Cataloging Collections

Most people have collections of some type.  But do they catalog their collections?

Up until a couple months ago I didn't have my music collection cataloged.  Considering that I have over 2,000 items in my collection, I was doing a poor job of what and the type of media I have.  I have seen other music collectors posting about the catalog for their collections, I decided that I should catalog my collection.  I tried several times to catalog my collection, but was not satisfied with the software or website that I was using.  I tried an Excel spreadsheet, but there were features that I wanted that I could do with just a spreadsheet.  I tried to with both discogs.com and allmusic.com, but was frustrated with the amount of extra work that I had to do when I came across an album in my collection that wan't in their database.

Earlier this year I was taking a college course that required me to use Microsoft Access to do some of my homework.  Because of that, I got Microsoft Access 2010 for free through the school.  A couple months ago I decided to try to create a database with it for cataloging my collection.  Different people track different information in their catalogs or databases.  I decided along with the album information, I wanted the database to hold all of the songs from each album.  I also like to see what songs from my collection were hits, so I wanted to track the songs that were hits.  I ended up creating three tables to track all of this information -- one for the album information, one for the songs and one for hits.  I created the layout for each table and a form to use for data entry for all of the information in under an hour.  If I ever decide I want to track more information in this database, all I have to do is create another table to store the information and establish the relationships with the other tables.

I haven't got to much from my collection cataloged yet, but am farther than I have done before.  I try to add some each day.

I'd like to know what my readers collect and if you catalog what you have.  If so I'd be interested on what you use for cataloging the information.  Please respond in the comments with this information.

The music that I've been playing while writing this post is the album Secret Messages by Electric Light Orchestra from 1983.

Genres / Sub-genres

I've been under the weather the last couple days, but during that time I kept thinking about the subject for this post: genres and sub-genres of music.

Many people pretty much limit themselves to certain genres or sub-genres of music.  When the do this, they are missing out on a lot of good music.  You probably know several people that do this.  They might listen to only country or pop or one of the many types of metal.  By doing this, they deprive themselves of the music that are under the other the other classifications of music.  If  you look at some of your favorite songs from the past, you will probably find that some of them had hits on some of the other charts than what you limit your listening category.  Look up some of your favorite artists on Allmusiccom and click on the Awards tab.  There you'll see the different charts that the albums and songs have been on.  You'll see that some have been on two or more charts such as Country singles, The Billboard Hot 100 or R&B singles.

When I was growing up in Northern Iowa in the 70's, we didn't have radio stations limited to all of these sub-genres like you find now.  We had a station that played easy listening, big band and news, one for country, a top 40 station and a FM station that played top 40 plus more.  These stations did not break the music down to sub-genres.  I didn't know about the different sub-genre's until I went into the Air Force in the 80's.  I did not limit myself to one sub-genre right away, but waited to around the early 90's and then it wasn't only one genre or sub-genre that had my listening attention.

We now have all this music that comes in digital format and is all expected to be classified under one genre or sub-genre.  Even when you digitize some of your music that you have in physical media, the software used for digitizing it asks for a genre or sub-genre.

I have decided to say enough and am no longer enter a genre or sub-genre on any of my music that I digitize for myself.  These classifications can vary from person to person for the category they be classified.  I like about all types of music and feel that I should not need to classify my music under certain categories in order to please somebody else.

Using genres or sub-genres is like stereotyping music.  You should approach music with an open mind, not to stereotype it and listen to just certain types.  When you limit yourself to certain types of music is about the same as stereotyping people.  I have friends from around all races, so why should I limit my music to one type or genre/sub-genre?

I think I've said enough on this topic for now.  Let me know about your view or feelings of this in the comments below.

Labor Day

Today is Labor Day, the unofficial last day of summer.  I do not enjoy this holiday weekend as much as I used to when I was a kid.  My wife had to work today and neither of us felt like cooking after she got home, so we settled for sandwiches.  This is a common occurrence for us anymore.

When I was a kid, my family would usually go camping, just like Memorial Day weekend and 4th of July.  We would go camping with relatives and family friends and take several spots in the campground.  During the day all of us kids would play and in the evenings we wold have a couple picnic tables side-by-side and have a massive game of Uno or sit by a campfire talking and roasting marshmallows.  The thing that made a difference between this and the other two three-day weekends is that we knew that this would be our last long weekend until the Memorial Day weekend, over 8 months away.  Between those two weekends we would have almost the full school year until we had the nice weather where we could spend most of the time outside for the weekend.  Knowing that, we mad sure that we made the most out off the weekend.  Anymore it is just an additional day off work, if we're fortunate enough to not have to work on the holiday.

I would like to see my reader's Labor Day weekend memories in the comments or how you spent the weekend or just the holiday this year.

I felt like listening to some vintage country while writing this post since that was the music that most of the adults in our camping group liked and wouldn't give us kids any say in the music and would have a radio playing a country station.  I now have an appreciation and like this music and have been buying a lot of vintage country lately.  I'm listening to Hank Snow's 1963 album I've Been Everywhere while writing this post.

Concerts

There used to be a big music festival here in Rockford every Labor Day weekend.  It was cancelled a few years ago, but it got me thinking about the concerts I've seen and the ticket prices that I had to pay.

The first concert I saw was in August, 1978 at the Iowa State Fair.  When we bought tickets we knew that it was for Styx, but didn't know who the opening act would be. It was a two hour drive to get there so we decided to leave early so we could look around at the fair before the concert.  They announced when we were down there that the opening act was Angel, which I knew and liked since my brother had around all of their albums and I would listen to them at times.  They came out all dressed in white and put on an excellent show.  When Styx came out, we moved closer to the stage. We were close enough that when they set off the flash pots during "Suite Madame Blue" I could feel the heat from them on my face.  This was a couple weeks before they released the album Pieces of Eight so they played several songs from that album along with their hits up until that time.  A week after the concert I started hearing "Blue Collar Man" on the radio and I remembered the song from them playing it a week before.

I've seen other memorable concerts.  In June, 1979 I saw the Mississippi River Jam II in Davenport, IA.  The line-up for that concert were TNT, AC/DC (with Bon Scott), UFO (with Michael Schenker), Nazareth and finally Heart as the headline act on their Dog & Butterfly tour.  In December, 1979 I went to the UNI dome in Cedar Falls, IA to see Fleetwood Mac on the Tusk tour.  In 1983 I saw Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Little River Band at Red Rocks near Denver, CO.  In 1984 I saw Whitesnake and Quiet Riot at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, a concert open only to military personnel and their families.  I saw the European Monsters of Rock in August, 1986 in Mannheim, Germany with a line-up including MSG, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Ozzy Osborne and the Scorpions.  I manged to get a ticket to see the Moody Blues (my favorite band) in Dayton, Ohio in May 1993.  I got the ticket a couple nights before the concert and got an excellent seat on the main floor.  I saw Three Dog Night at the Surf Ballroom (where Buddy Holly gave his last performance) in Clear Lake, IA in the mid-90's just after the finished remodelling it back to how it was when Buddy Holly performed there.  Ten years ago my good friend Paul and I worked backstage at the Night Ranger concert at Fiesta Days in McHenry, IL.  Before the band went out on stage, they were shooting the breeze with us.  In January, 2008 I saw Trans-Siberian Orchestra in Madison, WI.  And finally I saw Gordon Lightfoot in Rockford back on Memorial Day Weekend.

Other artists that I've seen in concert are: Atlanta Rhythm Section, Charlie Daniels Band (3 times), Marshall Tucker Band (2 times), Head East, 38 Special, the Ides of March, Survivor, Blue Oyster Cult (3 times), Rare Earth, Cheap Trick, Steppenwolf, Grand Funk Railroad, Eddie Money, Billy Idol, Foreigner (with Jason Bonham on drums),  and REO Speedwagon (2 times).

I know that I've named a lot of artists in this post, but the reason why is that I would like to see my readers post some of the bands they've seen in concert in the comments below.  The prices I paid for tickets varied from free to $135 (I used some of my tax refund) for a pair of tickets to the Gordon Lightfoot concert.  Back in the 70's and 80's I never sent more than $25 for a ticket and these bands were in their prime at the time.  Now you hear about artists that charge over $100 for a single ticket.  The only concerts you see lower prices for the tickets are the artists that haven't had any hits for two or three decades.  I would also like to see what the mst my artists paid for a concert ticket in the comments.

Compilations

When I was trying to think of what to write about in today's post, I kept coming back to the same subject, and it is music related, compilations.  There are some music collectors that refuse to buy any compilations in their collection.  I differ with them on that point, I have several in my collection.

There are two different types of compilations: 1) An album of songs all by the same artist that have been previously released on other albums by the group, such as greatest hits albums, and 2) An album of songs by various artists.  When I started collecting over 40 years ago, as a teenager,  I bought mainly compilations, usually greatest hits.  The reason I did that was that I wasn't sure how many songs I've heard by the different groups and I figured buying greatest hits compilations would help me see whether I liked much of the different artists music before I went out and buy their other albums and be dissatisfied with the other albums after I spent my hard earned money on them.

I would buy the other type of compilations, such as those put out by K-Tel, and would hear songs by groups where I hadn't heard before.  This gave me exposure to some artists which got me to start buying those artists' albums.  There have been several artists that I have been exposed to this way.

I still recommend that new collectors buy compilations instead of going out and buy all of the other studio albums by artists and be upset because of spending their money on albums they don't like.  I still buy compilations to this day to get exposure to artists that I've rare heard before.

I happen to be listening to a greatest hits album while writing this. It is by The New Christy Minstrels which is a group that several artists were in before making it big such as Kenny Rogers (and most of the First Edition), John Denver and Kim Carnes, just to name a few.

I would like to see the thoughts of my readers who are also music collectors on compilations.  Please put them in the comments below.

A New Blog

I am attempting on having a blog again.  I've had a few failed attempts in the past since I tried to limit them to certain aspects of my life.  With this one, as you can tell by the blog name, I am not just limiting this blog to my music collection.  I enjoy  listening to music, especially a lot that I have in my collection, but the mre part means I can write the posts on stuff other than music such as events, thoughts an remembrances.  I will usually add something about music to the post, but may not always have something about music in it.  I will be listening to music when I write the posts, so will at least include that music in my posts.

As I stated above, I am attempting to write and maintain this new blog.  I am going to try to write something on a daily basis, but am not guaranteeing it.  At least I am trying to write more than four posts like I did with my previous blogs.

As I stated above, the album that I'm listening to is the album Reckless by Bryan Adams from 1984.  Of the ten songs on this album, six made it onto the Billboard Top 40, three of them making it into the Top 10. I'd say that was a successful for him.

I'd like you to come check to see what I write about in my posts.  I promise not to have anything on politics on them. We hear too much of that on a daily basis on the various news broadcasts and just in many Facebook posts.  Feel free to add any comments in the space provided below.