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Sunday, 20 April 2008

About once a month or so I get asked to make CD’s of some old cassette tapes or records. Many people still have no idea how to do that, and since they know that I can do it, some come to me. I don’t mind that, as long it are nice people and if the sounds that are to be digitalised are worth it. I mean, I would never do it if the music is easy available on CD. But usually it are recordings of deceased family members, scratchy 78 rpm records, or old cassettes with dear radio recordings. This week I have done some recordings for two people: a lady who had a tape on which her long dead mother played piano, and man who wanted his favourite meditation LP’s on CD. While I am typing this I am listening to one of these LP’s, Raga-musik aus Sud Indien by Chicci Baabu und sein Ensemble.
So far I have never charged any money for doing this work, but making CD’s of these meditation LP’s feels so much like work that I promise myself never to do this again, unless I get paid for it. First of all I think that the man is smart enough to do it himself. I actually even demonstrated to him how to do it on his own computer, but he pushed me to do it, saying that he didn’t understand it, but I think he is just lazy. And I was too weak to say no at that moment. And secondly, people like this guy make more money than I do, so I don’t understand why I am so stupid to do this for nothing. But most of all: I don’t like the records. Music for Zen meditation by Tony Scott for example. I have two copies of that LP and never listened to more than a few minutes to any of them. And God knows why I bought two copies of this record!
The guy also put a country LP between the meditation LP’s, which might be a mistake, but I think it is just a sneaky trick. It is the LP This side of the big river by Chip Taylor. I can hear that it is good, but this kind of music is completely wasted on me. Too melancholy, too sentimental, to little rock’n’roll. There was one track that stood out a bit, but probably only because I had so little interest in the rest. “Big river” is, probably not by coincidence, the only song on the LP that is not written by Chip Taylor, but by Johnny Cash.
There is video of that song on YouTube; Chip Taylor seems a nice guy to me, and the way he talks about Johnny Cash is more than friendly. Maybe I should have kept the LP?

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