What is it with music & online distribution? Why not books? I don't know; I know that this is yet another mp3 blog & that I need to get some things straight from the start to avoid misunderstandings.
Scope. First, a little story. About a decade ago, I packed my humble belongings in big crates & boxes, stored them away, & promptly moved out of Greece never to return for more than a month or so. Halfway between now & then, I was reminded of, looked for, found, & unearthed a bunch of tapes hanging in suspension inside their own time bubble next to posters for political demos & hand-scrawled messages from friends & lovers. Finally, a few days ago (& seeing as I made the switch from 'vehemently protective' to 'decidedly sharing' way back when), I decided to start ripping them & eventually post them online for all the other freaks to cherish. Blame tape recorder (& in particular his post about the Radio Utopia tapes), if you need to blame anyone at all.
Content. The tapes in question are demos I traded/bought/came across, live bootlegs I recorded, & a few dozen tapes I dubbed from Radio Utopia (one of the two autonomous radio stations in Salonica which shaped up an entire generation of young people). To the best of my knowledge, none of this material is currently in circulation on the web. I will add vinyl rips & other stuff as I see fit, too; some of my rips will be forwarded to more focused & high-profile blogs, though, instead of appearing here.
Feedback. You are very welcome to provide more information on anything I post - I will even translate it to english & incorporate it into the post if need arises! I have always been a lightweight in any scene I cared for - my contacts with people at the active end have been scarce &, to put it plainly, I'm all around ignorant on many things I'll need to address in this blog. You're also welcome to leave a kind word behind. Apart from that, I don't intend to either network through this blog or explain why this is so. In the resounding words of one of my favorite labels, Heart First Records, at their myspace page: ''People, I will deny your friend request if I do not know you. If you happen to be my friend and you send me generic messages like "thanks for the add" or "your label rocks" I will delete this message and also remove you from my friends. Tough shit.'' You're welcome to leave a link to your blog, if it is relevant to what I do, but do not expect me to update my list of links accordingly - I won't switch links or anything of the sort; we have Totally Fuzzy for those things, if you recall.
Language. I'll be posting in english &, if you have extra info to add to one of my posts, I hope you will do too. If you feel like using another language, keep in mind that I only have a working knowledge of greek, french, & dutch (& babelfish also helps a lot). In the end, though, extra info in any language is way better than no extra info at all, so feel free to disregard the above & use your language of preference.
Trivia. (i) Requests are OK, but useless. I will post what I deem worthy of posting, & that's about it. (ii) There's no way I'll ever rip anything that is still in wide circulation. You are entitled to your opinion (which you are not necessarily invited to post here - this is no forum spearheading direct democracy or anything of the sort); I am also entitled to mine, & this is that underground records (sic) were put out by people who took the time, put in the effort, & shouldered the financial burden of putting them out. I buy them to support the labels & the people involved, & I find solace in the thought that people disagreeing with me will sooner or later cater to your egotistical need of unlimited music for zero cost. (iii) The sites I link are done by people I respect (for my very own reasons) & (notice the conjunction) they happened to come into my radar. The latter fact is nontrivial, since I (occasionally) visit a total of a dozen blogs - & I would like to keep it that way. If I missed your blog, I am sorry, but. (iv) The blog will go on for a finite amount of time - a year or two I expect. Once the blog is gone, there will be no reuploading broken links; I hope that the material posted here will do the rounds via other people, then. (v) All tapes are ripped through the line-in jack on my Mac using Audacity & a cheap walkman bought for 4€ during a clearance sale at my local home electronics store. The recordings are mono & compressed at 320kbps (so as to retain the hiss &/or radio noise in them...) using Max. The radio tapes I mentioned have been originally recorded on standard issue (& some times outright crappy) tapes using a standard issue mini-stereo system; some of the oldest ones have been recorded using a tape recorder & a tuner of good quality , but then again on my parents' old laiká tapes which had been left in the car to melt for summers on end - these are unlistenable (& the entire world is still mourning the loss...). I follow the same procedure for vinyl rips, only the turntable, stylus, preamp, & amp I use cost a good deal more than 4€. (vi) Finally, there is no set post frequency; expect a post once every two months or so, as it takes a long time to get one ready.
Enjoy & thanks for reading.
Scope. First, a little story. About a decade ago, I packed my humble belongings in big crates & boxes, stored them away, & promptly moved out of Greece never to return for more than a month or so. Halfway between now & then, I was reminded of, looked for, found, & unearthed a bunch of tapes hanging in suspension inside their own time bubble next to posters for political demos & hand-scrawled messages from friends & lovers. Finally, a few days ago (& seeing as I made the switch from 'vehemently protective' to 'decidedly sharing' way back when), I decided to start ripping them & eventually post them online for all the other freaks to cherish. Blame tape recorder (& in particular his post about the Radio Utopia tapes), if you need to blame anyone at all.
Content. The tapes in question are demos I traded/bought/came across, live bootlegs I recorded, & a few dozen tapes I dubbed from Radio Utopia (one of the two autonomous radio stations in Salonica which shaped up an entire generation of young people). To the best of my knowledge, none of this material is currently in circulation on the web. I will add vinyl rips & other stuff as I see fit, too; some of my rips will be forwarded to more focused & high-profile blogs, though, instead of appearing here.
Feedback. You are very welcome to provide more information on anything I post - I will even translate it to english & incorporate it into the post if need arises! I have always been a lightweight in any scene I cared for - my contacts with people at the active end have been scarce &, to put it plainly, I'm all around ignorant on many things I'll need to address in this blog. You're also welcome to leave a kind word behind. Apart from that, I don't intend to either network through this blog or explain why this is so. In the resounding words of one of my favorite labels, Heart First Records, at their myspace page: ''People, I will deny your friend request if I do not know you. If you happen to be my friend and you send me generic messages like "thanks for the add" or "your label rocks" I will delete this message and also remove you from my friends. Tough shit.'' You're welcome to leave a link to your blog, if it is relevant to what I do, but do not expect me to update my list of links accordingly - I won't switch links or anything of the sort; we have Totally Fuzzy for those things, if you recall.
Language. I'll be posting in english &, if you have extra info to add to one of my posts, I hope you will do too. If you feel like using another language, keep in mind that I only have a working knowledge of greek, french, & dutch (& babelfish also helps a lot). In the end, though, extra info in any language is way better than no extra info at all, so feel free to disregard the above & use your language of preference.
Trivia. (i) Requests are OK, but useless. I will post what I deem worthy of posting, & that's about it. (ii) There's no way I'll ever rip anything that is still in wide circulation. You are entitled to your opinion (which you are not necessarily invited to post here - this is no forum spearheading direct democracy or anything of the sort); I am also entitled to mine, & this is that underground records (sic) were put out by people who took the time, put in the effort, & shouldered the financial burden of putting them out. I buy them to support the labels & the people involved, & I find solace in the thought that people disagreeing with me will sooner or later cater to your egotistical need of unlimited music for zero cost. (iii) The sites I link are done by people I respect (for my very own reasons) & (notice the conjunction) they happened to come into my radar. The latter fact is nontrivial, since I (occasionally) visit a total of a dozen blogs - & I would like to keep it that way. If I missed your blog, I am sorry, but. (iv) The blog will go on for a finite amount of time - a year or two I expect. Once the blog is gone, there will be no reuploading broken links; I hope that the material posted here will do the rounds via other people, then. (v) All tapes are ripped through the line-in jack on my Mac using Audacity & a cheap walkman bought for 4€ during a clearance sale at my local home electronics store. The recordings are mono & compressed at 320kbps (so as to retain the hiss &/or radio noise in them...) using Max. The radio tapes I mentioned have been originally recorded on standard issue (& some times outright crappy) tapes using a standard issue mini-stereo system; some of the oldest ones have been recorded using a tape recorder & a tuner of good quality , but then again on my parents' old laiká tapes which had been left in the car to melt for summers on end - these are unlistenable (& the entire world is still mourning the loss...). I follow the same procedure for vinyl rips, only the turntable, stylus, preamp, & amp I use cost a good deal more than 4€. (vi) Finally, there is no set post frequency; expect a post once every two months or so, as it takes a long time to get one ready.
Enjoy & thanks for reading.
3 comments:
Welcome,welcome..Κλαψ,συγκίνηση..
Πολύ φιλικό αυτό το ροζέ,παρεπιπτόντως..
Press eject and insert the tape..
First tape inserted - χρυσές μέρες ουτοπικού ραδιοφώνου... Έπονται μερικές ακόμη. Ευχαριστώ για όλα costakisp...
Υ.Γ.: Είναι φιλικό όντως; Ελπίζω τότε το κακιασμένο πρώτο post μου να αποκαταστήσει την αλήθεια...
καλή επιτυχία και να είσαι καλά.
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