I was absolutely certain that today I'd be writing about the new Bittersweets record. "Wreck" pretty much grabbed my attention by the collar and said "You Will Buy Me! You Cannot Get Away From Hannay Prater's Voice!! You Will Obey!!!" Yeah, a trip to the record store seemed inevitable.
But "real" life has a knack for getting in the way. Basically, I worked so hard in the afternoon that I completely forgot about the danged store, packing up my computer and heading for home while the sun was still peeking over the tree tops. Three quarters of the way home, while standing next to my car at a gas station, it hits me. Duh!! Man, that's even more annoying than the lunch that TheWife™ had packed for me that I managed to leave in the fridge earlier in the day.
So last night, a writer friend tosses an amazing story my way. The story of the World's Greatest Music Collection. My goodness, 300,000 compact discs and 3 million records! Yeah, a "three" with a whole buncha zeros after it.
Paul Mawhinney, as he puts it, gave his life to music. If you watch the short documentary below, notice that he's not some sort of crazy packrat, but a man sincerely taken by music. I share his grief at the idea that folks are willing to let such a large part of musical history vanish into the mists. It's both exciting and depressing to know that there is so much music out there that's unavailable to the public. While talking about the sheer size of his collection, Mawhinney notes that the Library of Congress did a study of his archive and concluded that, for the years encompassing 1948 through, 1966, only 17 percent of the music is currently available on compact disc. Pretty amazing.
At the end of this video, Mawhinney is seen coming to tears while playing a record. Some might think that this bit of melodrama is unnecessary, but it does serve to show that there are people out there with unbounded passion for music. On some days, it seems like a small (and shrinking) club.
The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.
Article comments
1 - Lisa Solod Warren
WHY doesn't someone buy this collection? You need to write a bigger article......
Cool video. Wrong header? Nothing about Morrison, who I love.
2 - Jordan Richardson
Nice piece as always, Mark.
3 - Mark Saleski
Wrong header? Nothing about Morrison, who I love
nope, that's exactly what i wanted.
i'm sneaky sometimes.
sort of.
4 - Christopher Rose
The real tragedy here is that this collection is available for a knock down $3 million and nobody wants it. If I were a rich man...
5 - Mark Saleski
very true christopher. yeah, if i had the money....
6 - Mark Saleski
oh, and i suppose i'd need enough money for the collection and for living...since i'd enter that warehouse and probably never return.
a related tragedy is that this very fine Van Morrison recording is out of print.
7 - Christopher Rose
There's probably one in the collection though...
8 - Tom Johnson
It's a fascinating story and video, and the deal is stunning. I'm guessing the biggest question keeping people from investing is simply "where do I put this?!" Really unless you can take over his store, how do you pack, transport, and re-store something of that magnitude?
I've been reading about this guy on various forums, some interesting reactions to him - some people who've dealt with him directly had some "not so nice" things to say about him, others are simply in shock watching him carelessly mishandle that incredibly old, extremely rare record he was showing off (hands FLAT on the grooves? Dude! I'm not into vinyl and even I know you don't do that!)
I hope there's a follow up when something happens with this collection. I hope it finds a home. Jesus, to not give it a proper home, can you imagine just allowing it all to be destroyed? That in itself would need to be documented as a heartbreaking denouement and an indictment of the mismanagement of the short history of recorded music. Think about it - there is only this tiny period of time when humanity recorded its voice on physical media, and now we're quickly doing away with it again in favor of non-physical, electronic means. Destroy that guy's collection and we wipe out a huge record of what we recorded that will NEVER exist in any form again.
9 - Mat Brewster
I guess if we never hear from Saleski again we know where he is.
Some sort of historian or museum or what have you needs to buy this or have it donated to them. What a treasure trove of goodness. Too good not to be archived and made available in some fashion to the public.
10 - Lisa Solod Warren
Let's see, if each of us at BC and all its readers sent Mark $3 apiece...
But then he would have to build a warehouse to house the thing!
11 - Mark Saleski
yes, only 3 bucks! and you'll get an unlimited supply of reviews of music you've never heard of...
12 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
and now we're quickly doing away with it again in favor of non-physical, electronic means.
[Here we go again]
I love it when people talk out there a$$! The whole digital movement is based on the idea that one day we will be able to supply the masses with recordings that have no generational loss. Ya know, capture analog digitally.
Great video... If you had the money to buy this collection,transporting it & storing it would be a Non-issue. Personally, I would build a whole new store. I would spend my days figuring out how to archive each album to DVD-A or the highest quality available and then I would have Mr. Saleski over to review all the odd sh!t he could get his hands on... The albums would be individually sealed until a better recording process was invented.
*Dreaming...*
13 - Mark Saleski
I love it when people talk out there a$$!
brian, i think tom's point is that people care so little about the older physical archives that they're willing to just let them vanish.
you do stay away from caffeine, don't you? ;-)
14 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Mark, unless he is just repeating what he had said in the prior sentence, I don't believe I read it wrong at all. Even in the world of CD, society allows music to go unpublished without a wince.
If Paul was so concerned with the value that these recordings hold then why didn't he start to archive them digitally?? Because he, just like Tom, are attached to the medium...Not the information! Paul complains about compression from CDs but he's handling the vinyl incorrectly & playing these records on what looks to be some POS Fisher turntable.