Thinking about that last review...

I don't know, but I think I'm tired of reading about what a musical archivist RPC is. In essence he isn't that different from many people I know who play music. We're all shaped by the things we heard when we were growing up. My dad listened to a lot of country and western music. So around the house we had Merle Haggard, Jimmie Rodgers, even Tex Ritter playing a lot. My mom, on the other hand, like big band music, pop singers like the Ames Brothers, and maybe some BB King too! And then as teenagers, my brother Al and I were deeply into the British Invasion! The Beatles, the Who, the Searchers, and some American stuff too, surf guitar from the Trashmen, the Beach Boys.
One day I came home and my dad was sitting on the porch, listening to records. He had stacked ten albums, and they were Merle, Tex, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, a million selling singles collection of my mom's (which featured "The Naughty Lady From Shady Lane" among others)...well, you get the idea. Music was whatever we felt like putting on the turntable...and I believe we've kept that freedom into our separate families, my brothers and I. My sons listen to rap, hip-hop, Johnny Cash, Oasis, the White Stripes, you name it...and they also riffle through my CD collection from time to time. For instance I wasn't been able to find my copy of the Mothers of Invention's Freak Out CD for a while (it was in Jesse's CD shelf!)
I am trying to organize my own personal listening collection, in preparation for uploading to my new MP3 player. After looking at iPod (both shuffle and larger models) I was talked into getting the Cowon iAudio U3...mainly because it has 2GB of storage, a screen, and it's possible to record on it! I'll review it later, when it actually arrives. But the big question now is...what music do I put on-board? Do I think thematically? Do I make it artist driven? Should it be like sitting in front of the stereo, with your record collection and playing whatever you feel like...2 songs from that one, a b-side here, an album track there? It's a challenge.
And as we all become musical archivists, dumping the songs of our life onto personal storage facilities...how is that any different from what RPC does? Except, he takes all that he's heard, and learned, and re-channels it through his own consciousness, and makes something that is at once old and new. More power to him! And one thing that's going on the MP3 player for sure is...My Name is Buddy...and...Chavez Ravine...maybe some Mambo Sinuendo...the Pahinui Brothers...