I recently visited my friend's record store (Okay, I'll plug his buiz. "Graham's Used Records and Collectibles") and looked at something I have been eying for a while. A boxed set of CD's, not records, of The Velvet Underground with artwork by Andy Warhol on the box. I think the set is called "Peel here and see" but am not sure.
Anyway, I just listened to the first CD which was comprised of demos presumably recorded in someone's appartment( I'll check the liner notes later) on a mono tape recorder of some kind. Wow! If you are fans of The Velvet Underground you probably should look for this somewhere or come visit me for a day so you can hear it.

Apart from the cool experience of listening to these recordings, being more a fan of the "idea" of the band and Lou Reed's poetry rather than being blown away by their musicianship, was hearing how they were recorded.

I have mostly been impressed and in favor of new technologies that make recording what it is today. Unlike some people I know, I don't usually mind the "sterile" atmosphere of digital recordings. But this box set really has taken me back to a good place in my memory. Not to the era of The Velvet Underground( I wasn't born til 1970) but to the early days of my musicianship. A friend and roommate of mine would spend hours in a damp dark basement writing songs on our guitars and trying to record them on a cheap cassette tape recorder, trying to place it just right to pick up each of the instruments and voices clearly(or clear enough).

Man that was a blast. And we would often sit back and listen to the "tapes" afterward and dream of playing out and making one of those newfangled CDs we were hearing about everywhere.

I have been recorded several times since then in studios on reel-to-reel and digital media and have to admit that the sounds we were trying to make at the time were captured more accurately in that atmosphere. But, oh to have one of those old tapes to pull out and listen to now.

I may even try to do a recording in the dark, damp side of my basement with my old tape recorder, if I can find it. But on Stick, now rather than accoustic guitar.

Mike
Okay, take 27, everybody!