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

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.

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 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.

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

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!

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

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

i didn't get a reply though...

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

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, 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 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.

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!

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.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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?

interesting peeps have responses to the mixes themselves. the ilm cdrgo's being mp3 discs tends to make them "resources" rather than playlists i think (i rarely listen to 10 hours at a go...nate's discs are an exception as they work as folders) so your decision to go with 80 min discs entices this response...deliberate?

Fac Bel yes, Crepuscule some, but not as much.

Well, I'm quite sorry not to be able to answer that question. I DID actually go through a little phase with Popol Vuh sometime last summer. Can't recall if I heard Nosferatu theme in the process. Seems like I read about that album, though, or a lot of people liked it or something. I remember Nosferatu more as an old horror movie I saw in my childhood than anything else. Older than Popol Vuh, and no music comes to mind.

deliberate

Not to entice response, no, but to facilitate listenability/accessibility, yes, definitely. Numerous people who got the 1st Edition have told me they love the set, and yet haven't gotten around to the mp3-CD. 181 tracks on one disc is a little prohibitave. I always focused on the mixes--the 'Briefcase' was a means I came up with to allow myself to focus on making the best flowing, most listenable and cohesive mixes possible, and yet still include all the stuff that was great/good/significant but didn't flow.

Some of the "sounds" of the mixes are pretty obvious--the 'Amplifier' disc is clearly the more "rock" disc. But some of them--the 'Flame,' the 'Icicle,' the 'Brain' are a little less analogous to genre. So I'm curious how others think they hold up as individual mixes. I have found that with the exception of a couple of them, they stand as individual mixes with any others I've made, even with all the time/sound "restrictions". Maybe it's like a sonnet--you have to try harder in ways than with free verse, but sometimes it can facilitate a big payoff.

did you get my e-mail, i.m.? i sent it out last night german time and didn't get a reply.

I did indeed get your email, and I sent you a reply.

I wonder if I'm being filtered into people's spam boxes, somehow?

Sure none of you real writers want to salvage its readability with a cogent anecdote or insightful analysis?

Yes, and replied. Looks like I may have to swith email providers for this project. What a pain.

I'm using a new email address. The lycos one seemed to be giving people trouble. So now be on the lookout for a message from soundslike1981@gmail.com instead.