Sadness, Wistfulness, and a Tinge of Futility

I possess a strong drive of archiving & record-keeping. In addition to be a near-zealot in terms of cataloging and organizing old photo negatives, I was the original and primary creator and curator with respect to old band recordings, ranging from the earliest days of Time Did Yank Us in college, to the 44 days of Pat, Aaron, & Krista. I have multiple drawers full of cassette tape recordings, ranging from inexplicable marathon, multiple-take sessions of college-aged Pat & Dan buffoonery in the Iowa State Music Hall to mid-1990s performances at legitimate Twin Cities venues such as O'Garas & the Fine Line. And everything in between.

Not only was I making those recordings from the earliest days of my music-making (circa mid-Fall 1990), but I was acutely aware of the posteric significance of them. It was a running joke at the time for Pat & I to refer to moments of dialogue, song introduction, false starts, and various other gallimaufry of material sandwiching actual song recordings as "documentary material." We were conceiving of some mythical Time Did Yank Us Anthology, about half a decade before rumour of the Beatles' effort in that vein ever crossed our ears. So, for years and years, I've had this general sense that someday technology would reach the point where compiling material would be a simple, exciting excercise, and I'd be able to release volumes of it to a joyous public (or at least fairly large circle of appreciative aquaintances). Well, the moment has arrived, and I'm in the midst of it, and I'm experiencing Sadness, Wistfulness, and a Tinge of Futility.

I have a device that allows me to convert "phono-out" jacks (e.g. my tape player) to a USB connection, capturable as a WAV file, using software packaged with that particular piece of hardware. It works like a dream. As simple as "play-record." From that point, I can use a wonderful shareware program called CDWave to (again easily) insert track breaks, name tracks, check off dead space as unneeded, and export mp3s. Beautiful. Unfortunately, listening back to the collection of...there's really no other word for it...crap...simply has not been meeting my sweet rememberances.

Pat and I have a certain knack for songwriting. At least, suffice it to say that writing songs generally comes pretty easy to the both of us, and there songs that we have created that have been thought worthwhile by various people at different times. But what is clear from the very first recording, and continuing on through year three or so (which is where I'm at in this project), is that from the word "go," our concepts and ideas were miles-nay, worlds-nay, universes ahead of our execution. In most recordings, you can catch a spark here or there of a genuinely good idea but the goddamn thing is buried under so many layers of inability to play our instruments or sing that it is almost completely undetectable. At the time, we liked to laugh about our relative inexperience with our instruments, but I don't think we were really even stratching the surface in terms of critical self-appraisal. Anyway, I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that I'm left with a long-term dream of mine (coming away with an interesting and worthwhile historical documentation of my past) being nearly utterly dashed. Perhaps worse, I feel embarrassed on behalf of my past self.

Thank God I was not a solo musician at the time. One value perhaps, of the old Time Did Yank Us recordings is as a backdrop to a future weekend of drinking beer while laughing and reminiscing with the original other member of that trailblazing, childlike duo; none other than Pat Gibbons.

On a sort of side note, while hashing through some of these feelings with Gibbons on the phone last night, we brought up (again) the age old subject of how we had this long-inexorable path forward. From those amazingly humble beginnings, we ended up making a modest run of it by the end of the 90s before beginning to pursue solo ventures. With the piles of documentary material, multiple changes in personnel, and years of stories & material, we've always referred to ourselves as the most documented band that never made it. What's even more interesting, is that we were always moving forward, but just at a snail's pace. I leave you with a great quote by Gibbons: Unfortunately, the evolution of our band was slower than actual evolution.