Tuesday, September 16, 2003
About half of my fabled record collection is being donated outright to WFMU over the next month. A few of those rekkids will end up in the music library, the remainder priced (mostly cheap) & put out for sale by the station at the WFMU record fair. Frankly, a large number are unsellable. 35% of my collection contains rekkids that may or may not be worth making an effort to sell. I figure to keep the remaining 15% as collectibles, sentimental favs, for cover art, or to put on CD-R. whole or in compilations. I had greater ambitions for transferring to CD, but realize now it's just too big a job even if I had the hardware. I'm a bookseller by inclination, not a peddler of old vinyl.
I've bought maybe five records over the past two years, & pulled a few more out of the trash in front of a local music store. Two of those I haven't even listened to yet. One contains a cut I've occasionally used as radio theme music. Only three, Messiaen's mystical organ suite "La Nativite du Seigneur," an English language version of Schoenberg's "Ode to Lord Byron," & a great o/p 3-disc Vox Box of 19th Century American piano music have spent much time on the olde turntable. These are, to be sure, indications of a middle-aged music lover's ever-refining, conservative taste. Jazz, "classic" avant garde & experimental music are abundantly represented in the WFMU library.
My own collection is weighted with rekkids picked up mainly for radio play when the requirements of a weekly show constantly pressed me for fresh oddities & novelties. After shaking off the habit of doing weekly radio - which took two years & much emotional discord - I rediscovered what truly delighted me: exploring world classical music; that is, what I had loved prior to doing radio. The creative process of free form radio itself was what hooked me to WFMU; I was long aware of what I had given up for it in terms of personal listening pleasure. Once in awhile I could slip the movement of a Danzi wind quintet or some French piano pieces or an overture into a show, or set aside time for a complete raga or Cecil Taylor workout. At home, the Beethoven string quartets & Mahler symphonies gathered dust, for I always listen to these from beginning to end, usually while doing something else. On the radio, I like being in the program, steering the sets, not just sitting back while various wheels spin. Always, I had to think ahead - What do I play this week? It was hard to relax into a long composition at home. Now, when do fill-ins, I force myself to play at least one long piece of music.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
I've bought maybe five records over the past two years, & pulled a few more out of the trash in front of a local music store. Two of those I haven't even listened to yet. One contains a cut I've occasionally used as radio theme music. Only three, Messiaen's mystical organ suite "La Nativite du Seigneur," an English language version of Schoenberg's "Ode to Lord Byron," & a great o/p 3-disc Vox Box of 19th Century American piano music have spent much time on the olde turntable. These are, to be sure, indications of a middle-aged music lover's ever-refining, conservative taste. Jazz, "classic" avant garde & experimental music are abundantly represented in the WFMU library.
My own collection is weighted with rekkids picked up mainly for radio play when the requirements of a weekly show constantly pressed me for fresh oddities & novelties. After shaking off the habit of doing weekly radio - which took two years & much emotional discord - I rediscovered what truly delighted me: exploring world classical music; that is, what I had loved prior to doing radio. The creative process of free form radio itself was what hooked me to WFMU; I was long aware of what I had given up for it in terms of personal listening pleasure. Once in awhile I could slip the movement of a Danzi wind quintet or some French piano pieces or an overture into a show, or set aside time for a complete raga or Cecil Taylor workout. At home, the Beethoven string quartets & Mahler symphonies gathered dust, for I always listen to these from beginning to end, usually while doing something else. On the radio, I like being in the program, steering the sets, not just sitting back while various wheels spin. Always, I had to think ahead - What do I play this week? It was hard to relax into a long composition at home. Now, when do fill-ins, I force myself to play at least one long piece of music.
