BURSTING AT THE SEAMS

The tiny bothy that is the Hay country residence is bursting at the seams.
I have, if not actually surpassed, then got very close to "crisis" point "vis a vis" storage. The storage of CDs ... Jazz CDs to be perfectly honest. I'm up to my ears in them.

Current storage arrangements are, at best, a bit of a mess. I have two sets of drawers in the palatial "main dinning room/function suite". The larger of the two chest is very much the "mother lode" with hundreds of CDs removed from their bothersome "jewel cases" and inserted into space saving vinyl sleeves. These are ordered alphabetically from mainstream trumpeter Bruce Adams through the whole spectrum of jazz to Joshua Redman's organ led trio YaYa3 (no "Z"??).
Next to it there sites the smaller "treasure chest" where oft played classics by Jan Garbarek, Andy Sheppard, Tommy Smith, Courtney Pine, EST and the likes reside.

Upstairs in the luxurious "guest room/office" are two further cabinets where yesterdays idols and lesser works reside. Trouble is, what's a lesser work one week can suddenly turn into a "must hear" very quickly. These CDs I'm saddened to admit are "roughly filed in order". This makes the instant laying on of hands a bit bothersome. Though to be honest the fact that these two storage facilities are in the office has meant I have "rediscovered" a lot of really good jazz while working from home. But that in turn brings about problems, because when I rediscover how good something old is I automatically want to rehouse it back in the mother lode - closer to my "good" quality HiFi. "Harmos" by Barry Guy and the London Jazz Composers Orchestra! Hidden away -  and why? I listened to it and was blown away by how good it was. One piece of music that starts and ends with bitter, angry, almost discordant, disjointed notes but in the middle there is this lovely melodic, charming, orchestral, almost pastoral, passage. You find yourself immersed in this beautiful music and you can't really put your finger on when it emerged from the sounds at the beginning and you cant really grasp when it slips away again - the whole 40 minute piece is organic.
But I digress... Over and above these four storage facilities there are various wooden boxes, cardboard boxes and one steel case that holds about 500. This currently resides in the master bedroom.
I need something that I can access all my music on efficiently and quickly.......
I need one of these........

http://www.brennan.co.uk/

Problem is, if (or when) I get one of these. I'll still have as many CDs (surely you didn't think I'd get rid of them???). But at least I could file them away permanently and access the music I want easily.

Another, perhaps obvious solution, would be to go down the road of a high storage Ipod and quality docking station. But that goes against all my existing prejudices against the horrible bloody cultural hegemony of the Ipod brand and it's sheepish followers. I really do believe there are much better MP3/WMA players out there ... you just can't get the good quality docking stations for them.

Of course the cynical might just say I could buy less.......