For some reason yesterday... well very early this morning as I was cutting over more vinyl to MP3 [Hoodoo Gurus anyone?] and cleaning up some files that I had of old tapes I'd cut over to MP3 when it hit.

Really, I was disgusted with myself for missing a song or two off a couple of important tapes that Jim had made for me [and one tape that will remain with me, a relic from another time]. So I sought out the tapes to make matters right again. Then as I looked at this pile of relics I was overcome with a sadness and a major dose of reality.

The tapes weren't at fault - they were just quietly sitting on the shelf there collecting dust. But I began thinking - what am I holding onto these for? Yes, I have a Walkman knockoff I bought in 1997 to take to the gym because... well, because no one would want to steal it. I haven't had a tape player in my car for about 3 years now. Yes, I really had one on my car up until like 2007. When I first bought my little 2000 truck, I took it to Best Buy and had a CD player taken OUT and the tape deck put in, much to the confusion of the little installer kid. But how was he to know I had enough music on tape to drive for about 12 days straight without repeating a tape [Notice: I did not say song, but tape!] But the time has come. As noted, the car tape deck died, then my honorable Pioneer double dubbing deck, bought when I was working at Forever Young back in 1996. Now Dad's old Optima is going - the right deck is out and I don't know how long the left deck has left. As I type this I am trying to pull songs off a double fistful of tapes before it goes.

But this wasn't how it started. I though originally just to clean up the stacked ones and toss a few stragglers. Tapes to the trash, index cards and cases into the recycling. [I'm sure the shells of the tapes themselves can be recycled, but I was also betting the miles and miles of tape will gum up whatever they smash / sort/ etc. with.] Pretty soon I'm on the floor and it's like shelling nuts - crack, remove pod, shells here...

Occasionally, I would look at one and remember. The Famous Chaz Labella Tape [and Son Of...] that I used to play out in the warehouse at Albar. "The OKC 98" tape, hitting the Moore curve way to fast blasting Keith Richards and the X-Pensive Winos. International Chaz which I played up and down the Queen Elizabeth Way between Toronto and Burlington ON [and the original "Portable Superchunk"]. Two dating back to 1985 / 86 - Lybbert's Records featuring Alice's Restaurant, Santana and John Lennon and the Marty Magical Mystery Tape which was a 'Stump the Chump' exercise sent from Belmont. Marty cheated - he put on some dude's class project take on Roger Miller's King of the Road.

Out of about 225 tapes, I have about 30 that I'm keeping. They'll park behind my DVDs and keep collecting dust but I'm not ready to cut them. 5 of them are the wonderfully ear opening tapes made for my by Jim Dunnigan. When I think about all the albums I bought because of the things I heard on those tapes, it's pretty damn scary! Patti Smith, Television, Superchunk, the Damned, Soul Asylum [before their 'hits'], Supergrass, the Gits... One tape from 1988 that reminds me of... a few store bought tapes...

When I was done, I felt dusty and a little bit sad.I used to have tapes going about 95% of the time I was in one of my vehicles. To work. From Work. To second job. To Jim's. To the bar. To Dallas. Blasting songs at ear splitting volumes on the back roads of southern Tarrant County when I was clearly in no condition to be driving. Shouting the blues with the Allman Brothers the night my friend pulled the girl I was making a play for - and the mofo never called her! The Motown / Stax compilations I used to make and play at Forever Young. Exploring all kinds of musical avenues from Eddie Cochrane to Sam Cooke and Percy Sledge to the deep catalogs of the Beatles and the Stones to Aerosmith and the Steve Miller Band and Little Feat and the Cars to Faster Pussycat, Soundgarden, Wilco, Whiskeytown all the way up to the Foo Fighters.

Any song on any album I owned between 1986 and about 2003 could wind up on one of these tapes. They got me from Burleson to Houston a few times, to Wichita more than a few and once from Euless to Nashville to Pittsburgh and Cleveland and back again over a ten day stretch.

I guess it was inevitable. To quote those plucky Canadians, Rush: "Changes aren't permanent, but change is." But some changes are permanent. I've just tossed a connection to the last 25 years of my past. Yes, I still have a lot of that music on LP, CD and MP3. And I love the convenience and quickness of burning CD comps for my friends, I sometimes miss the time a song is being taped to think about the next song. I miss the adventure of a mix tape that just goes someplace you weren't expecting. And that last song of the first side jam -"Only about 2 and a half minutes, what can I squeeze in there that doesn't sound like a time filler?"

One day they'll be excavating under some building they've built on the landfill and they'll come across this mass of plastic and magnetic recording tape and wonder - but will only be rock and roll on an outdated medium. So long baby, and Amen.