Today is a very special date for me, this LOUIE project, and the LOUIE universe. My friend Stretch Riedle sent out a little email reminder today at the LOUIE PARTY Yahoo group:
On August 19th, 1983, at 6:00pm [it was a Friday] I sat in the studios at KFJC with several others and began what is referred to as “Maximum Louie Louie”. We played versions, 99% unrepeated, for 63 hours and 10 minutes. It ended on Monday, August 22nd at approximately 9:10am. Twenty five years later we still discuss it, and relate stories that have occurred as a result of that great event.
Me gotta go now,
Stretch
I view today’s date with mixed emotions. My immediate reaction is “it’s been HOW long?” In all honesty, it does feel pretty darned weird to be working on this thing as long as I have. It feels kinda strange right now.
The past 24 hours have been interesting for me. I’ve been helping my friend Laurel transfer some audio cassettes of her late friend, Andy Mazzilli, an amazing local blues player that passed away last year. I never met Andy, and I wish I did. He was really quite a talented musician, and as I listen these tracks I’m blown by his virtuosity on guitar. Laurel used to describe him as San Jose’s own “Jimi Hendrix,” and I can see why. I can also hear comparisons to George Harrison and Jeff Beck. As I transfer these recordings, it feels really good to know that I’m helping others remember loved ones.
One of the thing I didn’t expect was the crash of two different hard drives. One was the main external hard drive where I keep all my LOUIE LOUIE audio recordings – the master database of the world’s most recorded song. Luckily, this drive was fairly easy to recover, as it strictly a matter of dealing with a funky Firewire-USB hard drive case. That being said, it’s a good reminder of why I need to continue to make backups of everything that’s important.
The second drive was a bit more problematic. It was an internal hard drive on my desktop computer. One of my utility software applications couldn’t repair it, but luckily, the second worked like a champ. For those of you on the Mac, I’d like to recommend DRIVE GENIUS, which has allowed me to recover my data more times than I ever expected.
Hard drives are on my mind right now for other reasons, as I’ve hit a roadblock in my LOUIE edits. I use about 10-12 TB of hard drive space, and I’ve reached the point where it’s difficult to continue editing until I can get more hard drives. I’m grateful that drives are cheaper now than they’ve ever been before, but I still have to wait until the next paycheck before I can buy any more drives to continue.
And once again, it’s the matter of waiting. Waiting for the money. Waiting for the tools. Waiting for things to fall in place. The story of my life.
Yes, I am a little frustrated over things right now, but that’s just the way it is. I’ll deal with it one way or another.
Reading the news, I’m tickled to see that rock music is actually saving lives. A man in England was in a coma for 10 weeks. He had a 30% chance of recovering. His wife decided to try something different, so she put some earphones on her husband, and played his favorite rock and roll song by the Rolling Stones.
Sam said: “I can’t remember much from being in a coma, but I do remember that when that song came on it took me right back to when I was a youngster.
“I could remember how excited I was to get it down at the record shop.
“I suddenly had a burst of energy and knew I had a lot more life left in me and that’s when I woke up – to the sound of the first song I ever bought.”
Same, who has three children and six grandchildren, added: “I would love to thank Mick and the rest of the Stones personally – I feel they really did help wake me from my coma.”
Wife Eva said she had switched on the radio at Stoke’s City General Hospital in a last-ditch attempt to bring him back a fortnight ago, after growing increasingly frustrated with his lack of progress.
She said: “I didn’t really think it would work.
“I couldn’t believe it when he started opening his eyes and looked at me. It was like we had been given another chance.”
This is what dreams are made of. Using rock and roll as a tool for awakening one’s self and becoming empowered by the power of music. This is The Meaning of LOUIE.
Stay tuned… more to come…