bkdelong

I've spent the last few days recreating a piece of my adolescence - a cassette tape of mixed music given to me by my friend Erica Quin (affectionately known as EJQ) on October 9, 1993. You see, Erica was mostly responsible for the type of music I spend most of my time listening to. (The other, of course, are influences from my mother of all people and the hours of Celtic and New Age music that wafted through the house during my childhood).

"Why do that?" you might be asking yourself? Why live in the past? Well, this particular tape has phenomenal memories with it. When I'd get some new music as a kid (through college), I'd play the thing over and over until it was ingrained in my head and I was bored of it. One such "memory" of actually listening to the tape is when I was cleaning the garage one fine summer weekend at home. However each of the songs remind me of some of the most fun, intellectually stimulating, and "living life" times I've ever had - it reminds me of NoHo, Massachusetts (Northampton to you laypeople).

I remember spending many an evening at the Iron Horse Music Hall listening to some great folk, Celtic, or singer-songwriter music. I can remember drinking bitter (but real) hot chocolate in the basement of The Haymarket Cafe - a used bookstore piled to the ceiling with old books with comfortable places to kick back. I remember looking at all the fun, useless stuff at Faces being sure to catch all the Polaroids of previous patrons on the wall before I headed out the door. I remember cruising through the shops in Thornes Marketplace and stopping by the Northampton Ticket Office to see what musicians were coming through the area, picking up a calendar but never using it. I remember frequent visits to Pride and Joy for wacky and off-the-wall buttons and bumper stickers while sneaking peaks at the toys in the back. I remember eating cold Sesame Noodles and Sesame Chicken with a cold Stewarts Root Beer at the Vermont Country Deli. I remember filling up a 3lb bag of candy at Sweeties. I remember it all and more.

*shakes off fog of flashback* I have a very sensitive memory. Not that I can remember things down to the detail....and I even can have a lousy short-term memory. It's just that certain smells, songs, and tastes will bring back a flood of memory that can sometimes go to when I was a toddler. Like there's this Billy Joel song (can't remember it off the top of my head) that I associate with this one Kings Dominion (Virginian Amusement Park) trip I took with a church group back in middle school.

Anyway, putting this musical puzzle back together hasn't been easy. At first, I figured I'd look for the tape....it couldn't have strayed too far from the case it was given to me in. However the organizational state of my office (or lack thereof) made that a rather boring and tedious possibility. So I took to the Internet, hoping I could piece this fabulous mix back together through MP3s found on various P2P music trading sites. Since most of my waking daylight hours are spent glued to a computer screen with WinAMP playing my huge 20hr playlist of music, this seemed like the most logical decision.

My task? To find these songs:

Side A:
Hole in the Bucket - Catie Curtis
French Illumination - disappear fear
(?) - Jane Siberry
Only for a Little While - Heidi Berry
Kill the Messenger - Shawn Colvin
Into the Fire - Sarah McLachlan
All Souls Night - Loreena McKinnett
Dance Without Sleeping Place Your Hand
- Melissa Etheridge
time after time - everything but the girl
Witches - the Cowboy Junkies

Side B:
Thanksgiving Fall Upon Me - Poi Dog Pondering
This Eye Circle - Edie Brickell
Everything Possible - Fred Small
Testimony Ancient Mother - Justina and Joyce
African Ivory - the Samples
Disneyland - Dada
Come a Long Way - Michelle Shocked
Alright for Now - Tom Petty

So I started with the songs I already had - which unfortunately only consisted of "Thanksgiving" from Poi Dog Pondering (which I downloaded a few months ago while I was reminiscing) and "Ancient Mother" from Justina & Joyce. I also had "Testimony" from their "So Strong" album but when I ripped that CD, I forgot to get the track info and lost the listing. So I finally looked on CDDB tonight to figure out which track "Testimony" was. I would have had "Into the Fire" from Sarah McLachlan but I haven't seen my "Solace" CD for at least 6mo. I also thought I got "All Souls Night" off one of my mother's Loreena McKinnett CDs when I ripped them a while ago. Also, I have most of Catie Curtis' stuff but not the CD with "Hole in the Bucket".

So I started a WinAmp playlist with 3 songs out of the 22 I needed. The next step was to hit the P2P music programs to see what I could dig up. So when I fired up Napster, I was incredibly disappointed to see how few files were currently being shared. Since all the Napster chaos hit, it all went downhill. I used to be able to find anything. So a few Google searches later, I came up with "Morpheus" from Music City. FABULOUS. Not only to they let you do MP3s, but video, images, documents, and software as well. I really didn't care about the rest - I was more interested in my sound files. I also gave Gnutella and Aimster a shot but the former didn't seem to connect to anything and the latter crashed several times before I uninstalled it.

So simultaneously using Napster and Morpheus, I found "Kill the Messenger", "Into the Fire", "All Souls Night", both Melissa Etheridge songs, "time after time", "Witches", "Fall Upon Me", both Edie Brickell tunes, "African Ivory", "Disneyland", "Come a Long Way", and "Alright for Now".

That left me without: "Hole in the Bucket", "French Illumination", some song by Jane Siberry that I had no title for, "Only for a Little While" from Heidi Berry, and "Everything Possible" from Fred Small.

Let's break this down....I had a lot of difficulty finding ANY early Catie Curtis and anything from Fred Small or disappear fear would not be found on either service. However there were tons of Siberry and Berry. The question was....am I looking for the right thing? So I started with Heidi Berry and quickly discovered there was no song titled "Only for a Little While" and a swift browse later at the lyrics for her albums resulted in finding "only for a little while" is the chorus for her song "The Moon and the Sun". That was easy to find and download.

Next was Jane Siberry. How the hell was I going to find a song for an artist that I had no title for? I was doing this downloading on a dialup - not convenient if I had to download any song of hers that came up. So I hit her Web site. She was one of those rare artists that had short MP3 samples of ALL her recordings. Short enough for me to download in 20 seconds. So I started with her fifth album (the only one that would have been brand new when the mix came out). No luck - however one of her songs from that album showed up on another mix I received 5 months later. I tried the second album. BINGO! "The Life is the Red Wagon" started playing and my brain shot back into Northampton - this sone was definitely on the mix.

Finally I got everything added to my WinAMP playlist and listened to it. Damn. The Tom Petty song was a live version...had to download the original recording from the album. Urg...."African Ivory" skipped during the ripping process - the Jane Siberry song had too many pops and gurgles. Need to find clean copies.

So here I am, downloading a new copy of the Petty song while listening happily to the songs I did find and with just a short list of songs left to find: