Delving in to the archives again....

Another day of delving in to the archives.

Well, it started off with planning with Mark Mason sitting outside in the sun at the Platform Gallery. I am plotting a few activites centred round my work at the NWSA- more of that to come, so watch this space. Then a quick duck in to Booths, I picked up a wonderful wholemeal loaf called 'the staff of life'.

Then I spent nearly all day listening and gathering again, working through my list from Monday of recordings mentioned in the catalogue, mostly on the food theme again. This time- BLACK PUDDING, KOSHER FOOD IN LIVERPOOL, ELDERFLOWER CORDIAL, and PRESTON PUBS were amongst things on the menu. And definitive advice on the best potato for making chips.

As I went through the day it was a bit like working through a certain period of recording technology history. We began the day on cassette, bringing back memories of me recording off the radio as a teenager. How time consuming it seems now rewinding and full forwarding, instead of having your tracks on CD or nicely set out in iTunes.

Then we progressed on to DAT (Digital Audio Tape) later in the day for some of the recordings made in the 1990s. Some later recordings came on minidisc, in two formats. I used minidiscs quite a lot at one stage, I even ran backing tracks for a show 'Harvest of Ghosts' on a minidisc player in 1999. But that too, seems a while ago now.

I couldn't help reflecting how quickly what once seemed the height recording technology has become outdated, almost seeming as remote as the wax cylinders and 78RPMs in other parts of the archives. Clearly a place like NWSA is important not just for its collection of recordings, but collection of devices to listen to them on as well. Good luck in picking up a DAT player from your local Argos.