inter-asia pop

I read an interesting article in the Wired blog and wanted to share it with you:

One Man’s Quest to Digitize and Publicize Rare Vinyl

The man named Cliff Bolling have been digitizing hundreds of 78rpm SP records into mp3 forms for the last five years, and still thousands to go. In his archiving website, you can find many interesting soundbites from the early age of electronic reproduction of music. The way different musical reproduction technologies with different epochal significance are meeting as we have seen in the cases of turntable, cassette tape, etc.

If you’re into Japanese music history, his Japanese records page is worth visiting. As I am not an expert, I have no idea how rare these Japanese records are (considering Japanese archiving culture, they might not be). But it is cool to have an access to old Japanese records from your laptop. One record with lyrics and dance moves attached looks cool! Another one I like is “Drinking Song” which sounds to me a “traditional” song and performance accompanied by simple shamisen playing.