Sunday, January 7, 2007

It's 7 AM: Do You Know Where Your CD, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Is? I have a pretty good sized CD collection and up until yesterday my CDs were scattered at various locations through our universe. Well they were close - some in the truck, some upstairs on a closet shelf, others in storage boxes up and down. I think you are getting the picture. While I had a pretty good idea of the overall collection (mind you, it's over 700 CDs) I didn't really have a clue where in our universe a particular CD was located. If I was running a radio show (which has long been a recurring dream vocation) I would be fired for not being able to find anything. Okay, to get to the point. Serveral weeks before Christmas we saw a picture of a CD cabinet with 24 drawers resembling post office boxes. It looked like the solution to a long standing problem.  It came the week before Christmas but with everything that was going on, it barely made it into the house before we left for Mexico. Until yesterday that is. I unloaded the CDs from the closet and they were in no particular order. Numbering about 400 they covered the guest bedroom bed, chair, and (don't tread on me) parts of the floor. After spending no more than 10 minutes thinking about how they should be catalogued, I went with alphabetical. (Sidebar: Have you ever gone into a music store that has been organized by genre? Some artists defy categorization, or straddle rock, country and folk.)  I decided to group my jazz and blues CDs into one drawer - actually about a drawer and a half, or the same amount of space as my Bob Dylan collection. For reference, a drawer holds 19 CDs with a little space to get your finder tween 'em. I started this little project around 7 AM and finished just in time to settle in and watch the most boring playoff game in the history of the NFL. With timeout for a brief lunch that is close to 8 hours. I was shot for the rest of the day - my back and knees were killing me from all bending , kneeling, crawling and climbing up and down the stairs with 40+ stacks of slippery jewel cases. No mishaps, falls, broken cases or frisbee slung CDs. I had to make some decisions about what goes in the main cabinet and what stays remote, but at least all the CDs are in one of two places. This sorting work was of course accompanied by some of the least played CDs of the last 15 years. A side benefit of this kind of effort is that you find everything that used to rock your life. I was playing Loose Diamonds, Darden Smith, Paul Brady and other music that I haven't heard for 10 years or more. Right now I am listening to a New Riders of the Purple Sage live album that was recorded Friday, June 13, 1975 at the Armadillo World Headquarters right here in Austin, Texas. In the grand scheme of things, what I did yesterday matters more to me than whether the Dallas Cowboys won their playoff game. (They did not, managing to lose the ball at the Seattle one yard line on a botched field goal attempt.) I will get over that pretty fast - can anyone say, this afternoon. Being able to find my long lost Luka Bloom Riverside CD, or The Best of Chris Rea makes me feel pretty good. So the next time you stop by, just make your requests and in about a minute I will be able to get my hands on just what you are looking for - even if it's Frank Sinatra Duets, or Will Nelson singing about Pancho and Lefty - or maybe you want to hear the original version by the songwriter himself Townes Van Zandt, live from the Old Quarter in Houston, Texas. I got you covered.  Hey, RiverDog Halle just poked her cold nose under my arm, so for now it's RD out.  Have a great day wherever you are! 7:17:56 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2007 Dave Raaum.