Respect For an Insane Project
I've been going to concerts and doing college radio in Cleveland for a long time now. I am not now, nor have I ever been someone that would have been called part of "the scene" or even part of "a scene" like some of my friends are, but when you get to enough shows wearing college radio t-shirts after a while, you'll inevitably start to recognize some people and be recognized in return. Some of them have become good friends, like Tony and Eric. Others are a regular part of the background that I'll always make an effort to say hello to and maybe have a chat with, like some of the Music Saves crew, or Nick Amster, who passed away on April 26.
I typically ran into him at the Beachland (it turns out he was a part owner, which I had no idea) or at the Cleveland Cinematheque, where he was a regular and apparently helped fund some stuff for the last night in the old hall. I also ran into him at random other music venues, at record stores, and even at the wake for my friend and radio colleague Dr. Bill. I'd had plenty of chats with him about film and music over the years. He knew my name but never mentioned listening to my radio show or anything like that, which is quite fair since I had no idea of the level of his involvement in the local scene. Since his passing many different people I know have been telling their own stories about Nick, all of which indicate a deep generosity and passionate interest in music. His obituary shows a life well lived. A great many people are probably raising a glass to him tonight.
I'll let people who know him best sings his praises, since to me he was the guy the encyclopedic knowledge of music (that not being unusual among my friends) and the longest hair I'd ever seen (he carried it with him). What I want to do is show respect for a project that he had never mentioned to me. I sure wish he had, because by all accounts the 1967 Project was breathtaking in its scope and implementation. To quote from his obit:
Amster’s love of music was expansive. With the exception of some opera, he enjoyed every genre and listened to everything. But his biggest musical interest wasn’t necessarily a genre or a specific musician -- instead, it was the year 1967.
“For over 10 years, every single day, he would listen to something that was either recorded or released in 1967,” Buck [his wife] said. “He did it for years, he was devoted to it. It was just amazing. I wish he had written a book about it.”
The project spanned every kind of music release from all over the world, as long as it was tied to the year 1967, which he considered the finest year in music -- a year that defined some of his favorite musicians, like Bob Dylan and The Velvet Underground.
Let's do some back of the envelope math. If we assume a new record every day for ten years, that's 3650 different records just for 1967. To put that in perspective, that's nearly nine times the size of the collection I've spent 30 years compiling. And knowing Nick, there were probably a lot of days where he listened to more way than one record. To put it another way, some otherwise sane and rational people have talked about my radio encyclopedia project with respect, and that's only at 171 Sundays of music and counting, with that actually covered over 214 weeks. That's not even half a year in total, and only three songs per day. Even that required some non-zero research and planning.
By comparison, Nick did at least a full album every day for ten years. I'm not clear on exactly when this ten year stretch was, but it sounds like it was far enough in the past that it was probably pre-internet. The level of research and planning it would take to make sure you had a new album every day must have been extensive. Very few artists had multiple 1967 releases so you'd have to be consistently bouncing around artists and genres, which would make it even harder. He must have been spent a lot of time in record stores or libraries to keep the project moving. I have complete respect for that kind of productive obsession. As his wife said, I wish he'd written a book about it, or that it had happened during era of blogs.
RIP Nick. September 30, 1948 to April 26, 2020. Enjoy the music.
I typically ran into him at the Beachland (it turns out he was a part owner, which I had no idea) or at the Cleveland Cinematheque, where he was a regular and apparently helped fund some stuff for the last night in the old hall. I also ran into him at random other music venues, at record stores, and even at the wake for my friend and radio colleague Dr. Bill. I'd had plenty of chats with him about film and music over the years. He knew my name but never mentioned listening to my radio show or anything like that, which is quite fair since I had no idea of the level of his involvement in the local scene. Since his passing many different people I know have been telling their own stories about Nick, all of which indicate a deep generosity and passionate interest in music. His obituary shows a life well lived. A great many people are probably raising a glass to him tonight.
I'll let people who know him best sings his praises, since to me he was the guy the encyclopedic knowledge of music (that not being unusual among my friends) and the longest hair I'd ever seen (he carried it with him). What I want to do is show respect for a project that he had never mentioned to me. I sure wish he had, because by all accounts the 1967 Project was breathtaking in its scope and implementation. To quote from his obit:
Amster’s love of music was expansive. With the exception of some opera, he enjoyed every genre and listened to everything. But his biggest musical interest wasn’t necessarily a genre or a specific musician -- instead, it was the year 1967.
“For over 10 years, every single day, he would listen to something that was either recorded or released in 1967,” Buck [his wife] said. “He did it for years, he was devoted to it. It was just amazing. I wish he had written a book about it.”
The project spanned every kind of music release from all over the world, as long as it was tied to the year 1967, which he considered the finest year in music -- a year that defined some of his favorite musicians, like Bob Dylan and The Velvet Underground.
Let's do some back of the envelope math. If we assume a new record every day for ten years, that's 3650 different records just for 1967. To put that in perspective, that's nearly nine times the size of the collection I've spent 30 years compiling. And knowing Nick, there were probably a lot of days where he listened to more way than one record. To put it another way, some otherwise sane and rational people have talked about my radio encyclopedia project with respect, and that's only at 171 Sundays of music and counting, with that actually covered over 214 weeks. That's not even half a year in total, and only three songs per day. Even that required some non-zero research and planning.
By comparison, Nick did at least a full album every day for ten years. I'm not clear on exactly when this ten year stretch was, but it sounds like it was far enough in the past that it was probably pre-internet. The level of research and planning it would take to make sure you had a new album every day must have been extensive. Very few artists had multiple 1967 releases so you'd have to be consistently bouncing around artists and genres, which would make it even harder. He must have been spent a lot of time in record stores or libraries to keep the project moving. I have complete respect for that kind of productive obsession. As his wife said, I wish he'd written a book about it, or that it had happened during era of blogs.
RIP Nick. September 30, 1948 to April 26, 2020. Enjoy the music.