Dear Sunset After Dark People,
After our recording sessions with Gordon Hookalo (circa 1974, 1975), I absconded with the master reel-to-reel tapes. Gordon also made some cassette tapes for everyone that I can only assume have been lost. But I had the original tapes and nobody else seemed to care. So I named myself the OFFICIAL Sunset After Dark Librarian, Historian and Archivist.
I knew that the quality of the analog tapes might degrade over time. Turns out, I was not only right but I was a little late. The 2 track recordings seem to favor one track, it was the one that had both the vocals and Buzz Kaplan. I think the bass was on both tracks, but Larry and I are only faintly heard.
At any rate, when CDs started becoming popular (late 1980's), I set out to digitize our music. At that time, I was unaware how much the tapes had degraded. I brought our tapes to a recording studio in Framingham that made me two CDs, one for each Carol. Somehow I ended up with WMA files as well. I'm not sure if I still have the CDs anywhere in my house but I DO have the WMA files.
There are 9 songs with Carol Rowley and 15 songs with Carol Wharton. Note that the studio interpreted Larry's delay in Bluebird to signal a song change so Bluebird is actually in 2 parts, hence 15 songs are saved in 16 WMA files.
In addition to the WMA files, they gave me "disk image" files which are some bizzare format. I copied everything onto my computer. All the files are digital, i.e. they aren't going to change over time. I was NOT happy with the quality but for some reason, thought the studio could've done better. Turns out I was mistaken because digital is digital is digital…
But at any rate, in 2010, I contacted Rob Scott who told me he had a friend with recording equipment. I wanted to see if I could get "better quality" recordings from those disk image files. He made new copies for me (and charged me $). It wasn't until he finished that he said "of course you realize they're digital so they're no different."
His new copies recombined Bluebird back into a single song (with that painful pause) BUT he made new mistakes. He combined Lenny's "Schindleria Praematurus" song with Carol's song into a single WMA file; he also left out Melissa, the Retarded Break Song and the Mystery Song. I remember he was getting impatient and had some place to go and was pissed it was taking so long.
Anyway, here's all our music in MP3 files. I saved ALL the files including the useless disk image files and WMA files on a backup drive if anyone wants them but I'm no longer going to keep everything on my laptop. That's 4 Gig I can use for more useful stuff like pornography. Just kidding. You're probably only interested in the MP3 files anyway.
Sincerely,
Tom Armstrong ~ OFFICIAL Sunset After Dark Librarian, Historian and Archivist ~
P.S. You're probably wondering, "Mystery Song? What Mystery Song?" right? Well, when Gordy gave us the master recording, he must have used the tape before for another project. I HAD PURCHASED NEW TAPES FOR HIM TO USE and he wasn't supposed to have done that but at any rate, he did. I don't think the Mystery song made it onto any CDs but you can listen to it now and see if you recognize any of the musicians; try to solve the mystery behind the Mystery Song.