This is my storage space.
I would say 50% of my storage space is cassettes and videotapes. Maybe more.
I am paying a hundred bucks a month to house cassettes and videotapes!!!! What the....?
Unfortunately for me, most of these tapes have things on them you can't get just anywhere! Demos, gigs, rehearsals, family stuff, who knows what else.......I' m not talking about getting rid of your old store-bought cassettes of Phil Collins' 'Hello I Must Going" and "Get The Knack"! I'm talking stuff where it's the only copy on the planet! Not stuff that used to be on your car floor!
Someone told me I shouldn't even look at it, I should just dump it all into a bin and be done with it. Hmmm. Dump it all into a bin. I shouldn't even look at it, I should just dump it all into a bin.
Easier said than done, as someone once sang, easier said than done.
If you look again, you might notice a small rectangular box on the right, it's atop the front "pile". You see what I'm talking about? You might not know it, but that box contains the most ancient of Life Out Of Balance tapes, the oldest of the old, going back to 1985. It holds thirty-six tapes. About 3,240 minutes of sound. Sounds like a lot but in fact that's just the tip of the iceberg!
When a friend of mine told me he had a working Tascam Porta One cassette four-track, of 1980s vintage.....ie: the EXACT machine Ted had....
(a pic of a Tascam Porta One)
(I had the more desirable Porta Two.....and so did my friend, but he wasn't going to lend me that one! LOOB recorded some of their early demos on a Porta Two like the one pictured. It had two extra inputs and six effects sends...the perfect machine!)
......where was I?....oh yeah, when he told me he had this great unit from days gone by, and that I could actually borrow it....indefinitely......well...when am I going to get this chance ever again?.....and so I have determined, so help me Rodd, that this year I am to digitize my entire storage space, starting with anything I have on 4-track....digitize the lot and be done with it!!! Then maybe I can dump it in a bin!
This is where you come in, this is where this blog comes in. Here is where I will post the Life Out Of Balance portion of what's in there so that all participants can have access to it.....not a small undertaking! It's going to take many man hours, a strong stomach, a willingness to forgo sleep...maybe some pot, for old times sake.....but at this point, at age 45, soon to be 46, it might not be a bad time to confront this elephant before any more time goes by, before there's more dropout on the tapes, before I go through yet another incident of water damage wiping out large amounts of my possessions! I don't know how often I'll be able to get something done to post, and it's not the only stuff I'll be digitizing (and posting elsewhere, if at all), nor is digitizing my archives the only thing that I am working on at the moment. But hear ye, hear ye, one and all....the vault has been opened, and I have entered the premises!
Who knows what I'll find?
Look at this!
Here's the back.
I'd say it feels like yesterday Hubie, Ted and I were in my bedroom, singing, strumming and laughing..... the truth is I barely remember such an occasion! It most assuredly only happened that one time and appears to be one of the few occasions Life Out Of Balance didn't have a tape machine running!
Anyways....there it is. I feel like I have a charge, a mission, I've got to do it, if not me, then who? The truth is I'm quite happy and really excited to do it because, as Hubie wrote to me recently in an email: "LOOB YEARS: SOME OF THE FONDEST TIMES IN LIFE!"
Chickaboom, boys! Watch this space!
