WOEBOT

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Since last July I've been copying my friend Steve Caruana's CDs. I've just finished. These CDs are his rips of his entire 7" collection of vintage Roots Reggae. This numbered about 3,000 singles, though you'll find this figure varies every time I quote it. He sold them (groan) before it was a lucrative thing to do. Steve isn't bothered. He's pretty oblivious to material concerns. He backed the collection up on VHS too! Ever heard of this? Well VHS has a fat receptive bandwidth. Imagine that, piles of VHS's with no images on them, just Reggae. At the moment Steve is in Africa (this from an email 2 days ago): "Just back from Benin, off to Burkina Faso after the big yam festival here." He's been building mainframes in Togo. Also picked up Malaria out there. The only thing you need to know about Steve, however, is that he has impeccable taste.

I thought these CDs constituted a real resource* (Steve baffled). I mean 75% of this stuff has never been issued on anything other than on subsequently deleted yard 7"s. Half of it are Dubs, as Steve always records the Version/B-sides. My plan was to copy each and every one of the 150 strong collection onto new CDs and ID tag each track. Many of these CDs are over 10 years old and showing it. Uniformly the most painful labour has been struggling with discs reluctant to give up certain tracks. This can take hours. By the process of tagging not only will a PC/Mac recognise the CD when it's inserted through Gracenote/CDDB but also I will be able to rip the whole collection as mp3s/AACs with track info embedded in them. I've been torn over whether to share this stuff. Another friend has been keen I give him the whole collection and dump it on his FTP server, thereby making it freely available to the world to download. Then I read this from the liner notes of (my own copy) of Sylford Walker and Welton Irie"s "Lamb's Bread International", Sylford's wonderful LP for Glen Brown's South East Imprint (reissued by Blood & Fire): "It wasn't until 1989, when Glen Brown secured a four album deal with UK independent Greensleeves Records, that Sylford's songs finally saw their first album issue, a decade after they were recorded. Sanachie also issued the set 'Lamb's Bread' on CD that year. Sadly it failed to sell enough during the period of the contract and remaining stocks were sold off cheaply as 'cut-outs.' A tour planned to promote the set never materialised; thus a disillusioned Sylford Walker remained on Gold Street, where he continued to eke out a living for himself, his wife and their three children, by selling roots drinks and juice to his fellow ghetto-dwellers." Which came like a bucket of cold water. So actually I'm not sure WHAT I'm going to do with this set. I've been toying with the idea of giving some reasonable-sized donation to a Jamaican charity, just for the pleasure of copying the tracks, but that's just a load of sentimental bollocks, and would probably be swallowed up by inefficient bureaucracy. Having said all this I WILL be offering up copies of the collection to one or two lucky (deserving) parties.

Check these randomly selected examples for the kind of intense labour the tags have taken me per CD:

No comments on the music here I'm sorry to report. That'll come later.

Not always helped by Steve's spidery handwriting:

The next, though smaller, task (sigh) is to rip the fuckers. The question being mp3 or AAC. (As it goes in the shampoo ad) Now for the science. AAC is the new Dolby created standard that will supercede the mp3 standard. Currently it's used in all DVDs, and people with golden ears (not like old deffo here) say it equals CD quality, yet the file sizes are tiny. What's the point in ripping this huge valuable resource to mp3s, a soon-to-be-superceded standard? I tried to discuss this and other matters on the iTunes board chez Apple. But sadly went about it in the most obnoxious manner imaginable (in fairness to myself I didn't realise I was going to upset people) I just got carried away with *THE MISSION*, demanded to only speak to the finest minds and greatest authorities (shielding own eyes- OH NO! WHAT WAS I THINKING?). So if you want to have a giggle at my expense and see me suffer at the hands of a succession of worthies then go to Apple>Support>Discussions>iTunes Music and watch me writhe. I'd link you directly, but since my last rant I've "hung-up" and not gone back. Fear and shame. Actually I was quite startlingly obnoxious (titter). Jess, former frog prince of ILM, would have been proud of me! On the other hand, if I hadn't been such a fu**ing modest mouse my entire life, I might have achieved something.** Nah, I take that back, I'm a lucky man! To return to the subject in hand (ahem) I think I'll go the AAC route. Winamp have a plug-in for the format already, and supposedly there are more and more players on the market that work with it, not least the iPod. If you have a suggestion DO PLEASE email me!

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*Me data fetish! Nah!

**These online scraps REALLY haunt me. This to amuse you: The morning after my Spizzazzz fight the doorbell rung at 8 A.M. I thought (cold): It's that eCrunk, he's not a Geology Student he's a bloody 7 foot tall gangster from Hackney with a 6 pack like 50 cents, a slum computer wizard, and he's come to break my arm. So I answer the telecom (clear firm, but unrestrainably posh) "Hello." No answer. Then I flash (deeper terror): Christ he's gonna email me, and he's gonna say. "8 A.M. Sunday. We know where you live loser!" Apparently Eden thinks that (deep down) I love all this confrontation, trust me I don't. Or at least I don't think so.

Posted by Woebot at September 9, 2003 01:04 AM