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caddymanIt's odd.
We have a small turntable that we never use. The idea was that we would transfer some of our hard to find or deleted vinyl to Hard Disk as MP3 or some similar digital format. Most of my LPs have long since gone west, but a rump of about 30 remained, plus a half dozen or so of Furtle's and her Queen singles.
We have never used the turntable after an initial try out back in the Athenaeum Club, where it transpired that any of our sample transfers were barely audible. We have not looked at the vinyl collection in two years (the box was still sealed from the last move) and possibly three.
Nonetheless, and allowing for the fact that almost all of the albums or individual tracks have long since been reacquired in digital format, either CD or download, the decision to ditch them (most of them) has been very difficult, even for the pragmatic Furtle. I can remember where and when I bought most of those albums in a way that I cannot with CD or download. When I was a kid and a teenager, music was something you saved up for and then went purposely to the shop to buy. A couple of my albums were bought mail order in October of 1973, because nowhere locally had copies. Mail order wasn't what it is today; it was a whole lot harder. For years I kept the thick cardboard sleeves they came in, for carrying records to and from friends' houses and over that time, rather like school exercise books they gradually became completely redecorated with graffiti, which was overwritten as it faded. I remember buying Barclay James Harvest's album "...and other short stories" from a tiny record shop of the sort that has long since been consigned to history, when I was on holiday on the Isle of Sheppey in August 1977, in the summer after I'd left school but before I went to college.
Weeding out the record collection is harder than weeding out most things. Memories accrue to music and particularly to vinyl records in a way that it doesn't with CDs or MP3s. It feels in some ways like I have quietly deleted a link to my youth. One of the last parts of my teenage years is going to the charity shop.
Getting rid of records is hard.
Even Furtle has found it hard, and I note that in addition to a couple of albums I just couldn't part with, most of her Queen singles somehow survived the cull... ;-D
We have a small turntable that we never use. The idea was that we would transfer some of our hard to find or deleted vinyl to Hard Disk as MP3 or some similar digital format. Most of my LPs have long since gone west, but a rump of about 30 remained, plus a half dozen or so of Furtle's and her Queen singles.
We have never used the turntable after an initial try out back in the Athenaeum Club, where it transpired that any of our sample transfers were barely audible. We have not looked at the vinyl collection in two years (the box was still sealed from the last move) and possibly three.
Nonetheless, and allowing for the fact that almost all of the albums or individual tracks have long since been reacquired in digital format, either CD or download, the decision to ditch them (most of them) has been very difficult, even for the pragmatic Furtle. I can remember where and when I bought most of those albums in a way that I cannot with CD or download. When I was a kid and a teenager, music was something you saved up for and then went purposely to the shop to buy. A couple of my albums were bought mail order in October of 1973, because nowhere locally had copies. Mail order wasn't what it is today; it was a whole lot harder. For years I kept the thick cardboard sleeves they came in, for carrying records to and from friends' houses and over that time, rather like school exercise books they gradually became completely redecorated with graffiti, which was overwritten as it faded. I remember buying Barclay James Harvest's album "...and other short stories" from a tiny record shop of the sort that has long since been consigned to history, when I was on holiday on the Isle of Sheppey in August 1977, in the summer after I'd left school but before I went to college.
Weeding out the record collection is harder than weeding out most things. Memories accrue to music and particularly to vinyl records in a way that it doesn't with CDs or MP3s. It feels in some ways like I have quietly deleted a link to my youth. One of the last parts of my teenage years is going to the charity shop.
Getting rid of records is hard.
Even Furtle has found it hard, and I note that in addition to a couple of albums I just couldn't part with, most of her Queen singles somehow survived the cull... ;-D
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-06 12:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-06 05:00 pm (UTC)One lovely example recently: Jont's new album comes with a visiting book; give it to your friends, they listen to it, fill in their response, and pass it on. When through 10 people, the last sends it to you, and then if you want, the results get uploaded!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-06 05:05 pm (UTC)There are some things that you should never get rid of. We do have one of those turntables that connects to the computer so we could, in theory, put them all onto CD but that's not the point is it. The point is that they are memory joggers and one day they might be needed to help in the battle against dementia - There ya go, I am keeping mine for medicinal purposes.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-06 10:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-07 08:46 am (UTC)