I file alphabetically only if I have more than one album by an artist. If I only have one then the artist either gets filed according to country they are from or by parent band if they were in a band that I have more than one album. My system sometimes confuses even me!
Sun Ra is like Jethro Tull
file under S
Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?
You say Mega Ultra Deluxe Special Limited Edition Extended Autographed 5-LP, 3-CD, 4-DVD, 2-BlueRay, 4-Cassette, five 8-Track, MP4 Download plus Demos, Outtakes, Booklet, T-Shirt and Guitar Pick Gold-Leafed Box Set Version like it's a bad thing...
As I said, in the case of Ra, I've got so many CD's, his work fills an entire box by itself, so there's a box marked "Sun Ra", and that's the end of it.
Most other things are...a bit more convoluted. I file related groups together. So, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Whitesnake, MSG, Gary Moore, Alcatrazz, Rainbow, and Vandenberg are all in one double sized case. I've debated whether Quiet Riot or Night Ranger belong in that case as well, since both bands have people who were in Ozzy's solo band (and in the case QR, also Whitesnake).
Similarly, Gong, Steve Hillage solo, Daevid Allen solo, Mother Gong, etc are all in one case. I'm not sure if A Flock Of Seagulls or Berlin belong in that case (they were both produced by Gong bassist Mike Howlett).
Soft Machine, Caravan, Hatfield And The North, and solo albums by Hugh Hopper and Robert Wyatt are in one place.
Also, I have King Crimson, Stickmen, and solo albums by Levin, Belew, Fripp, etc in one case. I think that's where the Fripp & Sylvian album is. But...
Japan, I've actually put in my "Guitar-rorist" box, because of Mick Karn's 90's era association with David Torn. I don't really have enough of the solo work from the various members of Japan to make up it's own box, so for the time being, I thought that was a good place to the Japan related stuff, along side Torn's solo records, and recordings by the likes of Henry Kaiser, Derek Bailey, Hans Reichel, etc.
Come to think of, maybe I need to get a double wide box, so I can combine all Crimson related, Japan related, and Porcupine Tree stuff into one place. But then where do I put things like Lonely Universe (Torn, Karn, and drummer Michael Lambert and trumpeter Michael White) and Polyton (Karn, Torn, and Terry Bozzio).
Man, this stuff is confusing!
Well, it's less about being "characterizable" or whatever, so much as the fact that I've got this thing about grouping musicians who've worked together in one area. TO me whether or not Deep Purple and WHitesnake are the same genre, so much as the fact that three of the guys in the early lineup of the latter were all in the former. And two of the guys from Whitesnake were in Gary Moore's band. And Gary Moore was in Thin Lizzy, and so was John Sykes, who later was in Blue Murder and Whitesnake...wait a minute, I'm going around in circles here!
Likewise, to me Eric Dolphy and Archie Shepp belong in the same box as Coltrane, because Dolphy and Shepp played on some of Coltrane's records. Coltrane was in Miles' band, so maybe they go into the same box, along with Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Weather Report, and Mahavishnu Orchestra (all of which are connected to Miles.
Alternately, Mahavishnu Orchestra could go in the hard rock box, due to their connections to Tommy Bolin and Jeff Beck. And since Jan Hammer is in there, you might throw in the Schon & Hammer records (actually, I don't have those on CD, only vinyl), Journey, Santana...
Charles Mingus goes into the same box as Duke Ellington because of Money Jungle. Tal Farlow goes into that box, too, along with the Red Norvo Trio CD I have which has both Mingus and Farlow on it.
But I could theoretically take any record that Arthur Barrow, George Duke, or Peter Wolf was involved in, and put them in the same box as Frank Zappa. Apart from Berlin, though, I don't have any of them (though I probably should have that Phillip Oakey record that Moroder produced...I always dug Together In Electric Dreams).
Ra never had any children. Fact: to the best of anyone's knowledge he never had sex. John Szwed makes this point in his biography of Ra. Might have been due to an undescended testicle. The bio is superb, BTW.
I file him under S, and I have maybe 100 or so discs and CDs, including some real collector stuffy- LPs on El Saturn and Thoth, a 45rpm of "Gonne Unmask the Batman." Only saw Ra twice, once at the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival and once at a small bar outside Lansing, MI (The Stables), where he asked me to go to Saturn with him. Showed early and met many of the band members that night. June Tyson!
I'm not lazy. I just work so fast I'm always done.
I file him in the "R's" for Ra. I do this only because years ago I read an article and the writer made a point of saying that if you looked, Sun Ra could be found in the Philly phone book under "Ra, Sun". That stuck with me all these years.
I think I file him under S, but I'd have to look.
There are a few anomalies in my collection. I file Heaven & Hell's "The Devil You Know" in my Black Sabbath section, because that's what it really is.
Filing classical albums can be a pain. I prefer to file by composer rather than artist, but so many CDs have multiple composers--I tend to file by the composer of the piece that I bought the album for. For example, Yitzhak Perlman's classic album with Paganini's first concerto and Sarasate's Carmen Fantasy gets filed for Paganini (even though the Sarasate is probably the more enjoyable of the two works).
I hae a couple different things I do with classical music:
1. I mostly file by composer, except
2. If there's a series of reissues centered around a given performer, e.g. assorted Sony Classical reissues I have centered around Bernstein, Gould, Boulez, etc. So all the Bernstein CD's are together, all the Gould CD's are together (though the ones I have are all Bach anyway), and so on.
But most of my classical CD's are filed alphabetically by composer.
My rock section and blues section is pretty much alphabetical. Jazz and classical sections are quite a bit smaller and extremely haphazard due to the size of some box sets and the intrusion of my wife's ambient stuff into that rack. What I really need is another big CD rack to open up some space but that won't happen until next year. Then my wife will say, "so I suppose you're going to fill this up?" She knows the answer.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Put one on your display shelf next to your copies of Bitches Brew and Trout Mask Replica to show people how sophisticated and complex your taste in music is.
Space Jazz at its best.
As somebody already said, file under S
Last edited by daoubourg; 05-19-2019 at 12:23 AM.
Nope nope nope.
Here is Space Jazz at its best:
I'm not lazy. I just work so fast I'm always done.
Beefheart files right next to Beethoven. Strange bedfellows.
Faust is between Fat Mattress and Steve Feigenbaum.
Guru Guru next to Arlo Guthrie.
Etron Fou Leloublan next to Roy Etzel.
Hurtleturtled Out of Heaven - an electronic music composition, on CD and vinyl
https://michaelpdawson.bandcamp.com
http://www.waysidemusic.com/Music-Pr...MCD-spc-7.aspx
I may have mentioned before, I decided to draw a distinction between "a stage name" and "a band name." Therefore Jethro Tull is under 'J' but Captain Beefheart is under 'B'. Elton John (if I had any) would be under 'J' but Capability Brown (if I had any) would be under 'C.' Bob Dylan is not under 'Z' while Z.Z. Top is.
Steve F.
www.waysidemusic.com
www.cuneiformrecords.com
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“Remember, if it doesn't say "Cuneiform," it's not prog!” - THE Jed Levin
Any time any one speaks to me about any musical project, the one absolute given is "it will not make big money". [tip of the hat to HK]
"Death to false 'support the scene' prog!"
please add 'imo' wherever you like, to avoid offending those easily offended.
Reverb.com's take On Sun Ra (per today's promo email):
https://lp.reverb.com/articles/5-gat...MarketingCloud
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