Music Store Geek

I'm finally ripping my cd collection to an external harddrive, and it's allowed me to rediscover a great deal of music that used to give me pleasure.

I turned to the screen at the exact moment when I hit 10,000 songs. Magical.

What's odd is, that with a seeming years worth of playing time, I still recognize just about every song I hear on shuffle. How much of my life was spent listening?

Nearly all my Roky Erickson. Ten different RL Burnsides. Buck Owens. Bob Wills. Jimmie Rodgers. Howlin' Wolf. Yves Montand. The Modern Lovers. Link Wray. The Monroe Brothers. Vic Chesnutt. Lefty Frizzell. I'm working through the back of the wallet which became the depository for cds bought in New York City, maybe around 97-99. That was what I listened to then. And it's good to hear the old music once more.

I have one wallet left to go, and I've already worked on a chunk from that. But what remains is monumental: nearly the entire Dylan back catalogue. All the Velvet Underground. Every song Hank Williams ever recorded. Every Tom Waits cd except for two that are now in the hands of ex-girlfriends. The Harry Smith Anthology -- including the rare forth volume. The Band. Gram Parsons. The Byrds. Whaling ballads. I'll end, dreaming of the great white whale.

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Should I say it was great to hear the old music, both old in terms of my own past and the past of much going before my own like eyeblink existence. The Dufflebag put the tv on. He's watching a show about seacreatures that scream at each other. One of them is a sponge. The old tunes sounded all the better and even more necessary, but I had to turn them off. They can't defeat screaming starfish. Two ships collide, one dies.

I can still check on the beans. They are still a little hard, but the taste would be perfect if they softened to just where I want them. I've been listening to Bill and Charlie Monroe. It is, after all, a baked beans kind of night.