Please Find Lost Music And Return It Via The Web
By Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.
The Legendary 'Disco Indian Stories' tape is not online and nobody seems to know where it is.
It’s easy to get the impression these days that everything under the sun is now just a few clicks away on the internet — that is, until you look for something that’s not there.
My first ever feature story for the web, from 1997 or so, a CNET piece called “Cellphone Horror Stories,” appears to have vanished from the planet entirely, for example (and if you can’t find an article with my weird byline attached to it, it’s probably not there). I could be the only person who cares about that early appraisal of the dangers of butt-dialing your significant other as you talk about them to your best friend, losing cell service on the side of a lonely stretch of highway, and the other “horror stories” listed in that feature, but for future generations wondering what the first consumers to carry cellphones were thinking, maybe it would come in handy. Oh well.
Much more importantly, for music fans, some of our most beloved songs are also entirely missing from the web. Luckily, YouTube offers an easy way to rectify the situation — see our tutorials on how to do that for Mac and for Windows.
The first song I ever “rescued” was Danny Kaye’s amazing “Tubby The Tuba,” one of my childhood favorites:
Comments include:
“What a lovely warming memory to have found on a freezing March afternoon. Always loved Danny Kaye. I recommend getting hold of film ‘The Court Jester’ and defy anyone not to laugh out loud. Long may his memory endure.”
“Haven’t heard this for about 35 years…just transformed me back to my childhood. Thanks for the memories.”
“Magic stuff, thanks indeed for the memories.”
“Oh, who happy I am, too! I love it so much :)”
“thanks for uploading, you’ve made my dad very happy and nostalgic… have to put up with him singing the frog song now, though O_o”
See? It’s worth it.
Other rare songs I have put onto the web (and maybe even the whole internet):
- The Fall – “Happy Holiday”
- The Fall – “Life Just Bounces (In The City Version)”
- The Fall – “The Steak Place”
- Fuxa – “Main Sequence”
- Lesser – “We Belong Together (Remix)”
I will finally get to the point here: We need more of this.
The next time you look for a song on the web and it’s not there, and you have a physical copy or can somehow get access to the recording, please do this or this to solve the problem.
Kurt Schlegel once left the above-pictured cassette, containing an amazing compilation of Indian children’s music called Disco Indian Stories, in the tour van of the band P.E.E., whose co-singer/guitarist Jim Stanley once worked with me at CNET, and who lent a copy of the cassette amongst a group of us in San Francisco in the late ’90s.
This is what went down on Facebook after I asked where it came from:
- Jim Stanley: “Kurt Schlegel. He left it in the van on tour once. I have tagged him here for further insight.”
- Kurt Schlegel: ”There’s that tape! I’ve been missing it terribly. Provenance: Given to me by Grux from Caroliner Rainbow. Apparently, this type of recording is quite popular in India. This makes sense when you see it in light of Bollywood production values. Can’t tell you the artists involved, just that it rules.”
Indeed, it does. And you still can’t hear it. And neither can I, or anyone else, apparently. If you have this tape, or know where it is, please put this music online (whether you have Mac or Windows). It can’t just disappear… can it?
While we’re on the topic, I am also looking for an album recorded by my mom’s cousin’s amazing all-girl ’80s a capella group, The Chapped Lips.
I can’t find Disco Indian Stories or The Chapped Lips anywhere, and I have been looking for both of them. For years. We can do better.
Is there some rare music that’s been haunting you that you can’t find? Please, let us know, so that we can at least put the notion that someone is looking for it online. If there’s a need, we’d like to turn this into a recurring feature, to preserve little bits of analog amazing-ness before everyone forgets there was a time before the internet.
I really, really, really liked this article and the topic it addresses, yet it leaves me no closer to home in resolving my conflicting feelings in this internet-vs-physical product debate. In some ways it’s still really cool and exhilarating to find obscure music and upload it for the masses to enjoy. Yet on the other hand, I feel like it sort of devalues the increasingly rare cassettes or CDs or vinyl artifacts which aren’t, by some miracle, online so far. It’s kind of cool to think of certain pieces of music escaping the clutches of the internet. As an amateur musician myself, I remember the gut wrenching terror of my band recording some music and there being ONE COPY IN THE WORLD, on cassette, and how nervous you would be to loan this out to a trusted friend, even, because who knew what would happen if his tape deck ate it, or he moved out of town, or whatever? You would be screwed. And this kind of sensation is completely lost now on the internet. As I type this, I see that my rant is off kilter and has no real point…except that this is the point, really, I suppose – I just don’t know what to make of the modern music landscape.
I have a sneaking suspicion that this might be part of what you’re looking for: http://www.ubu.com/outsiders/365/2003/099.shtml
It’s technically “Children’s Disco Musical Stories” but it IS Indian…. and it IS online.