RECORD STORE TALES #1078: Content Lost

It is inevitable, even in this digital age, that things get lost!  I’ve been writing about music since the early 1990s, with my first music reviews posted in 1994.  All of that stuff is gone now.  My earliest reviews were unpublished, just saved onto a disc or printed out and given to friends.  Those discs are long gone now, 5 – 1/4″ floppy discs that went corrupt, and later on 3 – 1/2″ floppies that met the same fate.

The very first review I posted was of the first three songs from Motley Crue’s self-titled album in 1994.  It was posted March 15 1994, the day of release, with a full album review that followed.  These were posted on a local computer bulletin board called the Wanderer’s Rest, run by a guy named Sheldon Parkes.  Incredible that I still remember his name 30 years later, but there are minimal records left.  The Wanderer’s Rest had a problem with its users, who tended to be antisemetic.  I bailed out, and posted Black Sabbath reviews on another board, called Arrakis.  It was run was a local home-schooled kid name Doug Pretorius.  Naturally, all those reviews are lost now.  Amazing how I can remember these guys’ names.  I met Doug once or twice for a few minutes, and never met Sheldon at all.  It would have been interesting to see how bad those old reviews were!  I know my Motley review has not changed in praise or enthusiasm.  I liked it just as much upon release as I do now.  I followed it with a review of Quaternary.  I remember praising the industrial flavours of some of the tracks, and the aggressive lyrics.

In the early 2000s, I began posting my reviews, rants and lists on a website called IAM, under the name Purpendicular.  Unfortunately all those reviews were lost when I deleted my account in 2004.  I don’t remember much of what I posted, but I worked on the content and I know there was some good stuff that I would have re-posted here, if I still had it.

In early 2006, I met and interviewed ex-Helix guitarist Brent Doerner.  That interview is still intact, rescued from a Maxell XLII 110 cassette.  Another tape was not so lucky.  A year or so following this, I talked to Brent’s live band, including guitarist Shane Schedler, now-retired drummer Brian Doerner (then doing double duty in Saga), and the late Ralph “Chick” Schumilas on rhythm guitar.  I lost the tape, and the interview was never transcribed.  I felt like shit.  I remember I wore a suit to the interview, which Brian asked me to take off as it made him uncomfortable!

I can only remember one quote from the whole interview.

Me:  “So Brian, I heard that you were singing lead vocals on ‘Billy Oxygen’ on the last Helix tour, is that true?”

Brian:  “Yah, so??”

I then went on to praise the song, and told him how happy I was that Helix were playing it live again.  That is unfortunately all I can remember.  Maybe I’ll find that tape one day, though I have tried mightily.  I could swear it was on a red TDK.

Even in the digital age, things get lost if you don’t own control of your context.

I recently lost two great interviews that I did with some incredible rock stars, because they were not on my channel, and that channel doesn’t seem to exist anymore.  On September 23, 2021 I interviewed Greg Fraser of Brighton Rock and Storm Force.  Andy Curran and Sean Kelly both dropped by for an episode that you could have called “This Is Your Life Greg Fraser”.  The Storm Force guitarist dropped tons of knowledge and great stories.  What a loss!  If I had known it would disappear, I would have downloaded it for my own records.  The other lost interview was with Slik Toxik’s Nick Walsh, which I called a “bucket list” interview.  This one happened on November 17, 2021 and included great stories about Nick sending his audition tapes to Ratt and Jimmy Page.  All lost forever now.

If I ever do another interview for a channel that is not mine, I will download it, and re-upload it to my own YouTube channel as an unlisted video.  That way, it’ll always be available, even if it’s not publicly available.  I will still be able to watch it and use it for research.

So, as we mourn the loss of content both great and insignificant, we look to the future and saving these things properly.  Loss prevention tactics for the digital age.