see end...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Karl Miller" <karl.miller@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Graham Newton <gn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
***One very important issue comes to mind which collectors
probably all
should address while we still are of sound mind is the following
question:-
***When you finally croak, what happens to the collection that you
have spent
a large portion of your life accumulating and cataloging, not to
mention the
money you probably have invested in it.
***The problem is that we know what happens when an aggressive
bean counter
comes in looking for new space, saying "let's dump all that old
crap...
Graham,
Hopefully Mr. Smolian will jump in here as I believe he has had
some success
in matching collections with institutions.
From my own experience, I would ask a potential donor what their
expectations might be. And, as my friends know, I am a firm
believer of the
notion that the "bean counters" have taken over and the chance of
stopping them
is slight.
For a mulitude of reasons, some of which you have articulated,
(I can supply
a ton of horror stories if you like) most of my friends have opted
for willing
their collections to the "last collector standing." I already have
a garage,
and what was once a potting shed (my wife, the gardner in the
family, is the
understanding sort), full of a collection owned by one of my
friends, now
deceased. We are selling it off to benefit my record company. As
for my own
collection, I fully expect it to end up in a dumpster.
While I am hopeful that the "trickle down theory" will apply,
and that other
insitutions will, at a level proportional to their holdings, follow
the lead of
LoC; but at this point, I can only hope.
Okeh...first, the ">'s" are NOT accurate in the above!
Then...to KM and other interested listeners:
The situation is not only worse than you imagine...in fact, it is
worse than you CAN imagine!
We know what current "pop music fans" prefer...endless inane lyrics,
sung or spoken, laid down over a computer-generated version (badly
done...!) of the "funk" rhythm first laid down in late-fifties R&B
and then effectively brought to perfection by "James Brown and the
Famous Flames!" It goes without saying that ANY music not fitting
into that category may as well not (or never have) exist(ed?!).
The main function of to-day's "pop music" is to validate the
listener's(s'?) existence through being played through a
gazillion-watt "system" running at deafness-inducing levels in
one's impressive motar car...?!
Now, imagine fifty years down the road...! All of these musically-
intentionally-illiterate individuals will have become "Old F...
ogies," wanting nothing more than a nostalgia-inspired relisten
to the music they recall from a Viagra-free youth...!? In odda
woids, our descendants of 2057 (If Dubya hasn't successfully
turned the planet into a highly-radioactive cinder inhabitable
only by mutant cockroaches...?!) will be paying $400-500 to
attend nostalgia-based musical events such as "Once Again!
Puff-whomever triumphantly returns to the stage (complete
with a walker and his own oxygen line...?!).
Can we assume that any interest will still exist in older
songs with more complicated melody lines and chord structures?!
ASIDE from the fact that as 78-ophiles die off of old age, it
will eventually become unprofitable to offer players therefor
(as well, in fact, for ANY analog format...?!)
So...if you own not only 78rpm PHONORECORDS, but also an apparatus
to obtain audible sound therefrom...it is YOUR job to keep this
increasingly-obscure audio format ALIVE...!
(My great-grandfather just died, and left me a whole bunch of
records of some sort...but nobody I asked knew howinell how to
PLAY the sumbitches...?!)
Steven C. Barr