Leaping and Bounding

There's nothing that will make you sound more like an old timer than going on and on with comparisons to the "old days". Whatever the "old days" were, they were generally a time when everything was less expensive, less complex and less technical. For me, the "old days" were the '60s and '70s, definitely a time of simplicity, technology-wise. I can't remember a single device, appliance or tool common to most households at that time that a child couldn't operate, save perhaps a sewing machine. Sewing machine technology hasn't changed much because engineers haven't yet found a way to make it more complex than it already is.

Fostex 4-Track Cassette Recorder

I've always been technically-minded to a degree, so as I learned about certain technologies, I wanted
to get my hand on them and learn to use whatever it might be. When video recording began to mature in the 80s, I wanted to learn video editing, yet it usually required expensive hardware that I didn't nor was likely to possess. Video mixers and multiple playback/recording decks were essential, and only the most rudimentary editing was possible unless you had access to the high-dollar hardware that only professional studios and television possessed.

When I learned what multi-track recording was in the 70s, I wanted to experiment with this as well, learning the technologies that the big boys used to make all those hit records I loved. This, too, was out of reach. I didn't even own a 4-track recorder, one of the first accessible multi-track devices. The 4-track was an advanced cassette deck that would record using all 4 of the tracks on a conventional cassette tape, allowing you to create overdubs and to bounce tracks. This was big technology on a small scale.

Multi-track recording progressed. Hardware improved. Stand-alone multi-track machines were developed that used hard-disk and the CD-burning technology common to personal computers, allowing home studio amateurs to mix-down to CD, the going media format at that time. Companies like Fostex, Boss and Tascam were making some happening units then, yet I still found myself on the outside.

My first video capture card, now an obsolete dinosaur.

The strides that personal computing took in the new millenium made many of these things accessible. Those were sweet, heady days for me. I saw all of these technological dreams materialize right before my own eyes.

In the early 2Ks, I built my first computer, a Pentium-based machine (the first machine I built, not the first I owned). Though I don't recall the specifics, the RAM was in the sub-GB range and the HDD wasn't much over that, probably in the 40-60GB range, still spinning at 5400 or less. XP was the OS of the day and was new on the scene.

I had discovered the accessibility of video capture hardware and editing software and was determined to build a machine that I could use to edit video. I bought an entry-level capture card and Sony Screenblast Movie Studio,  Ver. 1.0 (now called Vegas Movie Studio after its parent). Vegas was software that gave me the ability to do complex things, such as video layers and multiple audio tracks on my own computer. With Vegas, I learned the simple beauty of a fade when compared to the coarseness of a whole catalog of other transitions, all which now seem utterly silly and amateurish. I have been able to make quite a few passably good DVDs with Vegas, my limits usually being my own skills and creativity.

I also later bought a Firewire audio interface and an entry-level DAW, Cakewalk's Music Creator. This was my entry into multi-track home studio recording. I've progressed through two versions of Music Creator, to ProTools and am now using Sonar X2 Producer. I love recording technology a bit more than video technology, as cutting edge results for video are out of reach and progressing faster than I can keep up with. Recording, on the other hand, gives me professional-level results with the hardware and software I have, the limits again being my own skill and creativity.

There's a whole lot more to be said, too, if I should include digital photography and Photoshop, but I'll leave that for another time. 

Technology, while it hasn't led us to Utopia nor has it solved any of the truly weighty issues of our time, has liberated creative people in many different ways. These are but two ways technology has liberated me and given me access through doors previously locked.

For the Love of Good Music

There was a lot going on in the year 1976. It was the Bicentennial year for the good ole US of A. I was in the 7th Grade, on the cusp of manhood. My musical tastes were blossoming into what would be my preferred tastes throughout the rest of my life, or at least thus far.

The album package and poster

My loving parents, especially my mother, supported my new musical tastes. At this stage, they were still rather innocent. I had not yet happened upon Aerosmith, Mahogany Rush or Van Halen, so she was unworried and unconcerned. One Christmas, they bought me a record player. It was just that--nothing more or less--yet I loved and used it. I was a cheap, inexpensive unit, too, but that didn't bother me either.

I had been a Beatles fan since I happened upon a few of their 45s that my dad had brought home with many others he had found in an old, defunct radio station. I had bought a couple Beatles anthologies on LP afterwards, and I can think of no better music to cut one's teeth on. Regardless of what you think about the Beatles today, they were unarguably the best songwriters of that era, perhaps of all time, at least in the pantheon of rock and roll. Given this fondness, I also liked the post-Beatles work of Paul McCartney.

In 1976, McCartney and his band, Wings, toured the US, recording a live album in the process. It was a great work, covering the entire live set and spanning three LPs, titled "Wings over America".  I purchased it as soon as possible. The price then was princely for an LP; I'm thinking it was about $11-12. Yet as it was three records, not one, it seemed a better deal. The album itself was a work of art, as many were in those days. The centerfold was a painting of the band on stage, showing all members of the band. I later discovered it was derived from a series of photographs of the individuals taken on the tour, later rendered as one work. You notice when seeing it that something is missing:  a bass player. This oversight was certainly not an issue for the artist and bugs probably no one else but me.

The Centerfold

I listened to WoA over and over and over again. It became, and remains, one of my favorite pieces of music. The guys playing with McCartney at that time were among the best, and he was at the top of his game as a songwriter, arranger and musician, not to mention as a showman.

Another poster included with the album

If my recall is correct, at one point one of the disks was damaged by heat, rendering the set unplayable in its entirety. WoA eventually disappeared from my rotation. Over the following years, I tried to find it on CD, and was unsuccessful. The copies I did find were overpriced, fetching $50 for the 2-disc set. Fast-forward 25 years...

A couple of months ago, I learned that WoA had been re-released on CD. Best Buy was selling a special package of the set which included a bonus disc of recordings from the WoA tour recorded in San Francisco. On the way home that evening, I dropped by Best Buy and snatched one up.

Even now, these weeks hence, I love having rediscovered this album. WoA gave me a love and appreciation for live music which has endured until today. I'm not a huge fan of live recordings per se, but there are a few live recordings in my Top 100 list.

Here's to Memory Lane! May its pavement always be free of potholes!