Shellac / Mule Split

This is it. The last 7".

The purpose of this blog was to chronicle the process of turning this trunk of old vinyl I had sitting in a corner unopened for nearly 15 years into a more modern and convenient format. I had almost all of my LPs as MP3s already. The 7" records, however, were an untapped gold mine of cool and strange stuff that you just couldn't find anywhere else, and I thought it would be great to have access to these songs anytime, anywhere.

This blog gave the conversion process some structure; just rip a record a day and write something, anything, about it. And I pretty much did this, every day for last few months. Entirely self-inflicted, of course, but I needed that discipline to get through the pile of vinyl. Along the way, a lot of old memories got shaken loose, and I enjoyed dumping those out into the void of the internet. That added some semblance of meaning to this whole exercise, I suppose. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. But now the trunk sits, empty.

I'll admit that I enjoyed it so much that I've been dreading the end, and I've been thinking, "Well, I could rip newer stuff, track other old stuff down from back then and rip that..." and while I think I will do that once or twice a week, it won't quite be the same. They won't be from the trunk. I'll just be writing about other peoples' music, not my music that followed me from apartment to apartment across this state and back again a few times. But I'll give it a shot. Look for something this weekend.

This 7" is the last thing I bought and put into the trunk.It's from the spring of 1997. I have no memories of this one, which pretty much sums up my final days in the Valley. Luckily, there's a price tag on it, so I have some clues. If I had to guess, I'd say I was killing time before work and I wandered into the relatively new Newbury Comics in Amherst. I bought this hoping to go back in time, to 1991 or so, when I was buying lots of these little records and the Valley was still new and fresh and full of promise. Things had changed by 1997, and I was desperate to start my life all over again, and within a few weeks of buying this, I packed my shit into my beat up old Buick and moved back to Gloucester, even though it nearly killed me to do it. My lack of memories here just confirms that while it's mostly been fun reconnecting with my 20 years ago self, the present day is truly where I belong.

A: Shellac, "The Rambler Song"
B: Mule, "Beauteous"
Enjoy!

The final tally: (because I like numbers)
441 songs, 20.7 hours of music
811 listens in iTunes (doesn't include listens during rip)

Shortest song: G.I. "I'm James Dean" - 0:17
Longest song: Lydia Lunch "Three Kings" - 7:25
Most songs (not including LPs):  Sebadoh - 15 

Top 5 (my picks, off the top of my head):
1. Big Black - Heartbeat
2. Dinosaur Jr - Just Like Heaven
3. Urge Overkill - Now That's The Barclords
4. Sebadoh - Gimme Indie Rock
5. Unrest - A Factory Record

Worst:
Bewitched - Hey White Homey

Most Popular according to you: (as of 3/23)
1. V/A - Alice Cooper Tribute (incredible since its only been up for a few days)
2. Big Black - Heartbeat
3. V/A - Smells Like Smoked Sausages EP
4 (Tie). Breeders- Head to Toe
4 (Tie). Mudhoney - You're Gone
4 (Tie). Sonic Youth/Mudhony Split 

If you have any comments on this whole thing, I'd love to hear them. You can also email me at mprescottm -at- yahoo -dot- com

Thanks again for reading, stick around for the next chapter, whatever that may be.
Matt