Interning at the ARChive

While the rest of our classmates slept in on their day off and enjoyed the first day of fall in the city, three of us – Sarah Nienaber, Ollie Moltagi, and Tom Schmidt – went down to the ARChive of Contemporary Music to help catalogue and organize their collection of two copies of every single record ever made. The ARChive has been around since 1986, and it seems unlikely that our single day of services could make a noticeable dent in all of the records they have, but we did our best nonetheless.

Almost as interesting as the 1.6 million records the ARChive has collected, is the man behind them. Receiving donations from rock legends Keith Richards, David Byrne, and David Bowie, living with Fela Kuti in early 80’s Nigeria for weeks at a time, and having a Prince song named after him, Bob George appears to be living a dream. One would have to imagine that he’s either violently passionate or dangerously obsessive about record collecting (and maybe he is), but he’s also aspiring for something greater – a searchable database encompassing all contemporary music, completely accessible to the public.

When we learned we were going to spend the day at the ARChive, we imagined shelves and shelves of every record by acts like The Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, and The Beatles, but it wasn’t until we started working that we truly understood what it meant to collect all the records in the world. Ollie and Sarah spent the day sorting out 11 or 12 boxes of soundtracks, while Tom sifted through multiple copies of of John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech, Tammy Faye Baker’s gospel teachings, and even a disturbing batch of “stag” records. By the end of the day, though, we got what we wanted (especially Ollie) as Bob George showed us a rare copy of Talking Head’s “Speaking In Toungues” that features artwork by Rauchemburgh. To top it all off, that particular copy was signed by Byrne himself. The ARChive is hoping that Rauchemburgh will sign the other.

All and all, we had a great experience volunteering.

[Above: Tom Schmidt filing stag records. Below: Album covers on the wall at the ARChive.]

Comments

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The Archive has been around since 1986, and it seems unlikely that your single day of services could make a noticeable dent in all of the records they have, but you guys did your best nonetheless.