Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Musical Treasure

I have been searching through a treasure trove over the last couple of days, otherwise known as a cardboard box. I had wondered fleetingly over the last few years what had happened to some of my old records and tapes, the ones I knew I had somewhere but could never find. I’d assumed I’d given them to someone and hadn’t got them back. Then my sister mentioned that she’d been clearing out her attic and had found a cardboard box full of cassette tapes and a bag full of records. She asked whether I wanted them or should she just throw them out. Throw them out??? What!

They were delivered to my house over the weekend, and it’s been amazing hearing them again. Not only the ones I knew I had ‘lost’ (e.g. the Factory Records ‘Fact 10c box’ containing Joy Division’s first album, Unknown Pleasures, along with the album cover postcard, old Woodentops, Quando Quango and Rip Rig & Panic albums, The Wild Swans’ incredible ‘Revolutionary Spirit’ single), but also many blank tapes I had recorded stuff onto from the radio up to 25 years ago, a recording of Radio Scotland’s ‘Beat Patrol’ show from the mid-nineties featuring my band, early Aztec Camera live in Glasgow, and much more I haven’t had a chance to listen to yet. Tantalizingly, many of the tapes have no information on them at all, so I have to play them to find out what’s on them. A few tapes haven't survived the decades and won't play properly, but most sound fine, so far. I have to restrict myself to playing them while cooking dinner or I’d spend every hour with them, but I have found recipes that take a reasonable amount of time.

Here's the Wild Swans:

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