I recently digitized a disintegrating VHS tape that was loaded with various histories. There was video of me driving my forklift back in the Erdman days and 27 minutes of Dalton and I playing hacky sack in the cold March air in back of the townhouse.

He came over that day and we had grand intentions of making a compilation tape, yes we were still on the dubbing tip back then, of “Songs About Rain”. This was to be a collection of songs that we compiled together that had the word rain in the title. We had done the same thing recently with songs about crying or tears that turned out really good, The Lacrimation Compilation.

The “Songs About Rain” session was a dismal failure. The songs kept having problems and the last straw was when “Prayers For Rain” off of “The Cure – Disintegration” CD refused to copy correctly. We would set up the song to record and then go out and kick the hacky around for a few minutes and when we came back and reviewed the end of the song it was messed up. We tried to redo it like 3 times. Finally it had become more work than fun and we could NOT listen to that song again. We scrapped the tape for a full blown hacky session which was far more successful.

Pass!

So, the VHS tape I digitized so that Dalton could have a copy, but, to my surprise, at the end of the segment there was a minute long section of Dalton that I didn’t recall was on there of him standing in front of my rig checking the tape.

 Note that there is now 2 tape decks! Also, notice the usual array of tapes piled everywhere. There are even tapes on top of the entertainment center. Even a reel-to-reel tape is leaned up next to the black receiver. This was the normal state of things around the stereo. About weekly I would collect everything in a bag and take it downstairs and sort and shelve everything. In-between however it was a mess.

Song About Rain didn’t get made that day. Or ever.

R.I.P.