimmy.

Jimmy had so much promo crap, that he'd give out 45s and cassingles out at Halloween. We'd launch those into the pond at the end of the street every year.
They're all still there, as with all the hockey goals, pucks, broken sticks, no dumping signs, and bikes that were launched into the drink, when we were growing up.

These promos, and imports, cause nothing but problems.
First-off, no one is supposed to actually own them, even though they frequently get sold. They're stamped "company property, returnable upon demand..." or some such language.
Often, the cover is different from the actual one appearing in production.
The order of the tracks is frequently different, and there will be different versions not appearing on the production disk.
Frequently, the songs will not be recognized by Windows Media Player
...and before this gets into a technical issue of which player authenticates through which database, I'll tell you I've tried, and use, a number of players, out of necessity. Believe me, where it comes to these things, there is no "automatic". It's often entering the songs, info, and album art manually.
But that's OK. I love doing this stuff. Even though it's alot of work, I still love this job.
I've amassed a huge collection, for someone who's not a professional DJ. To maintain this thing correctly, it takes alot of work.
But at the end of the day, when I can introduce my friend The Kerbinator, a local dj to the A&M July/Aug. 95 Monthly Sampler, or the Atlantic 1998 Alt. Radio First Quarter Sampler promo I culled from The Fund.

What, one might well ask, was on said 1998 sampler?
Well, the best known of the bunch is probably Poe, with her well-known single: "Today".
Also offered by Atlantic Records that year: David Garza, Glitterbox, Victoria Williams (wasn't that the defunct Ms. America??), Athenaeum (a word you don't want to type baked), Mighty Joe Plum, and of course Kacy Crowley.
Beuhler?? Beuhler?? Anyone, Beuller??
This would have found its way to the bottom of Circle Street Pond Oct 31., I assure you.

I look through dreck like this, or the A&M offering above mentioned, and think to myself, that's alot of crap. Is it worth the effort I have to go through to enter each song info by hand?
Or what about the 5-song EP featuring the same some, 5 different mixes? To be sure, awesome for a DJ, but I don't listen to very many of the average alt. mixes. Madonna perhaps. Underworld, yes. Most though, remixes aren't worth it.
Eventually, I decided that all the 5-same-song EPs will go into my SHARE folder. Hell, they're such a pain in the ass to track, that I gladly share them with the world, the rare occasions I do f-swap online.
Personally, I think that all music should be available to everyone, despite the amount of money in his or her bank account. Why can't I have all the Metallica songs, you selfish, greedy prick?
Last week I moved a log blocking the middle of the road. Everyone could benefit from my work, but do I ask every single person to pay me for that? Society benefits by being non-selfish.
Besides, on principle alone, given the choice to give the artist money directly or through the means of the royalty system, I'd prefer to give it to the musician directly.

But that's a discussion for another time.
I'm talking about free music in this discussion.
Promos are usually given freely, unless they're part of a huge collection, which the caretaker stored they away like a squirrel his nuts. In that case a raid to liberate the crappy promos is usually in order. With the help of the Fund owner's son, it was really fun.

Jimmy has since departed his mortal coil, about 2 yrs ago now. He is eternal. His many boxes, and boxes, and boxes, and boxes of records, tapes and stuff has been split among 5 principles, myself included.
I have thousands of Fund cassettes, most are crap. I'm digitizing the few worth while ones, while they're till playable.
The LP records are the true jewels of The Fund. Many of them never-used, or unopened. All in the Inventory Control bags protecting them till the end of time. Thousands, upon thousands of these things; many to be digitized, many probably never will be, forever lost to time. Perhaps, that's not such a bad thing in the case of some of them...better off a slow painless death.

Once Fred Neitszche declared God is Dead, f*ck became the most important word in the English languag

This post was edited by zen on Aug 30, 2007.

This is a beautiful story. I bet that no samplers and promo tapes have ever been treated more lovingly than yours. Any plans to make your archive available to the public? (Probably not, thanks to copyright issues and stuff, but hey I can still ask!)

"God is dead." - Nietzsche, 1882 "Nietzsche is dead." - God, 1900