Thursday, July 06, 2006

Whirlwind Week

This week has been a whirlwind. After a fun Tuesday night Ron Titter Band throwdown at Hole in the Wall, I drove to San Antonio Wednesday to conduct a second interview with Tejano music legend Sunny Ozuna. I'm finally getting down to business in writing a feature story on him for the Chron. It should be coming out July 21, one week prior to Ozuna's July 27 show at Antone's with Ruben Ramos.

Otherwise, it's all move-related stuff for me. As always, the single biggest pain will be moving all my seldom-played vinyl. I should just give most of it to Goodwill (which is where I got a lot of it in the first place), but it's hard to part with an album you sort of think you might want to hear in two years.

For example, what if someone brings up "Say What You Will" by Fastway in conversation and I decide I have to hear that song again? Right now, I have a 25-cent vinyl copy of Fastway's self-titled debut album in my collection. I've probably listened to it once, and then only to hear "Say What You Will," but I'm glad to know it's there. If I get rid of it, I'll have to either find another used vinyl copy, buy the CD or download the song for 99 cents. That's no bargain.

One of these days, I'll have to start transferring all my B-list media to some sort of massive external hard drive, but that's a long-term project I'll probably still be working on 10 years from now if I'm not killed by a huge pile of falling vinyl first.

For now, better to tax the ol' lumbar and move those stupid crates one more time.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think about what to do about my vinyl every time I move. It's amazing to me that it's somehow heavier than anything else (books, CDs) I own. But my policy has always been to hold onto an album until I replace it with a CD.

Of course, I have tons of vinyl records that will probably never be on CD (like my beloved copy of the self-titled record by one-shot 80s rockers the Unforgiven). Yet, I too rarely listen to them.

Damn music junkie mentality.

Michael

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I always spiral into a pit of vinyl resentment when I think of how much it has cost me to repeatedly move those $.25 Goodwill "bargains". I bet I've spent $5 on each of those lil nuggets. But, god!, I love them! I think I'm gonna weed pretty soon. It better be under 12" or a damn fine album or it's gonna hafta go. I'll trim it to 200 this time, I swear!

Vinyl apologist that I am, it's still hard to argue with the convenience & economics of digital. I can haul my entire digital collection all over the freakin' country on my teensy little iPod or laptop. Sad. True.

I reckon I'll keep what I love & download the rest.