This piece may be somewhat redundant if anyone has read any of my previous blog posts, or been in touch with me over the past few years, regarding the Twin Cities Music Preservation Project, but it seemed like as good a time as any to bring things up to date.
[Then the next time someone grouses about having to read a long e-mail, they can just come here and read a long blog post instead. And yes, I cribbed the title from the GBV Acid Ranch LP, just because it is an excellent record, even though I left out the word syrup.]
Once Upon A Time…
When I started taping bands, going back to my days working at The Longhorn in Minneapolis, I never really had any idea what I was doing – the goal was simply to try and catch a fair sampling of what was going on in the music scene at any given point in time. It seemed to me that the important thing was to try and capture some of what was going on, before it was gone.
Most of the recordings I made fall under the heading of “lo-fi” – generally recorded on a portable unit with a stereo mic, although over the years, I tried a few different techniques in an effort to improve the sound quality a bit. Sometimes that actually worked out.
Through all the years I recorded national touring bands and traded tapes with other tapers and fans, 2023 marked the first time I have ever logged and catalogued any of the local bands, as they were always kept-off limits for trading. And of course, some bands were okay with being recorded, but on occasion there were a few stipulations involving new and unreleased material. In those cases, bands simply requested that the tape would not be traded or shared, which I always honored. I still have some tapes clearly marked DO NOT TRADE, decades later.
Trust has always been a big deal for me – I often hung out with a lot of these folks, partied with them, and most of us knew where each other lived and worked, so I tried not to burn too many bridges along the way.
I always assumed that if any of those folks might be inclined to do anything with any of those recordings of their own music, it was best left up to them, not me. I wasn’t taping bands for profit, it was just to try and capture what I was able to of the scene I grew up in, and most bands were given copies of the recordings I made, although I’ve heard from a lot of folks that maybe I gave them to the wrong person in the group, or they got lost, etc.
Unfortunately, when I first started taping bands, it happened too many times that I just handed the original tapes to some of those bands, and never saw or heard from them again, so a few possible gems have been lost forever, it seems. Eventually I solved that problem by running multiple decks at a show, so I could hand a master tape to someone in the band right after their set, and still have a master tape for my archives.
In recent years, I’ve heard from a handful of folks that they weren’t even aware of any recordings, etc, but in most cases I just talked to the person I knew in each band, and I’ve come to realize that sometimes there may not have been enough communication all around. It happens. Once in a blue moon I might have failed to give a tape to a band, but that would be the rare exception, rather than the rule. The bigger issue seems to be after all these years, that out of any three, four, five people in any given band, maybe only one of those people ever actually heard the tape(s) I gave them, and none of the other members ever heard them at all.
Digging Through The Vaults…
Back in the day, when I was employed at First Avenue / 7th St. Entry (on-again / off-again from around 1987 – 2005, with time off for good behavior), my seemingly obsessive efforts to document the scene was often regarded with varying degrees of bemusement. As one of my colleagues put it, “you’re treating all of this like it’s high art or something”. Yeah, guilty as charged, I reckon.
That said, except for paying to keep my decks in good working order, I haven’t made any real effort to re-master most of the audio I’ve been digitizing. I have a small home studio and could have a go with any of it, but it’s been taking enough time just to sort through all these artifacts, so the decision was made to just digitize everything as is, but in a hi-res format that would allow folks to work on it more if they wanted to – generally speaking, that’s 24-bit/48kHz sample rate. And of course, I have taken great care to manually align the playback head Azimuth for each tape I transfer. If that sounds uber-nerdy, it kind of is, but I think it’s worth the extra effort. As for mp3s, you’re free to do what you want in the privacy of your own home, but we try to refrain from using that kind of language around here.
For anyone who is curious about what I’m up to with all these archival recordings, feel free to check out these blog posts:
Into The Groove…
On a somewhat related note, after I left Mpls in 2008 and kicked around Portland for a few years; I started my own lathe-cut record operation in 2016, working with three vintage record-cutting lathes from the 1930s.
Just to recap a bit, here are some links on my website which relate to some of that:
Once I had started digging into the tape archives, it occurred to me that it might be a fun pet project to curate a selection of tracks from the lo-fi live recordings I made over the years of various Twin Cities area bands, and put out my own lathe-cut series which would be similar to the terrific Cowboy Tea Show Compilator Series released by Andrew Arishiba of Bone Club in the ’90s:
If there are any tracks I can put on a short list for lathe-cut records, singles, compilations, then if people from various bands want to have a hand in the mastering / editing, etc, I’ll go with that. I seriously doubt that anyone is likely to get rich from something like this – especially me, since I’m offering to pay for everything up front, but you never know what long-forgotten band from the Twin Cities might just spark a resurgent interest a half century later, with a bootleg-quality track on a small run of handmade records. Who knows? It might actually even pay for itself, and we can all treat ourselves to pizzas and beer. Ah, we all have our dreams, eh?
Cash From Chaos…?
Speaking of money – which is definitely NOT one of my favorite topics of conversation – I would like to just put it out on the table that there is a big difference between the lathe-cut samplers I just talked about, and the records I make for local bands who hire me to make them a few records so they can sell them at their shows.
If the Compilation Sampler Series ever takes off, it will probably be less profitable for all involved than a standard tax write-off. The concept is a labour of love, just as the taping itself has always been – a hobby.
On the other hand, if a band hires me to make them a few records for their merch table, it might end up being a little bit profitable, because that is actually the goal of the lathe-cut business.
The only thing those two conversations have in common is the use of the lathes to make the records. Revenue for the business might be enough to pay for a pound of coffee beans, while the hobby will cost me at least that same amount, but it will make some folks happy.
Possibly the question about monetization was raised in the first place because of a blog post which included a QR code for anyone who wanted to donate toward the cost of mailing out cassettes, etc:
In our present digital era, it’s not too uncommon to read a Substack post that says something like, “if you like what I do, feel free to buy me a cup of coffee”. A number of bands have asked if they could give me something in exchange for the tapes and digital files I sent them, so I really didn’t think this would raise any eyebrows. I mean, I might be a little out of step with the changing times, but I’d like to think that I’m not a complete luddite, as these things go.
Hopefully this will answer any questions about monetization. Sheesh.
The Wrap-Up…
Finally, as I’m creeping up on my seventh decade on the planet, I am trying to lighten the load before the next time we move, which means letting go of a ton of physical tapes. While I do think the digital files I’ve extracted from them should be fine, it seems likely that some folks may have better equipment or skills, if they wanted to do anything with them. For me, the ones and zeros are fine at this point. If the tapes aren’t needed, I may bulk erase a bunch of them and either reuse them for some other cassette project, or give them to a Goodwill or something.
We’ll see how it all goes, I reckon. Cheers.
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