Sunday, January 29, 2006

I Want To Be A Fugitive From An I-Tunes Chain Gang


Holy crap.
I am just losing this battle completely. Ever since I announced to Portia a couple of weeks ago that I would share my jazz collection with her via the fascist I-tunes program , I have been sinking my elbows into the depths of my collection. Where the hell did all this stuff come from? Seriously, I went from 1300 I-pod songs last weekend to almost 2500 as of this writing. Oh, it ain't all jazz, believe me. I have got blues coming out the ying-yang. How? Damned if I know. "Little Smokey" Smothers stuck a CD in my hand somewhere along the line and it stuck to the collection ( and a good thing too). NRBQ is rubbing shoulders with T-Bone Walker and Jerry Lee Lewis has taken a bead on Charlotte Church. I've got Buddy Holly singing "Oh Boy" while I am typing this and there's only more to follow. Where to stop? I've loaded enough reggae, zydeco, and "world" music to completely smoke every Willie Nelson braid from here to Davos, and enough swing to cause a major zoot-suit riot at the Mall of America.

But how did it ever get to this? Where's the freakin' Stones and Charlie Christian? Where's Gil Scott Heron and Rassan Roland Kirk? Where's Rickie Lee Jones? Where's Eric Dolphy? Where's Ethel Waters? WHERE'S MY DAMNED RECORDS? You know, the black things with the hole in the middle and the scratches. Everything I've got now is on CD, but now that I've mined the collection I realize that I'm missing damned near everything.

I hope the kids find funding for college...soon.

14 comments:

portia said...

I've loaded enough reggae, zydeco, and "world" music to completely smoke every Willie Nelson braid from here to Davos:)

Holy download, you've topped my 2,200 i-pod songs. Send more!
Oh by the way, I think I have your Rahsaan... it's squeezed between Buddy Rich's Drum Battle and Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster. I'll send it to you, along with the others, if I can ever figure out how to circumvent the #$&@ i-tunes Nazis. There's got to be a better way than manually setting up separate folders to zip. Any i-tunes mavens out there?

Maybe I'll just zip the whole enchilada and let you sort through my library. Ha!

portia said...

Do you even have a turntable to play those missing LPs? I tossed mine 20 years ago or so, though I'll be damned if it was before or after I lost the LPs:)

I miss LPs for the cover art and the liner notes, and sometimes even the familiar scratches and skips. Think about how many great and creepy LP covers you can still recall, how many hours were spent reading them--and rereading them--or even the albums that were sold because of the cover (Sticky Fingers, The White Album).

Nowadays, looking at miniaturized "album" covers through jewel cases is forgettable, and trying to read the liner notes only reminds me of my approaching presbyopia. With i-tunes, I rarely even notice the artwork displayed. Pity.

I wonder how we'll be "collecting" music in 5 years? Micro-chip implants?

spd rdr said...

I have a brand new turntable...still in the box and never been opened. The problem is figuring out how to get the music from the records onto a CD (what records I have left, anyway). Better to just mortgage the house and go on a shopping spree for stuff on CDs, yes?

portia said...

Oh, that's way beyond my audio-tech skills but it must be doable. Actually, I think you'll save money if you skip buying CDs altogether, and go directly to the Music Store. At $.99 a song, it'll add up--trust me, I must have purchased a 1,000 songs in the last 2 years--however, how many songs from a $15 CD to do you you truly like? Even if it's 8 out 10 songs, you're ahead of the game, $$ wise.

Besides, I have discovered more off-beat and "new" artists by browsing the Music Store. The number of hours I've spent there is not far behind the dollars I've contributed to Mr. Jobs' pockets.

No I don't work for Apple, although you'd never guess that from this comment:)

spd rdr said...

I've only bought 68 songs off of the Music Store in a year and a half, but I could imagine driving myself into the poor house if I wasn't restrained.

Anonymous said...

spd-o:
You can get a device (I had one but lent it to someone who never returned it) for around ~$70 to convert analog to digital signals, that is, convert LP's to digital files that can be burned on a CD.
Just check out a full service computer store, or try going to "musicman.com" (?) and see if that works (for finding the gizmo). I'm still trying to get the bugger back from the person I lent it to!
I canna afford to convert all my old LP's that I still like to CD's. But my 'burned' CD's don't play on my car-CD player (?). What's up with that?
-"Don Brouhaha"

Anonymous said...

http://techworthy.com/PCUpgrade/April2004/Analog-Digital-Converters.htm?Page=7

forget that musicman.com. the page has changed.

Try that above address for a doohickey that is well supported, software-wise.
-"Don Brouhaha"

spd rdr said...

Thanks, Don. If I ever get this to work, I send an mp3 of "Fire" By The Crazy World of Arthur Brown .
You'll thank me for it...like... a lot later.

Anybody got any "Soul Survivors" tunes they want to share?

portia said...

If you ever figure out how to make the device work that Don recommends, you have to promise Oh Rosalinda will be one of your first attempts!

Great album cover! What was I saying earlier about reading and rereading albums for hours on end? Oh yes, now I remember, something sbout apprecition of music...and stuff:)

Anonymous said...

Hey, I remember Arthur Brown from my kidhood.

"Fire....
I bid you to burn!"

Or some such nonesense.

-"Digital Don Brouhaha"

Cassandra said...

But my 'burned' CD's don't play on my car-CD player (?). What's up with that?

In general if you're sharing CDs, use only audio CDs for burning and not data CDs - there is a difference and many car CD players can't read data CDs.

One way to tell the diff if someone hands you a disk is that audio discs will have files with a .cda file extension and data disks will have mp3 wav m4p wma or some other goofy kind of file extension. Another dead giveaway is folders: audio CDs don't have them.

When copying to CD, make sure if you have an "audio CD" option, it is checked: this converts mp3 files to a special format used on audio CDs (PCM).

Depending on what you used to burn the CDs, it is also possible you just have a file format mismatch. For instance, you have mp3s on your CD but your player doesn't read them.

That was better than a sleeping draught, wasn't it?

spd rdr said...

What she said.

portia said...

Operation "upload" was a success! Our combined libraries are an album or two short of 5,000 songs, including 16 versions of Autumn Leaves.

I'm in i-tunes heaven, my friend. A big thank you...even if you do have some crazy sh*t in your collection:)

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