Recording devices should have been made not only for mass producing and capitalizing on another's musical ability for profit. They were, most likely, an invention to get bored people with money to buy another sure cure-all for their woe.  Ballroom dancing was not doing it.  Baseball was still getting organized as a game with rules, and lets face it, the early Bicycles looked funny.

When They finally discovered how to go from tin cups and a string--to a shellac disc that recreated everything within earshot of the microphone, they instantly secured a foothold on a now century long industry--Musical Recording for Infinite Reproduction.  They were going to make a shitload of money.

But lets face it, by the late 1980s, people had for the most part moved on to CDs.  Just like in the early 80s, everyone and their mother bought a collections worth of casette tapes.  Just like in the 70s, people had left records behind for 8 track.

But records have a nostalgia, what Don Draper on MM termed "the pain from an old wound."  If a typical person has a cassette that doesn't work, he does what we would all do--he pulls the shit out of the tape inside until it's spaghetti, then he throws it away.  If a CD gets a scratch, we don't run out and buy a "CD Scratch Repair Kit" anymore--we chuck that sucker out the window at the nearest highway sparse of cars.  And 8-tracks, well--we just dispose of those.

What do we do with a record?  When it's greying, scuffed, hissy, crackly?  We keep the damn thing.

Why?  It could be worth something.  Maybe we can sell it.  Maybe it is fun to hear the old "Hello Ma' Baby" frog sounding 1920s humans singing silly "ditties."  Maybe it's the novelty of the thing; they are now so old they are rare--almost new.  IPODs are certainly not new.  They are--but they don't seem new and exciting.  CDs become background after the initial sensation of buying them.  But records make us think, take us away, give music value.  Tangible value.

We don't have much that makes us think of Grandma who passed years ago, or reminds us of our youth, or for some is a glimpse into another time--a simpler time.  Others like the hiss, like the crackle--as if it lends authenticity to the listener.  As if the person could keep and earn that sort of realness and value.

I like 78 Blues records, but for the way I feel, not for the value they bring at auctions.  I like their artistry, and their rawness, and their otherworldliness that I so much need.  But I also like them because they remind me that all things pass, and all things were once beautiful and sad, and all things carry on, even in the solitude of one man's basement far ahead in time. 

Blind Willie Johnson is my favorite.  He is a quasi-Blues guitarist, but is really a sacred singer singing about Jesus, but playing slide guitar better than Clapton, better than Muddy, better than the modernity titled King, Robert Johnson.  He has a well known one called "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground."  Has been in many movies, was featured prominently in Scorsese's Blues documentary.  It even went aboard Voyager in 1977, and is somewhere outside the solar system now.

Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vjslb1g3PI8 for y'all aint never heard it.

To me, this is a great piece of recorded music.  Especially for reproduction.  This is so emotionally charged, dark, deep, and human it is sublime.  But I have a distinct luxury in hearing it from the actual shellac disc from 1927, on an old worn Columbia 78.  Hissy, crackly--like a nearby campfire--and full, a full range of sounds.  Collectors say these old records our grandparents stacked in milkcrates sound warmer and fuller than any technology has produced lately or since.  What technology has done with the car, the disposable cup, the cheap one time use camera's that are "throw-away" for 4 dollar--they have also done with our soul--music.  Right now, I can access any song ever recorded on any number of free or pay websites, but I really don't get much from it.  I can't tell where it is, what it is coming from, and how old it is by how it sounds.  It has no tangible identity.  It is air.  Just air.

A record has a tangible side.  It has authenticity, like scars from battle.  It has come from the storms and floods of 1927, and made it alive.  I can hold it, smell it, and hear deep inside the 80+ years since.  I experience it; not just hear it.  I feel it inside of me.

That is why people like John Tefteller and the artist R. Crumb have spent years and thousands of hard earned dollars searching after these seemingly disposable items.  That is why a Robert Johnson 78 in even the worst possible shape is bought for $3000.00.  A record is more than just sound and air.  If you don't believe me, go to a thrift store and buy a record player, and a few old Lightnin Hopkins records off of eBay.  You'll thank me.

I can't explain to my wife what is so addictive and captivating about collecting records.  I can't explain why.  All I know is that they have more value than the most expensive gadget or techno tool put out by Microsoft or Apple or whomever.  Not monetary value mind you, but just plain old value and worthiness--the kind of an old 56 chevy (no seatbelts) that completely totals an 08 Malibu, yet has barely a scratch.  The value of a carpenter's level handmade in Germany back in 1890, as opposed to the one most handymen use from Sears or Wal-Mart--that is old, wooden--yet it as perfectly balanced and straight and accurate as man can make. 

So what is my purpose here?  Why this topic now?  I don't know; for some reason it seemed to be on my mind tonight.  It seemed fitting for the air out there.  I can see that we live these lives of little consequence, of little reward, and spend our lives buying and selling items of no worth.  We rarely know how things are made, or how old they are, or anything about the value of things anymore.  Things are nearly intangible. 

I can't touch my Mom who I'm chatting with online.  I can't feel the true sense of outrage, the true loss of death and destruction, because CNN repeats and loops the same image every five minutes until it is no longer affecting or powerful.  I can't feel the experience of life, surrounded by machines that have no authenticity or value beyond their original sale.

If this were an ad, I'd probably say: So if you feel numb, lonely, purposeless, sick of cable and the repetative motions of life?  Turn to forgotten, forlorn and obsolete technology.  It, at times, like Ice Cream, a beer, nicotine, and ice cold water--is the cure-all for a cold, dark night alone in a world controlled by machines.