At the risk of sounding somewhat old I feel that the experience of getting into the scene isn't nowhere near as exciting for someone who is in their late teens right now. Compared to how I got into it I believe that technology such as mp3 downloading and the internet has sucked the soul out of it all and that there isn't a sense of achievement. People can be a so called 'expert' in just a couple of weeks; by which I use the term 'expert' loosely as the internet can often harbour erroneous information, or information that has become watered down and told 3rd or 4th hand and lost some authenticity along the way. Kind of like copying a video tape or audio cassette to death and it all becomes somewhat muddy and vague.
----- Cue Dvorak's 'New World Symphony -----
When I first got into it all, there was no internet at my disposal. Well, there was but back then there wasn't the world wide web as we know of it today; it was more of a primitive text based system called BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) with slow data transfer speeds that were a lot slower than even 56k dial up (I think even ISDN had yet to be invented, which was the half way house between 56k dial up and ADSL/Cable). Barely anybody had the internet, not even college. It was more the preserve of Tefal headed lab coat grey beard computer types that used computers in laboratories for important scientific stuff, or the seriously rich and brain damaged. Downloading films and video was the stuff of fantasy.
The best sources were referring to older friends, rifling through music magazines, or perhaps consulting 'cool' members of the family that were really into Black Sabbath, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sex Pistols, Motorhead, Saxon, Deep Purple or something like that and maybe raiding their album collections; In fact I'm referred to as the 'Cool Uncle' in my case where a couple of my nephews and nieces have asked me about music advice and have helped them form a rock music taste of their own styling. Another source was also to consult music magazines, and to pour over a copy of Kerrang (before it turned to shit) and Terrorizer (which for some people has become the Extreme Metal version of Kerrang nowadays, opinions differ wildly). Usefully, these magazines would also come with a free tape (all the way back then) with a pick of tunes that their scribes has recommended.
If you were into the more extreme side of music, people went as far as tape trading. Were bands would release demo's to their fans as long as they sent a stamped addressed envelope along with a C60 audio tape in a jiffy bag which was a big thing and very important for spreading and promoting the fan base for such and many established bands of today started off in this manner. In fact, if you check eBay for certain bands, early demo recordings like this can often fetch high prices. And tied in with such things of this nature were fanzines, which were self published magazines that were literally done on a word processor and photocopier (even typewriter in early cases) which were published in a completely underground nature, usually advertised in the back of bigger publications with an address as a PO Box number so that they could receive payment and place orders. Although, when I got into it all this kind of thing wasn't quite as popular as it once was but the option was available.
Another option was the ability to watch Noisy Mothers, carefully recorded in the small hours onto a VHS cassette in timer mode while I slept. Very rarely, I had the option of watching the original MTV Europe's 'Headbangers Ball' hosted by Vanessa Warwick or '120 Minutes' which was crammed with music from a more alternative side of the spectrum. Sadly, my father was a bit of a prick and wouldn't let me watch it that often (although I bloody made sure I recorded it when they pissed off on holiday, that was a certainty).
By and large, the best measure was to visit a record shop, that either dealt with second hand and/or brand new vinyl (although when I got into it all CD's were obviously available but expensive compared to the pre recorded audio tape option). My usual weapon of choice when I first started off was the far cheaper option of audio tape (compact cassette) which usually started off for around £6-7 to around £10 at the most, CD's fetching more of a higher price at an average of £15 which was a a massive difference if you were a skint student that spunked a lot of his college grant on an album collection and a couple of nice band t shirts, leather jacket, and some Doc Martens. As a fork of this, new band pointers could also be found in the liner notes of the albums pointing to influences what got them forming a band, or mentions of their friends bands they had toured with or knew and thanked in the album sleeve credits and musical gold could often be struck there.
To establish my music collection, I first started off with the cheaper audio tape option occasionally having the good fortune to borrow a CD now and again off college friends to record on a shiny new TDK cassette and removing the top tabs so that they recording could not be accidentally erased; the fortunate thing in my case was that my parent's Hi-Fi was half decent and able to make decent recordings of these albums. Which was a good thing as my folks had bought me a very decent Aiwa 'personal stereo' that had a decent digital radio, bass boost and treble function combined with auto reverse and that all important Dolby B Noise Reduction (mine was much posher than what most people usually owned).
Later on, I left college and started work with all empowering 'massive amounts of cash' (at the time being a mere 19 years old). With this money, I went so far as to spend my first full wage or two on looking out for full hi-fi separates of my own so that I could enjoy my music fully. My folks had bought me a dodgy Chinese midi system at the time but it became temperamental and started chewing the odd tape now and again despite keeping the tape heads clean with a tape cleaner. On occasion using a cotton bud dabbed with some methylated spirits to clean the pinch wheel, capstan, tape head and rollers to keep the audio sounding as best as it could. I distinctly remember punching it in anger when it chewed up my brand new copy of Cannibal Corpse's 'The Bleeding' which I had only owned for a week (which caused that much excitement that myself and a friend sat off in the college cafeteria bunking a lesson with a headphone adapter to listen to it with two sets of earphones).
I first started off buying an amp, record player, and CD player put through Sharp speakers that came from a 70's music centre that I got hold of; purely on the grounds of that it had a really good record player for some of my records that I had bought and 'made do' with that for a few months. As soon as that kit was obtained, the music centre was scrapped which I had obtained from a second hand shop (no eBay back then, either).
By far, the best part was when I bought my Mission speakers with the following months wages and THEN the fun began. WOW – my music had become reborn (what little I had on CD and vinyl as it was mainly tape) and I spent many an hour locked away listening to tonnes of music and fully savouring it, not answering to anybody, switching off and truly sitting there enjoying the wonder of how amazing my albums now sounded. With more detail, and instrumentation that had previously become hidden buried in a slurry of lo-fi mush, revitalised and crystal clear. The ability to follow each guitar note, bass string, drum stomp and general musical fizz. A high quality tape deck was also obtained at that point, an Aiwa ADS 750 with not only Dolby B, but also C and S type noise reduction along with Dolby HX-PRO for truly excellent quality recordings.
I sat there religiously and recorded them onto high quality TDK 'SA' or 'MA' (Chromium Dioxide tape particles or Metal Oxide) cassettes and used the record level control for peak volume control for the recordings, and carefully watched the power meter lights to make sure they didn't go over into the red and distort the recording. Even going as far to carefully measure the minute and second readings on the display so that I can manually fade out a recording if there wasn't enough room on the cassette. Due to the quality of the recordings, I often referred back to these high quality tapes to save playing the vinyl to keep them in pristine condition. This was also very useful and portable, and I was able to enjoy my vinyl and CD's wherever I went, making a careful choice of several tapes to take with me before I left the house.
Due to the 'mass amounts of cash', I would think nothing of blowing £100 in one session to go and buy a load of albums, sometimes a hell of a lot more. For me, thus ushered in a golden dawn of music for me as I now had the kit to play it back on and I was no longer a skint student that didn't have any money. I became an avid collector of vinyl in particular; even going so far as to purchase anything that was before 1986 on vinyl (as to purchase it on CD was sacrilegious and not its intended format when it was originally released). My music taste branched further, getting albums by Pink Floyd, The Mission, Kate Bush, Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, and not forgetting more recent stuff on vinyl too as the ownership of them just felt better in general, with a bigger canvas for the album artwork than the poxy square that is a CD booklet, not forgetting that rock and metal suited vinyl more in my opinion and had better levels of bass and a more soulful feel to the sound rather than the sometimes cold mastering of a CD,
I often found the odd rare or original pressing of a vinyl too, and got the occasional picture or coloured disc; although the sound quality of them varied wildly as some used literally coloured vinyl (I have an example of Faith No More's 'King For A Day, Fool For A Lifetime' on blood red vinyl where you can see the specks of black where the machines had changed to different 'inks' to produce the limited edition batch in question), while others used various synthetics and plastics (I have a copy of Soundgarden's 'Superunknown' on transparent vinyl which sounds strangely nasal no matter what I do to the Bass and Treble controls, although I preferred to leave the tone controls switched out so that only pure sound entered the speakers). My collection spiralled and grew out of control.
Then I got broadband, and like many others snorted music off the internet in copious quantities, soon upgrading to a mp3 compatible CD player that could play back CD-R's of music (carrying between several albums per 700mb disc) and then a Creative Labs 40gb mp3 player. Which then gave way to buying my first Archos, an AV500 with 30gb of hard drive, TV dock and remote which I could pipe through a TV with ripped DVD's (created with DVD Shrink and ImToo DVD Decrypter), and MP3's – audio and video on the go; finally selling and purchasing an Archos 5 120gb with TV dock into 720p HDMI to where we are today and what I own now. Sadly, the Aiwa personal stereo and Sony Minidisc remain squirrelled away in a cupboard that previously provided me with many man hours of musical enjoyment on my travels here and there.
Now, there is audio and video on the go and even some music on my smart phone (Samsung Galaxy S2) with a Bluetooth A2DP earphones/mic combo for emergencies which I always carry, but I feel the buzz of obtaining music isn't the same as it used to be. I fear that the younger generation of 'Alternatives' out there will no longer have the same buzz of getting into music or new bands in the same magical and grass roots manner that I got into it all. The technology available at my disposal is truly wonderful, don't get me wrong; I love my Archos 5 and all its video and audio goodness that I can suckle from via its touch screen teat; with 120gb you can often stand there figuring out what the hell to play and it's so horribly convenient. Nowadays, you can be a so called expert in a few weeks, and the internet will provide you with all the information about if said band is still going, or why they are no longer going. To me, it lacks a soul.
The bovine masses, appear to be more than happy with just downloading, legally or otherwise and it has now spread to films and even the humble book is getting killed of by the Kindle and the iPad. A work college explained to me the 'delights' of having iCloud, and all musical, video and app data been able to be shared across an Apple TV box, iPad, and iPhone. As 'wonderful' as this is, and how useful this can be it leaves me cold despite having similar non Apple devices at my disposal.
What concerns me is, do others still do what I do and visit a record store or even buy a CD online? Or is this something that is only confined to the Goth or Metalhead, who takes their music far seriously than the normalloes and the bovine masses do?
Will our pursuits be a dying and anachronistic practice? I for one will still fight for my preferences of my musical enjoyment and will try my best to keep it alive along with like minded people.
Music isn't a bunch of files on a hard disc – it's a physical entity with a soul of its own, unleashed via the playback of a CD or Vinyl.
Keep it that way, keep it alive.
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