Correction:
I have just discovered that I made an error in the last Lyric Game. I said that the Beatles' "Don't Let Me Down" was released in 1970, as that was indeed when its album Let It Be was released, but it turns out "Don't Let Me Down" was actually released as the B-side to "Get Back" which was originally released as a single in the spring of 1969, although the rest of the album wouldn't be completed for another year. So I apologize to the dozens of you, I'm sure, who were GOING to guess "Don't Let Me Down" but saw the 1970 and thought, "No, that must be something else then, because obviously the Beatlemaniac that rockinlibrarian claims to be would NOT forget that that was the B-side of 'Get Back' and released a year earlier."
Actual Content of This Post:
Why do I bring this up, for real, you ask? Because I spent this afternoon and some of yesterday evening indulging my hyperfixations of "rock music" and "librarianing," by beginning to catalog my dad's massive 45 record collection.
You know my dad, right? Because he died not quite three years ago and I still insist on grieving at you? And he was who got me into music, which is in fact half my username? Anyway, as I mentioned at that link, when he was a teenager he worked as a deejay's assistant-- it WAS for a TV dance show, not a radio show-- and got paid in 45s, so he had a huge collection-- I think I counted 8 printer-paper-sized boxes the other day?
Which brings us to the other day, when I went to visit my mom and help her to mentally-if-not-quite-physically deal with figuring out how to clear out the basement which is in dire need of emergency waterproofing (and you are still welcome to commission my brother for cartooning work at this link if you'd like to help financially). And what is taking up a good bit of space in that basement and was pretty much always earmarked for me to inherit anyway?
That's a rhetorical question!
So I was looking at these boxes and trying to figure out how to transport them and how to store them in my house when it hit me: I am on Recovering-from-Burnout Unpaid Sabbatical now. I have time for dumb projects theoretically! And I actually already got a very part-time contractual storytime job lined up for next month, so I won't have to miss THAT part of librarianing, but man, I really like making lists and spreadsheets and sorting things for easy retrieval... here are a couple thousand or something media items BEGGING to be catalogued!
(It's funny, on that Why I'm Quitting My Job post I said "I'm not the rockin'librarian you think I am," but instead I'm making it even more literal: I shall LIBRARIANIZE the ROCK MUSIC COLLECTION!)
So I haven't actually lugged those boxes out of the basement and to my house yet, but I DO have a very small piece of the collection: my dad had gone through and pulled out all the Beatles (and former Beatles) 45s from the collection and gave them to me for my 18th birthday (although they kept living at my parents' house for a few more decades) (Including "Get Back/Don't Let Me Down," you see now). And today-- and yesterday-- I spreadsheeted them.
Here's a glimpse:
This was very eye-straining work, for a 47-year-old who has to lift her glasses up to see small print and that's WITH transition lenses. Hard on the back, too. And as usual for someone with AuDHD, the autism and ADHD were at constant war over what information NEEDED to be included and HOW consistent about capitalization and punctuation we REALLY needed to get. So, note to future self: when you get the full collection, CATALOG IT IN VERY SMALL BATCHES.
BUT, bringing it back to revelations I had the other day standing in my mom's basement, I don't want to JUST catalog this. I want to share my discoveries with others! As I mentioned in the above link about my dad, I'd had a lot of fun just picking out funny titles and artist names when I'd gone through them as a teenager. I didn't even actually listen to most of them. It would be cool to do like a YouTube series sharing the coolest or weirdest buried treasures as I find them.
I'm not really sure of the format this would take. I've seen "music reaction" videos on YouTube but I'm not sure that would be what I want to do exactly, just playing a song and going "hmm... that's cool...huh...nice." I'd much rather listen to songs ahead of time and share just the bits that seem worth sharing. Now if I just catalog ten at a time, say, I could make each episode revolve around my most interesting discoveries among those ten, whether weird titles, interesting info on the labels, the songs themselves, or history I dug up about some of the songs or artists.
I'm not sure how playing music on YouTube works-- I've had videos flagged/removed for just having music incidentally on in the background before. Obviously the Reaction video listeners do it, but I've noticed some of them mentioning how they need to talk over it or pause it for copyright reasons... what are the exact rules? Obviously I'm going to CITE the songs in the video notes, of course: I'm an Information Professional on Indefinite Sabbatical, but still an Information Professional.
So what do you think, nerds of Tumblr? I know I'm the biggest nerd about this sort of thing among the people who tend to interact with me, but even if you don't interact with me-- would you be interested in me doing something like this? Would you like to see and/or hear the contents of this collection, too? How do you think I could best do it? Do you have any thoughts whatsoever on what I've said or implied and could you share them, please?
