Why 2016 is going to be Music to my ears...

Mr Squidge gave me a huge surprise at Christmas - a new music system.

With valve technology...apparently.

We did have one - an old Bose model (inherited from a distant relative who died many years ago) which was temperamental at the best of times. (And although Bose players are good, it bugs me that you can't alter the bass level -I don't like feeling the bass beat in my chest!) We also had a very old CD/cassette tape/radio system, which over the years had stopped playing tapes and CD's, but we'd not got rid of it because we had the Bose...which didn't word so well, etc etc.

Lovely - can now play all my favourite CD's and adjust the bass! And as you can see, there's plenty of CD's to choose from. I have a rather eclectic taste in music - you're as likely to find Muse as Music to Watch Girls By, Taize chants or Tom Jones, Eurythmics or Enya and so on.

The CD shelf

One thing that's always saddened me is the move to digital music; I have a basketful of cassette tapes of music I can't find on CD which are linked to my student years and the time my dad worked in Oman for a while (and brought us back pirated copies of tapes I could never afford to buy for myself. The job in Oman also bought my first real sound system - a record player with tape deck and radio! I'll never forget the day Dad came home on leave and there was music blasting out of all three of us kids' bedrooms because he'd bought one for each of us...) Those tapes - and the memories linked to them - have been gathering dust in a basket for the last twenty years.

Not any more!

Because Mr Squidge also bought me a little gadget that plays old cassette tapes and records them as mp3 files so you can plug a memory stick into the new music system and play them! Hooray!!

The natty little gadget itself - smaller than a Walkman

Needless to say, I've not played with the technology yet, but Mr Squidge has; yesterday I heard Bat Out of Hell by Meatloaf for the first time in literally yonks, followed by a bit of The Light Programme, a jazz band we saw busking on the streets of Newcastle.

I've sorted out the tapes I'd like to capture...the blue tapes are all pirated copies! There's a fab Disco double cassette with hours of 70's disco...The Damned - Anyhting Goes - from a gig I saw in Wolverhampton while at uni...Andrew Lloyd Webber's Variations which our dance teacher used at Limehurst (Mrs Freakley - big hair, always in a leotard!)...Adam Ant, from my thirteenth birthday...'Love Songs' and the B52's...Prince, 1999...King (Another uni gig - Get your boots on!) So many memories, flooding back.

The ones that DEFINITELY need to be digitilized!

I reckon 2016 is going to be full of rediscovered music...and memories.