Part 4 of 6:  Tales from the Tapes

So, aside from my Sony D5 cassette recorder days, where did all of this archive responsibility gain it roots?  Mutual passion breeds opportunity, I guess.  Before we met, Daveand I were admittedly obsessive about our tape collections…..that was why we met in the first place.  Usually, after a morning and early afternoon full of class time, we’d meet up at Dave’s dorm room and spend hours just listening to and recording tapes, sharing stories, and planning the next road trip.  At first, I didn’t see Dave as a musician at all as just a lover of music….and all kinds for that matter.  In addition to his GD tape collection, Dave had a huge vinyl collection…most of it being bands or musicians I had never heard of.  Most of those were kept at his home in Richmond.  He always missed his records during those early days…..and until the first time I went home with him, I didn’t really understand his emotional tie to that record collection.  But then I got it.  When he moved out of the dorms, number one on his list was to bring that collection down to Athens….it really is just a part of him. It’s music but I think it’s also about romancing the vinyl. When he recently relocated from our neighborhood in Athens to the other side of the continent, that vinyl made the trip…but all of those tapes from the past did not. So, here I am now, 25 years later and I’m still getting hand me downs. Now, I’ve got all the cassettes, all the dats and all the cds that Dave accumulated over the years, so they’re part of the vault too. So anyway…now back to that normal dorm day.

Dave always liked to decorate his cassette tape j-cards by adding some freaky colored pencil art work.  Not being an artist myself, and not trying to imply that Dave was either, it was always neat to watch them take shape.   I still associate some of those early 71-72 GD tapes with his j-card artwork.  We always liked the spacey shit…hence the nod to the spacey artwork. Once it all segued into WP, Dave’s roommate Tom expressed himself as well with some early Uptown posters. And lots of others started popping up too.

As time passed, Dave brought the bass out.  He had talked about his bands from high school, Midnight Jam and Broken Cheri, that played the debutant parties, but never in a way where I felt he was pursing becoming part of a band.  Not that he couldn’t play.  I just never saw him play with the future being the focus until he was with JB and Mikey…..whereas with those two they were always musicians first and foremost in my mind.  But before that time, Dave was just playing his bass in the dorm room by plugging directly into his stereo and playing over the top of whatever music we were listening to.  I’d just check him out nailing that “Other One” intro right along with Phil.  To the non-musician like me, it was magic.  And that’s about when I realized that the whole high school band thing, as well as the tape and album collections, was a little more that I thought….in terms of what spot music already had in Dave’s life.  On the GD summer tour in 1984 up in Saratoga Springs, NY, Dave remarked to our crew during the show that he’d like to end up being on stage himself….with his bass.  I’m not sure we took him seriously at the time, but I know he had intent in his comment.  And then after seeing JB perform that fall and Dave remarking that that guy needed a bass player….and then that chance meeting with JB’s friend Neal….and then, of course, finally meeting JB and Mikey…..well, Dave effectively changed his major.

 After meeting JB and Mikey, we used to go see those guys play music…either together or just JB…at King Avenue more than anywhere else, but also at places like TK Hardy’s, Abbotts and Harry’s.  Those two continued doing the duo thing on into the WP experience as they used to get together from time to time with just their acoustic guitars. Those nights were always pretty cool as they gave us a different take on the familiar….and we got some things that weren’t so familiar as well.  Speaking of a different take on the familiar, I once shared with JB my take on the opening lines to “Chilly Water.” JB’s always had this righteous way of letting the listener find their way through both the literal and/or figurative meaning of his lyrics…..rather than allowing his own take to unintentionally become theirs.  In trying to cross that bridge early on, he felt my take on “Melted crystal in my hand,” was out there but worthy. But, you just never know what you’re hearing sometimes. JB seems to have that ability of keeping us on our toes by knocking us off our feet.

Once I moved to Atlanta in 1989, I’d make my way back to Athens from time to time to hang with Dave……if he was around.  As usual, our conversations revolved around music and family and all the adventures he was having on the road.  Having the insight (talk about brain power) that all those old WP analogue tapes from the late 80’s were just collecting dust and were prime for becoming misplaced or lost forever, I took the leap of faith of asking him to let me hold onto them for safekeeping.  I think Dave was relieved to unload those tapes to my care….and he literally gave them to me in a black garbage bag.  It’s been interesting meeting people from time to time that ask me if that whole garbage bag thing was really true. True story all the way through. I remember there being a couple of other people over at his house and them voicing the opinion that I was one strange dude for even wanting those tapes; and even stranger for having come all the way from Atlanta just to pick them up.  You betcha…strange indeed!  And from then on, I’ve gotten calls from the Brown Cat office telling me to stop by…that there was a box of tapes for me.  I gotta think it was the trust, safekeeping and the give a damn factor.

First the give a damn factor. In the early days…speaking of 86-88…I don’t think the band thought too much of themselves as a band. Let me explain. In the early 90’s when those old tapes were landing in my care, I was always extolling the virtues of that early panic. I always expected them to see some musical value in that early stuff, but they always seemed to brush it off as not understanding why anyone would ever want to go back and listen to that era. That always confused me because that time period was obviously the foundation of where they were at the time….and was the root of why people came to love what they were doing. Looking back, I don’t really think I understood how much they were looking forward…..and that those comments were forward-thinking rather than self-deprecating. Hell, I love that old stuff. It’s nice having so much music out there in so many different formats….be it live (of course), recorded for an album/cd, practice sessions, soundchecks, radio broadcasts and interviews…where from time to time we can visit any era of their history and relive a bit of our own. So yes, I gave a damn and still do.

Now for the trust and safekeeping. As I have said before, I’ve been given more than enough rope to hang myself many times over. I’m not complaining, but it’s tough not to feel a little torn between spreading some great music and holding true to your word……being true to the band’s wishes of only trading certain tapes and letting certain recordings remain in the vault. To make it even tougher on me, it was ok for me to play those untradeables for others….I just couldn’t make them copies. So, an ethical dilemma of sorts. Making copies was out of the question, but would merely playing those tapes be cruel and unusual punishment for my friends…and eventually lead me down the road of caving into the pressures of those friends wanting copies of those tapes? But, over time, only listening by yourself is cruel and unusual too. So, though some life experience, I found out what trust and safekeeping was really all about. I found out how to say, “No” politely and how to make up for that by just making a lot of “allowable” tapes for those friends. I did have a couple of times where I found out who my friends really were….but isn’t that always the case? For better or for worse? In the end, it’s come full circle because now with the WP Archive series, I finally get to let my friends in on some copies of those previously untradeable tapes. Granted, it’s a little more involved than copying a cd, but I think the incredible sound we’re getting off of those multitracks has made it worth the wait.

On my way back to Atlanta with that garbage bag I had no clue of what was to come – even in the short run.  All I knew is I couldn’t wait to get home, start listening and making tapes.  In due time, with lots of analogue and digital audio tapes (dat) but with no dat deck, I was seeking out someone to assist me in transferring those old analogue tapes to a better medium….and at the time that was dat tape and/or cds.  And real time. Through some mutual friends, I met these guys Mark Kabella from Oregon and Dave Rapetti from Tennessee.  They sent me a couple of dat decks and I got to work.  I felt I had two responsibilities….first one was to get these recordings out to the fans and the second was to get them stored in a non-cassette tape medium.  I thought the best way to do this was to make copies for a few people that seemed to know what was going on and then let them have at it.  And it worked as both took the transfers, gave them a little garage engineering……and of course spread them around.

Around the same time, I met Ted Rockwell and Will Duckworth who were in the early stages of compiling what was soon to become The Everyday Companion. The complete dissection of that garbage bag of tapes became the source for the majority of the first 3 years of the WP’s setlists. And Ted got in on the tape thing too.  As did people like Hardy Ross and Brian Sofer.  I met both the same way….through taper ads..…but the difference was I met Brian in person not too long after that, but it took me a quite a while to meet Hardy.  Brian, of course, has been in charge of the weekly MP3 offerings on the WP website and for a time was responsible for the website as well.  And now he’s a musical artist in his own right.  And as far as Hardy goes, he’s still got the taping fever. He’s one of those old cassette and dat tapers that, even though not a current taper down in the trenches at today’s shows, has embraced that current technology and transferred a lot of his old recordings onto the digital trading platforms.

My involvement with the EC was certainly a turning point for me in terms of how I saw the band becoming more widespread….but more importantly, it was one of those times I truly realized the effect the band had on others. And I also realized that my old D5 analogue taping days had gone out the window and were being replaced, almost yearly, by technological advances that just had me chuckling to myself about what a caveman I was.  I was still holding onto the days of vinyl, 8 tracks and cassettes….and I still do.

Two shows that bring back some memories…taping or otherwise….are Chattanooga 11/30/1994 and Antioch 7/21/1999.  Chattanooga for the reason that it symbolized a show where the band still had an early days feel.  Being my birthday…and midweek if I recall…my friend Bobby Miller made the trip with me.  We had dinner with Garrie and Dave at some sort of Western Sizzlin’ type place.  Uneventful except for the Beatles-style Happy Birthday song by the 3 of them….complete with drums and vocals.  Once back at the venue and prior to the show (still in the “no set list” days) I remember hanging out well into the stated show time in the backstage area and finally someone saying hey there is a show tonight.  And then a bandmember asked what the hell they wanted to play, to which Mikey replied, “How about Business, Machine, Barstools and Wondering.”  They headed out on stage and I took my place by Wes at the soundboard.  The feeling of of seeing your friends take the stage as you take your place in the crowd is always surreal to me……and I never have grown tired of it or used to it. And doubt I ever will.

Still more to come…..
Horace