wired for sound

its not only blogging that i'm falling behind with at the moment.

among other crucial tasks on my list has been to burn a disc of mp3s for my new car CD/MP3 player. and tonight i finally did it -- 125 tracks and the disc isnt even 75% full. in the words of a hanna barbara character - zowee!

i love music. i'm more of a fan than a performer but not as fanatical as some, although i do have an elitist tendency to walk into people's houses and go straight for their CD collection to decide if i really like them or not. (i've mellowed over the years -- all i require these days is that a person have a taste in/minor passion for music as opposed to anything too specific)

anyway i have been v excited by my new purchase not only because it was the result of actually following up on an advertized bargain from a local electrics store but because i especially love to drive with music. i think the car is unbeatably the best medium for listening to music with possible exception of the royal albert hall although there you cant just turn up the volume, sing at the top of your lungs and throw all your problems and worries to the wind.

so as the nice man was installing the player in my car a couple of weeks ago i was understandably psyched but when he made the change and handed me the old car radio tape (to add to my collection but we'll talk about my hoarding tendencies at a later date) i suddenly felt a twinge of guilt.

in the midst of my excitement i'd missed the fact that this marked an end of an era. since my walkman has long been of CD variety and not tape and my stereo tape deck hasn'tworked for years this simple car-radio-ectomy essentially meant i no longer owned any mode of listening to any of my 500+ cassette tapes.

gulp.

ok i admit it cassette tapes are not sexy and that the majority of mine have sat in a box on my balcony for the past year and a half but still i will miss them if no one else does. truth is wedged in time between vinyl and CDs they never really had a chance. (especially considering the shape propaganda of the seventies)

but even if cassettes are the pariah of the music world if you ignore minor details like questionable quality of sound, inability to not get tangled with repeated play and insufficient canvas space to create an artistic masterpiece to match the music you cant help but acknowledge their essential place in history.

i mean they are the missing link that allows us to appreciate today's technology. How much can you really appreciate the ease of CD burning if you've never sat for hours with a pile of tapes and records making a mix-tape to mark a mood, a period in time or maybe just a friendship. tapes that were made extra special by the indiosyncracies supplied by the sound of the needle on the record or the false starts resulting from a misuse of the pause button? who didnt delight the first time they found out about fast dubbing complete with auto turnover on a tape to tape machine? who doesnt stop every now and again during yet another to download or not to download debate and reminisce about similar dilemmas about recording radio one's top 30 every sunday evening?

and if it wasnt for tapes would we ever had the walkman? i remember the first time i listened to a walkman. i really felt like i was in a pop video. admittedly my second year form room would have made a poor setting for any video even in the eighties but i wont forget the sensation. you could never have done that with a record.

Walkin’ about with a head full of music Casette in my pocket and I’m gonna use it-stereo -out on the street you know-woh oh woh...

could cliff ever have written wired for sound if he was still loading up his 33s and 45s?

ok maybe that wouldnt have mattered but even the frustrations of finding a song on a tape especially on a car tape machine (it never seemed to rewind in the right direction) evoke nostaligia for me now.

no wonder i felt emotional as i held the car tape machine. for it isnt just an obsolete piece of machinery. it was thanks to the car-tape machine that i received my most basic yet most influential music education.

driving to primary school with my dad we'd work through four tapes, 5-10 mins every day as my father avoided every traffic light and used every back double possible. 4 simple tapes that have probably long since gone to that great place in the sky for broken tape boxes and sun warped cassettes but whose contents occupy a special place in my heart -- simon and garfunkel greatest hits; the beatles red and blue albums; elo - out of the blue; and a 50s and 60s mix. truly the foundations of my music appreciation today.

yep yep good times....

so i have alot to thank you mr tape machine and your cassette comrades, or to quote cliff again It’s music I’ve found And I’m wired for sound.