One result of the ongoing great loft clear-up of 2001 is that my tape collection is starting to be visible beneath the latest excavated geological layer. And buried in the current strata are - my me tapes! Tapes of me! Playing… stuff. Anything and everything amassed over 15 years of musical noodling.
Of course, 99% of them are atrocious musically, and the phrase “production values” doesn’t exactly spring to mind when listening to them. But what the hell, I started digging them out and listening to them and digging them anyway. Some real fun stuff there, from the early days of Peyote Fly the Chillum Egg (the original Light & Sound Department, who were the original Mystery Guests/Toxic Avengers [who never actually existed anyway] who, by way of a long break, were the original Gulch, who were the original Caustic, who were the original Cathy Ray… the first and last band I have ever played for) through all of my during & post-University experiments - the fluctuating personnel & random jams of the Adavasi, the flutey swinging not-quite-so-but-still-pretty-random jams of the Tommy Jazz Quartet, and the completely of the wall randomness-defined of my free jazz spats with Ed & other willing collaborators.
Took a stroll with a walkman (first time I’ve done that in ages) and had a wonderful time. Bought (yes!) a copy of Cool Edit so I could experiment with ripping cassettes to MP3… and set myself another task that will never be ended, there are so many of the fuckers, but I want to get some of these wee bursts of noise where I can catalog them (hmm… touch of the High Fidelities, I feel). Watch this space.
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