Your opinion, please: 366-band, 411 track 1981 box set

Thanks, Poly. I'm not the man to cover '91--but it would be damned cool to see other years done up like this. I still probably will do 1979, but I doubt I'll have the energy for any more.

This is really impressive. I was born in 1981 and therefore I'm like.. huh! >>>> Where can I get this Box, I.M? - and how much does it cost?

Just thought I'd let everyone know, the 100 I know I'll make (because I've already bought the materials) have been reserved. However, because demand has exceeded my wildest expectations, I'll probably make more. So please feel free to email me, and I'll put you on the waiting list. I'll probably want a break after I get the 100 made, but I'll probably make more within about a month.

I'm keen to know your opinions on the concepts of "musical tutelage," or "the importance of going it alone," all that. In other words, what is the importance of the process/method/path of discovery in the listening experience over years of ones life.

It's possible that I'm prone to over-emphasising the advantages of the soujourner path. I had no cool older sibling, no hip (only hippie) parents, and lived mostly in smallish towns and medium cities that could hardly be consdered record shop hotbeds (though after initiated into musical obsession, I later discovered they often had the most cohesive, passionate kind of local music scenes around). My parents instilled in me a sense that music was important (and gave me one of my great loves, Joni Mitchell) but didn't have much breadth to share. I'm still not really sure how I got from The Beatles and Smashing Pumpkins and Simon & Garfunkel at age 13 to Sunny Day Real Estate and Stereolab at 17 to where I am today at 24. I didn't have the internet till I was 17; I didn't even have MTV (120 minutes seems to have influenced quite a few burgeoning music kids in the 90s). So I suppose I carried an inflated sense of my own luck, my own instincts--I managed to get here (here being nothing impressive, you know, a predictable 500 records of Jazz/Blues/World Music etc., but it's a start) "without any help".

Which for a while I was troubled when I found myself being adopted as some sort of knowledgeable figure by younger/less experienced kids some years back. Partly this was due to the fact that I didn't (and still don't really) feel I have much musical knowledge--just a record collection a little larger than most "normal" people my age. But the primary source of misgiving came from a distrust of "giving it away," not in the elitist sense that "I've earned it and you haven't"--I've always assumed that notion to be obvious bullshit, though many of you may disagree. But rather I hesitated because I wondered if somehow I might be depriving people of something if I cut out the "labourious" process of trial and error, the often tedious and risky adventure of placing your own money on the counter. I wondered--would I have really appreciated the music as much, if I hadn't had to "work" for it?

If it tells you anything about where I ended up, I eventually gave 70 mp3-CDs filled with roughly the first eight years of my serious music addiction to a younger cousin. Though I have friends who claim that "the internet ruined music," I decided that even for me, there was relatively little "work" involved in the "process of discovery" anymore. Even before it was common to have high-speed internet and good p2p like Soulseek, the "challenges" were essentially whittled down to "do you have the money to afford to be eclectic". I began to ask, what did it mean to have "earned" ones musical knowledge? Pitchfork might be ruining young minds with their awful writing, but hipster "cheat sheets" had been a staple of "musical knowledge" since well before I was born. My own "country mouse" success story in some ways notwithstanding, hadn't the primary determinant of being musically-in-the-know really come down to a few very undemocratic and ultimately ephemeral things: where you happened to live, how much discretionary money you had, and who you knew (whether people or zines)? Where was "PASSION" on the list? Sure, someone with passion AND all the aforementioned advantages could live a great musical life. But for him the "process of discovery" was about as tricky as popping down to Rough Trade to see what'd come in this week (to exagerate). Meanwhile someone with no real passion but a desire to be seen as "hip" could also pop on down. Meanwhile the passionate kid in the hinterland (or the poor kid in the suburbs) had to stagnate with frustration; or, as in my case, find mail-order, making the process not really so difficult, but not that romantic, either.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm still the sort who needs to "own" the record--mp3's don't count--as my bank account can attest. I'm not even proud of this, as it probably comes down to some consumerist materialism as much as any ethical imperative. But let's be honest--the glory of crate digging, the joy of a good local shop, blowing sizeable savings each visit to London or New York--these are all enjoyable, and it's reasonable to wear them as badges of verity (in our own geek minds, at least). Chatting down at the shop or spinning at the radio station--these will always have a visceral appeal that things like typing away on ILM etc. can't provide. But what are we really on about, ultimately? What compels us to take part in all these geeky rituals? (And being honest, when I see Trekkies, I know that but for the grace of God, there go my passions--we're not that different.) It has to be The Sounds Themselves.

As the 1981 set itself attests, I've clearly come down that "giving it away" is a logical fallacy. All that you can give to a passionate kid, a neophyte who would know more, will only fuel the fire. None of us (well, maybe a few at this place, but in general) knows everything, and I imagine we'd get depressed if we thought we did (and probably all of us, at least early on, hit that wall of asking, "is this it?" before the next thrill of discovery). So what's the damage done if some kid hears This Heat at 16 on a silly boxed set, instead of waiting around till luck of Pitchfork exposure and the whimsy of reissues made it more likely? I say, more power to him--that's less time he might waste on lesser stuff.

Which brings up my final potential qualm about "giving it away": does a "musical tutor" not risk simply indoctrinating his "puil," risk blunting the development of his capacity for discrimination? Well, I'll pose another question in response. For those of you lucky enough to have been the right age at the right time in the right time for Peel's golden age: did you simply take his word on every track? Or even if you did initially, did his opinions remain yours for good? Well, compared to any of us, John Peel is the "tutoring" God; and if God's own trumpet didn't deafen your own opinions, then I think none of us is likely to do so for anyone else. I say: exposure, exposure, exposure. People may not be ready for everything all at once--and so the temporal facet of our beloved "process of discovery" will inevitably reassert itself. Even if some kid queues up half your collection on Soulseek (as numerous have done mine,) it will take them plenty of time to even hear it all, much less listen to any of it. So I embrace the democratic age of access; don't fear the instantaneousness of it all--our ears and our hearts are still analogue, and for those with passion, the process will still take time. Passion should be the only criterion for gaining access to the beautiful world of music (and paying in to keep the practical side will come with salaries, years on).

I love listening to my collection, and remembering that I bought this record in 2001 on a trip to Philly to meet some girl I barely knew, and listened to it the first time we made love; or that it was recommended me by a kindly shop owner in 1996, and that it changed my life. I doubt that many kids will remember "I downloaded this album, the modified date says, on 5th May 2005, along with these other 10 albums". They will, isntead, form their own memories--when the music first meant something to them, what was happening, maybe even when they got the money together to go out and buy the record. I'm not worried we stand to lose anything important.

Please forgive the rough-shod nature of that schpiel. I'm not a writer, obviously--which is really why I made the 1981 set in the first place, so that I wouldn't have to try and explain anything ; ) My poor grammar and spelling aside, I hope I got something in there to get you going--even if to scream, "you've got it all wrong, you moron".

Also---if anyone here who *is* a writer is bored enough that they might dash together a more cogent introductory essay for the 1981 set than the one I wrote for the 1st Edition (below), I'd be eternally grateful.

Intro to the 1981 box, 1st Edition:

My first idea of how to introduce this set was to start with a question: "what do we do when we realise Pandora's box is never going to shut?" I wanted to persuade you that the music heard on this set provides one answer to that question: if our belief in fundamental order is shaken, we resolve to make a beautiful mess. I wanted to argue that a lot of this music is part of a lineage of noble "outré" and progressive popular art made by people trying to restore hope and meaning amidst derelict shells of classicism, modernism, and post-modernism. I would also have tried to say something pithy regarding the historical context of this music, about how the shattering of the notion of monolithic cultures made music like this possible, and necessary; and about Thatcher, Reagan, suburbs, post-industrial economics, the dole, the rise of fundamentalism and yuppiedom and anti-disco rockism.But the truth is, I was in diapers in 1981. As far as outré music is concerned, I have less than a decade of experience with the stuff. My parents were hippies spinning Joni Mitchell and James Taylor records in the '80s. They imbued me with a sense that music was deeply important, but didn't have much of its sonic breadth to share. I "know" about as much about music as could be expected of any musically obsessed twenty-four year old who spent high-school in the School of Indie Rock, owns only a couple hundred jazz records, a hundred (predictable) hip-hop records, overuses Skip James on mixes, and only heard his first Talking Heads album as a junior in high school. What I mean is: I still function musically primarily on passion, not knowledge. I'm confident about my abilities to put together a good mix for just about any tastes; do a decent radio show; and hold my own with young know-it-all record clerks in Chicago. But I don't know enough to write cool, authoritative, impressively linernotish liner notes. The fact that I know all this music after-the-fact or "second hand" should affect the quality of the music; an attempt to give you the storytelling goods secondhand would probably do a disservice to the story.This set inevitably reflects my biases as its curator; but I hope it is deep and wide enough to allow you to decide what the "best," "most important," "coolest" sounds are. In fact, I realise you may even disagree with me that 1981 is worth all the trouble. Personally, I think something was happening from about 1978 to 1982 that is noteworthy in the history of pop music. I think there was an earnest expansiveness and playfulness regarding the boundaries (or absence thereof) between genres and between "art" and "pop". Nothing I could say will convince you--but the music might.

I admit that a portion of these tracks are undeniably dated (if charmingly so,) and will probably trigger nostalgia even if you've never heard them. Progressive (in pop terms) as these tracks were at the time, they established the paradigm for the infamous "sound of the 80s," and by extension the cartoonish aesthetic currently revered by college students too young to actually remember the decade. I resisted investigating many of the bands I knew as pathetic yuppie crooners on my older sister's radio in the mid-80s for years; in their early incarnations, at least, some of those bands have become my favourites. The majority of the music of this particular 1981, however, would set a fire were it released today; the paradigm they operated within (or without) was expansive enough that a lot of the best "progressive" music is still exploring it today (in just the way that many of these bands can be said to have been working in virtual homage to Can or the Velvet Underground).Investigating threads of Influence and innovation; glowing about "prescience;" and dividing the thieves from the tributaries arguably enhances musical enjoyment. But I hope you'll ultimately take this music on its own terms. I came into my interest in the "post-punk period" slowly; I bought the hype young that punk was the Sex Pistols, which I didn't especially like, and therefore skipped ahead to Yo La Tengo and the Pixies. It was only after I stumbled through a couple dozen records that I started to notice common years popping up. My subsequent effort to consciously put together a picture of the movement (and my appreciation of the music as a cultural artifact) came only after I first felt the picture. Even after as work-like a relationship as I've had to this music after spending countless man-hours putting this set together, I still hear it foremostly in the visceral way that I did when I knew nothing of its history.On to the indisputable facts: 395 tracks, 345 bands, almost 21 hours of sound, spanning most elements of the post-punk, art-pop, new wave, hardcore, no wave, d.i.y., new romantic, power-pop, dancepunk, art-punk and electropop spheres. Nine of the discs are audio CDs, carefully selected and sequenced along sonic or emotional themes. The tenth disc is an mp3 "appendix" containing tracks by 130-plus bands that didn't fit the main mixes, most of whom are just as good as those on the main CDs. For some of you, there is little new to you here. For a good many, this may be all the "post-punk" you'll ever want. I don't need to change your life, I just want to play you some music; so if you enjoy any of it, my effort has been worthwhile. It is my secret hope, however, that for a few of you, this will be another step toward deep, passionate addiction to music you might not have known existed. Music does not truly exist without both passionate playing and passionate listening; you make music out of noise by listening well.

some interesting thoughts, on a tangent to yours I.M., here: "The Golden Age Is When You Were 12*"

The box set list is way impressive, but you know there were a couple (hundred) good R&B records released in 1981, too.

Hey now Lovebug, that was already (semi-jokingly) addressed via Nate above and responded to.

One could -- if one wanted to -- create an alternate 1981 set that removes many tracks in favor of a slew of R'n'B selections, but understandably that would reflect the bias of the creator as much as this set does. The whole *point* is that it is biased. (Something like the original Nuggets was biased after all.)

Cozen -- thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

Lovebug -- indeed there were. And hip-hop, and avant garde, and probably Nashville Country for all I know. But this box was never intended to be "the" "objective" story of 1981. I definitely indended to have a limited (but not too limited) scope. I definitely didn't mean to offend anyone by leaving things out--I just figured my scope was one that could use some in-depth anthologising, and it happens to reflect my favourite sort of music going on at the time.

Sorry. Didn't mean to dis. And I think your focus/selection is more objectively "true" than you realize, there really wasn't much crossover between black and white audiences then, a lot of "post-punkers" were just as anti-disco as those nasty ol' rockists.

Were I to put my money where my mouth is, I'd assemble the early 80s R&B/rap version of your box. As if. Your anthology is an achievement!

1981 was a music-drenched year of great personal import -- the year I moved to NYC! It's really a treat to browse all those titles and names(not that I remembered every one).

from the pitchfork link Matos gave above:

I Love Music CDR700Go! Collections

A series of other single-year retrospectives have been given birth in recent years by the denizens of the music critic circle-jerk I Love Music, who have generated an entire inventory of single-disc mp3 mixes, with listings accessible in the message board's archives. Assembled by folks like Seattle Weekly editor Michaelangelo Matos, All Music Guide contributor Andy Kellman, and former Pitchfork rabblerouser Chris Ott, most are less motivated by personal taste than a desire to most accurately document the calendar year, above and below ground. Hence, the 1976 disc makes room for both the Buzzcocks and "Disco Duck", and Barry Manilow and Pere Ubu are compilation flatmates for the first-- and probably last-- time. Waiving the right to selective hindsight makes the discs great archeological fodder; on random, they play like great radio stations with extreme microprogramming.

Hmmm, can't imagine what year(s) the statement in bold is referring to... *whistles*

Lovebug ---

I'm not sure I agree that things were as segregated then as they might seem, and I certainly don't agree that post-punk was particularly "rockist" or anti-disco---a large portion of this stuff is very dance-oriented, often with straight-up disco beats. Call it cultural imperialism, call it cooption--I think a lot of these musicians (especially in England) were very broad-minded, heavily immersed in jamaican musics, American funk, and, I suspect, a good deal of African music (both Afrobeat-ish/High-life and traditional forms) as well as a broad swath of "white" music. I guess I'm one to tend to cut arguments about "authenticity" and "originality" down quickly, because they tend to insult just about everyone involved (supposed "originators" and accused "coopters") and paint everything into tight little corners. I'm certain there was plenty of posing and faking and hanging-on, but I prefer to focus on the cooperative, the joyous, the fun. I think there was a lot of play back and forth between the "white" music (apparently what is on my set, though many musicians involved were not racially white) and "black" music at the time--white kids were stealing calypso beats but adding Stockhausen splicing and Scratch Perry echoes, black kids were sampling Liquid Liquid and Tom Tom Club, early goth-tinged electro-pop was providing production aesthetics for hip hop, and on and on. There are very few outright Elvises on this set. I'd love it if you did "the" "other" 1981--I'd love to see all kinds of spheres anthologised in this fashion, and I'd love to put them all in a big CD changer and hit "random". It'd be a lot of fun.

I've got 60 copies finished, so I should begin notifying people that their copies are ready to ship by Friday.

what do you mean by "Elvises"?

oh wait, I re-read the post. you're more or less referring to full-on hybridity here, aren't you? nevermind.

how much does something like this cost?

I used the term rockist ironically. And I meant the post-punk audience -- people buying the records and going to clubs -- were anti-disco, not the musician themselves. Obviously, many of the players were picking up on diverse sounds, from both sides of the divide. Afrika Bambaataa was a huge Kraftwerk fan, etc. But in my experience -- I was 23 in 81 -- there wasn't much crossover among fans. The Gang of Four/Bush Tetras/Bad Brains show I saw on 1/31/81 for instance attracted a mutually exclusive audience from any given night at the Paradise Garage. It seemed strange at the time, given the popularity of Dance Oriented Rock as it was known, that more of a wide-open general scene didn't exist. Fragmentation started here.

This thing about Elvis and black music is a canard. To my ears, Elvis was equally influenced by country music and Dean Martin as he was by Big Mama Thornton. But that's a whole nother discussion.

Again, I'm not carping or complaining. This set is a public service.

I think that's what I.M. was saying, though--that Elvis (not solely him, but as an example) straddled genre lines pretty evenly.

Lovebug ---

I really appreciate your perspective. What you're saying is fascinating to me, actually--in fact, what you say confirms my suspicions about the ways in which my views might be skewed by knowing the whole era/sphere pretty much from the music only. It doesn't surprise me at all, really, that the musicians may have been able to make leaps that their audience were not. It seems a pretty common occurance that eclectic musicians are doomed to end up serving as "translators" for less eclectic fans, somehow making music said fans otherwise might not try easily digested. It's a shame to think this was the case even in so wide-ranging a sphere as the "post-punk" milieu; it's been my complaint about all this current "dance-punk"/"post-punk revivalist" stuff: the bands involved may know their roots and their roots' roots (I'm in no position to say); but I've met many a young kid who simply feels he doesn't need PigBag, because he has his !!!. I'm ambivalent, because I think the best music is made by those who're most aware of their forbears but least worshipful of them; and like I said before, I deeply resist the concept that there's any "pure" music in the pop world.

j-dizzle ---

$11.50 plus postage. It costs you what it costs me.

I emailed you yesterday morning. My name's Mark. Did you get it?

The vast majority of the stuff on this thing is not new to me, but as a collector of the era I gotta make sure I cover all the bases. Nice to see you've got some good old fashioned early 4AD stuff in there, too!

Bimble ---

Several people called Mark emailed me, but your email address here isn't on my list.

didja get mine???? not this email. my name is gary. i'm from australia.

Well that's cause I emailed you from another address beginning with 'kincai'

Mullygrubbr --

I've got a Gary at an .au email, so I think you're in ; )

Bimble--didn't get it, sorry. I've been very careful to email everyone back from whom I got a request, I'm sorry if I somehow missed you. Try again and I'll add you to the waiting list.

whoo hooo!

i didn't get a reply though...

i was 18 in 1981. its kind of a "out of home go crazy" year for me.

Sigh. Okay.

Mullygrubbr ---

Hmm. Does your last name start with an L? I've got the reply I sent you in my "sent" box, Thursday 10:21 pm

Bimble ---

Very sorry, friend. I don't know how I could've missed it if I got it.

yeah, you know what I.M., I sent you an email about this as well! i didn't receive a reply but i didn't worry about it as i assumed you were probably swamped. But since you just said that you sent replies to people ... now I'm wondering if you ever got my email ..? (used this email address .. first name Rob)

That's okay. Proof that email isn't perfect, I guess. I'm writing from this email this time so you will know right away it's me.

Stormy Davis ---

Yeah, I've got you, too. Both you and Mully were amongst the very first few, sent you a reply 10 minutes before Mully. I hope this Lycos thing is reliable. . . I've taken emails from 65 people here, and I've replied to every one of them, by my account. . .

I'm curious, I.M., what is your feeling about the vinyl format?

ok cool, thanks I.M.!! I don't know what could have happened. I think Lycos just hates Yahoo ever since the latter beat them in the "portal" sweepstakes. hahaha "portal"! good god, the 90s were a silly decade.

Bimble ---

I admit I don't share the nostalgia for vinyl of many; nor do I have any evidence that, on your average player, it is a "superior" format. Honestly, when kids spinning shit over thrift store systems tell me that, I have to try hard not to laugh. I do prefer vinyl sleeves, obviously (LP anyway). That said, when something's only available on vinyl, that's how I'll get it if I need it. I tend to avoid ammassing too much vinyl, though, because it takes up so much space. I'm able to keep about 2,000 CDs in nice black binders in a locker (literally a high scool locker) in my closet; I couldn't live in my place if I had 2,000 LPs.

Conversely, I'm a huge fan of the democratising effect of the CD-R. Talk about "it was easy, it was cheap"! Sure, some store-bought CD-R with one of those horrible "mini-cases" will make an awful artefact; but done right, they can be reasonably attractive.

I also e-mailed you, but I just wanted to say WOW here as well. I can't even begin to imagine how inundated with requests you are going to be as this set is absolutely amazing!! I was 15 in 1981 in a small town in South Dakota, USA and just beginning to get into music. I'm like you. I like to own the album, and I can remember where and when I bought most of my albums (four or five at a time in dingy record shops with hippie clerks - the thrill of finding something new - being able to hold the albums in two hands, etc.) I love the internet because it gives the chance to sample before i buy, but i'll always want to hold them in my hands. I will always say albums, even though I haven't bought any vinyl in 15 years. Just has a nice ring to it. Anyway, thanks so much for your work. An absolutely amazingly cool idea. I would love to see tracklists for other years. It's cool to be reminded how much good music was released in any given year. Oh, and your are doing great work in "musical tutelage". Imagine how many people will be turned on to stuff they never knew existed.

Anyway, thanks again. Good luck with the deluge of e-mail. Hopefully, nothing crashes! Oh, and if you are able to add me to a waiting list sometime in the next year or two, that would be awesome!

I do agree with your lengthy post up there about MP3 culture and whatnot. I'm certainly glad it exists -- i'm not resistant to change; heck, I am a huge participant myself. But I also own something on the order of seven or eight thousand physical artifacts myself. And here's the thing: I can probably recall exactly when and where I bought each and every one of those things. There's a story that accompanies every record I have (well, aside from the ones I just got on Half.com or ordered from Forced Exposure or whatever)(which category definitely, yes, comprises a hefty chunk of them.) But I can tell you why I initially heard of some record, why I picked it up / took a chance on it, where I bought it -- whether a random trick to the record store or some crazy intrepid crate digging excursion that took me into some wild places. And yeah, I feel like the people who queue up 10 albums on soulseek and then go to bed and then never listen to them and they just sit there on a hard drive along with gigabytes worth of other MP3s, yeah I do feel a bit sad about that and feel like some crucial experiences are being lost in the bargain. But c'est la vie.

Not that anyone asked me, but I do have some nostalgia for the vinyl format. There was something comforting and organic about the clicks and pops. That said, I really don't have the patience for it anymore. Too much work to pull out the records, clean them and play. Plus, no shuffle! (mixed blessing, shuffle. I find that I don't give most albums near the time they deserve)

Joel ---

Thanks so much. Really, the kindness everyone who's contacte me has shown has been inspirational. I honestly posted here a bit trepedatiously--I'd heard rather lofty things about the place, and had a minor notion I'd get told what poor choices I'd made, what I'd missed, etc. To a (wo)man, from music editors to teenaged kids, everyone has been very complimentary. I hope everyone feels the same way when they've been digesting the mixes!

Re: the physical object, yeah, I'll always want one. Truth is, at this point, I've begun thinking of the actual discs as permanent "back-ups". I got a 250GB HD about a year and a half ago, and a 100GB portable mp3 player about six months ago, and they've radically changed the way I listen to my music (for the better). It's a far cry from the romanticism of turning the LP over halfway through, but gosh--being able to put a lifetime of music *on random* is pretty awe-inspiring. It's made me feel that my constant rationalisation for my record-buying habits---that I was "building a library" to last a lifetime---wasn't just a convenient justification. I really do love it all, things I haven't heard in years. I'm a traditionalist in many, many ways--but I'm becoming a modernist in regards to music making/listening technology. Hell, the fact that I've been able to make my own little records (ha, CDs) as easily as I might've kept a sketchbook---there's just nothing bad about that I can see.

Well, fair enough, but just incase I happened to have a newfangled mp3 of the Past Seven Days, doesn't mean I'd part with the original 7" for any amount of money in the whole world. That really is one of my very favourite records ever. Sorry I just had to mention that cause so few people know it.

Stormy ---

I definitely share the ambivalence. I wonder if "we"--those like us, from about the age 20 through maybe 60--have the best of both worlds, a combination that will probably be lost on younger kids. I have an aversion to the concept of iTunes that borders on irrational; but younger kids might argue correctly that we're materialists to a fault. I'm not sure who's right, but I do enjoy the "personal archaeology" of looking through my physically-housed music. I like that I have that option, even if I rarely excersise it these days.

You know whos opinion I'd love to hear/read on all this? Brian Eno. Talk about a guy who's managed to be a revolutionary modernist/post-modernist/technologist and yet maintain a level of craftsmanship that almost only comes through a visceral understanding of the music-making process.

Bimble ---

Eeep. You probably won't like me much--I made an edit of "Raindance". I agree it's a great track, fantastic atmosphere and very underrated, but I wanted to get as many artists represented as possible (and let people seek out the full versions of the tracks I edited, if they'd like). I still left about 5 minutes of the track ; )

I hope no one will mind that I did an edit of Crispy Ambulance's "The Presence".

Thanks, I.M. Hey, just curious, did you get the e-mail I sent you earlier? Just wondering if I screwed up when I sent it. Sorry to bug you with that type of question. Also, what do you recommend for converting vinyl to cd? One of my goals is to digitize my vinyl someday. Also, you really summed up everything that is great about "random play". Being able to do that brings things bubbling to the surface that I haven't listened to in years.

Well that's what I wondered, cause I saw these (edit) bits on the list...

Crispy Ambulance is my second fave band ever, but the Presence is the kind of song you can do an edit of and it wouldn't be too offensive. I can understand where you were coming from. Don't worry about it. Remember I'm here to hear the stuff I HAVEN'T heard.

Joel ---

Yep, I got yours this time. Did you get my reply?

For vinyl transfers, I'm not very high-tech, I admit. I just use Soundforge for pretty much all my wav capturing/editing. Then I manually clean clicks and pops, if it's close to a clean rip. I don't trust "auto" cleaning filters--even running Soundforge's "pop" seeker, it almost always finds elements that aren't clicks/pops. So it's just the tedious task of listening close and watching close--but I like looking at waveforms, so it's ok. If the vinyl is irretrevably vinylly, then I just leave it that way.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea---about 15% of the stuff in this set is indeed mp3-sourced or from friends' vinyl. I'm too young to have been "in the right place at the right time," or to have the money to afford multi-hundre-dollar 7"s. And some of the tracks (mainly on the 'Cassette' mix) are sourced from Chuck Warner's rips. I tried to limit the set only to what I owned for a while, but there were some great things I just didn't want to leave out. The vast majority, for better or worse, I've spent the money on over the years.

Bimble ---

I only did edits in very judicious ways. Where I could, I even pulled off "seamless" edits, rather than resorting to fade-outs, etc.

I've never met anyone whose second favourite band was Crispy Ambulance before. Are you a big Crepescule/Fac Bel fan in general?

bimble, as a massive Crispy Ambulance fan, do you feel as I do that "Simon's Ghost" is almost a total copy of Popol Vuh's main theme for Noferatu?? i asked this on the Popol Vuh thread once and nobody responded. I guess most Popol Vuh fans aren't Crispy Ambulance fans. But I swear those dudes totally stole that from Fricke. but it's cool, I still love them.

I.M.
Glad you got the e-mail. I didn't get the reply, though. (just the two posts above, but nothing in my inbox).