The Music Will Never Stop 67

The next tape… well, I sorted them out a little more. I have tapes numbered from 0 through 5, then I through IV, and then a bunch with letters or a blank. (A letter usually meant it was recorded off LPs, and it was an initial, e.g., Z for Zappa, M1 and M2 for the Moody Blues, D for David Bowie, etc.)(D because B was reserved for the Beatles.)

So I decided to do No. 0.

A note of explanation: In the summer of 1973, between my freshman and sophomore years of college, I had a day job in a ladder factory in my home town of Bedford, MA, but spent evenings and weekends hanging out with friends, including my now-wife Julie, many of whom were still in high school or had just graduated.

One of the local churches provided space for a weekend coffeehouse where local teens could hang out without booze or dope. They had live music as often as they could manage. Several of my friends volunteered at the coffeehouse, and several acquaintances were among the performers.

So I hung out at the coffeehouse, drinking tea, and I recorded several of the acts. That’s what tapes 0 through 5 are, at least in theory. Tapes I through IV are other stuff I recorded live various places around Bedford. In theory.

So, Tape #0 — I don’t know why it’s zero instead of one. The writing on the box is badly faded, but appears to be dated July 14, 1973. The title is completely illegible. There’s a sticker on the front that says “NEEDS EDITING,” and an insert on lined paper listing songs.

The first forty minutes or so are a coffeehouse performance by a bluegrass band; if they have a name, I either didn’t write it down or it’s in that faded-to-illegibility title on the spine. The tape starts in the middle of a song, so apparently I didn’t get there early enough to set up in advance. There are eleven more songs in the set, including at least one original; they’re mostly classics (“Rocky Top,” “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” etc.), but “Lookin’ Straight Ahead” was introduced as a song Allen wrote (whoever Allen was), and a couple of others I don’t recognize.

There’s a lot of crowd noise; at least once someone knocked over one of my microphones. And the sound quality leaves something to be desired, but I’m hoping I can clean the heads again and maybe get a better playback, because the actual music is pretty good.

One factor to consider: At least nine of the eleven songs are bluegrass standards, and frankly, pretty much any decent recording of them is going to sound much the same — it’s not an art form where there’s a huge amount of individual expression. One rendition of “I’ll Fly Away” sounds much like another.

So maybe I should just get myself an album or two of bluegrass standards and give up on this mess.

But I did edit and save it. It’s not great, but it’s here.

After the bluegrass set ends there are a few minutes of two of my sisters playing the dulcimer and limberjack (an Appalachian toy that doubles as a percussion instrument) and singing “Going Up Cripple Creek” and “Go Tell Aunt Rhodey.”

I saved that simply because I don’t have much by them, especially not from the one who died in 1986.

And then, inexplicably, there’s what I thought was the soundtrack album to “A Clockwork Orange.”

That’s what it said on the list, and it sounded reasonable — but it’s wrong. What I actually have here is “Walter Carlos’ A Clockwork Orange,” which is the album Carlos released because he wasn’t happy with some of what Kubrick did with his music. It’s all the music he wrote for the movie, regardless of whether it actually made it into the film, and doesn’t include any music performed by anyone else.

I have all of Side 2, which I recorded first, and about half of Side 1, which cuts off in the middle of “Timesteps.”

Side 1 consisted of “Timesteps” and “March from A Clockwork Orange,” the latter being (intentionally and openly) heavily derivative of the Fourth Movement of Beethoven’s Ninth. As I may have mentioned some time ago, I had another tape with a few cuts I thought were from the soundtrack, used to fill out a side. Now that I’ve finally realized I was working with a different album I’ve been able to identify all the pieces I had there; three were duplicates I’ve now removed, and two… well, they were actually all one track, “March from A Clockwork Orange,” where I had mistakenly inserted a break during a brief pause.

So I now have everything from that album except the last three minutes of “Timesteps.” The quality isn’t great, but it’ll do.

That’s Side 1. For Side 2 the insert just says “dance music (contra).”

So I played Side 2, and yes, it’s contra dance music. Where the hell did I get this? The sound quality is excellent. On the first few tracks it’s a full band — fiddle, pennywhistle, and I don’t know what all.

The insert says it’s not the entire side, and it’s not — but it’s more than half. Some of the later tracks are just recorder or piano, not the full band.

There were thirteen in all. I saved ’em, and will see if any of my surviving sisters can identify them.

The final forty minutes were blank.

Another tape done.

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