(idm) Re:too/much/music

From Andrew Duke Cognition
Sent Sat, Oct 17th 1998, 22:43

Elizabeth Olson wrote:

>  Heh. Well, my partner and I agree on music, the vast majority of the
>  time, as he introduced me to much of the music I listen to... so
>  he appreciates my musical purchases... though he has begged me
>  on occasion, "Elizabeth, PLEASE stop buying so many cds!" We simply
>  have nowhere left to store them. It's gotten out of hand. I'm restricting
>  myself to only buying things which won't come around again due to
>  being limited/rare. But y'know. It's so haaaaard. Plus, we do have
>  a backlog of things we haven't quite fully listened to. Does this
>  happen to anyone else?

***I have never gone out with a woman who shared my taste in music, but I once
lived in a big house with a few others and one couple who were like Elizabeth
and her BF but took it even farther:  they were both obsessed with music to
the point that when they had money, they'd never eat, but hell, they sure
would buy a heck of a lot of CDs--and limited edition stuff like Cold Meat
Industry, Coil digipacks, numbered this, handprinted that, etc.  That was
maddening at times.  Personally, I remember a girlfriend in high school who
bought me a Skinny Puppy release (this was 1985ish), but she made the mistake
of buying it on *cassette*, urgh!  I used to be quite evil (which I regret now
that I'm older) to girlfriends musically--the SP girlfriend, I probably dated
her longer than I planned cause she had an awesome stereo system and had a
double tape deck (which I didn't at the time), so I was always over there
doing tape-to-tape edits, and remixes, and the likes of stuff.  Another, I
convinced her to sell all her CDs and buy records cos "records were better".
My biggest sin is I never let the women I'm going out with choose the music
we're hearing.  It's not an out loud, "no, you can't put that on", and if she
puts something on before I do, it's no problem with me, it's just that I'm
always subconsciously "playing DJ", and have been like this since 1980, 1981,
so maybe it's not something I'm going to grow out of.  Hell, I have music
playing even when the TVs on.  I'll be playing records or CDs or tapes when
the TV is on *and* the radio is on and there's a tape or a CD on in another
room.  And sometimes I'll be listening to all of the above and RealAudio at
the same time.  (Geez, if I'm single again, this sure isn't going to get me
any dates, is it :) )  Most of my girlfriends have either a) not cared about
music enough, so the only CDs they had were ones I gave them or b) into
college kind of stuff: peter gabriel, U2/REM/etc, hippy bands, etc (not trying
to offend anyone here, just using "hippy" for the sake of brevity".  My
current girlfriend and I share only one music connection:  we both like Inner
City and bought all their stuff when it first came out.  Though that's as far
as it goes.  She likes "Big Fun" and "Good Life" cause they were good songs
she grew up with; she doesn't follow Kevin Saunderson or anything.  She's also
into stuff like Massive Attack, Horace Andy, and the like.  Any promos I get
that she likes that I don't, I just automatically give to her.  I made the
mistake not too long ago of not joining her in an event that she thought was
megaimportant (that I wasn't interested in *at all*) because I was supposed to
interview some members of UR (which wasn't pretty damn important to me).  I
didn't realize how pissed off this made her until recently:  her new line when
I get to talking about music too much when she's around is:  "...and I don't
give a *shit* about Underground Resistance...".  Well, hey, at least she knows
who UR is :)  re:  "backlog of things I haven't listened to":  back in
1987-1989 when I was in residence at college, I somehow managed to get so many
promos from major labels (this was back when everything was still on vinyl),
stuff like crap from Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Paula Abdul, etc, often
getting the same record three or four times (I'd keep the good stuff on the
independents if it was good) that I had to start skipping classes to listen to
it all.  And then it got to the point where every record got a minute under
the needles to prove itself worthy of keeping.  And then I carted the
get-rid-ofs down to the local new/used store (all vinyl at the time) and
traded it all in for stuff I really wanted.  So at that time, I was bringing
home sometimes 1 or 2 hundred dollars worth of  traded-for stuff in addition
to the promos I kept and there was no way possible to listen to it all.  When
I got the brainless idea to sell all my records and only buy CDs from then on,
half the stuff I sold on vinyl got sold before I even had a chance to listen
to it, and this was stuff I had traded for!  One of those:  if I could have
lived that day over kind of things.  Now, if I get a lot of stuff at once I'll
try to listen to it all ASAP, but I'll sometimes be rooting around and find
some things that I got a few months before that I haven't yet listened to.
This comes from getting a lot of music and not being too organized about it, I
supppose.  (And the majors still send three or four copies of things; it's sad
that some indies can't afford to do any promotion, but majors can be sending
people the same promo over and over and over again).  My biggest problem is
this:  I've accidentally given away things on my radio show as prizes to
listeners from my personal "i'm keeping this release" collection and lost
releases while DJing/out and about and still have no idea where they are.
I'll want to listen to something I have in my collection, look for it, and
realize, "hey, it ain't in my collection anywhere".  Probably somewhere around
here.  My .08, I guess :)  Andrew
--
Andrew Duke Cognition Audioworks
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