G45 GBase Thinktank

[bosshoss]

BossHoss, is it possible to make an open part and a closed part?
AZ54

I'm sure that would be possible, and certainly desirable. If we collected data that duplicated certain descriptive info already available in TBM, I would want to keep that part of the info closed until TBM was almost sold out. By "closed", I mean only available to contributors, not to the general public.

 

[bosshoss]

I'm also in favour of using links to youtube for the soundfiles. The advantage of this is, thousands of the 45s are already available there. And if we add the missing ones on youtube instead of hosting them here at G45central, we will not have to worry about copyright complaints. Youtube can take care of the hate mail...

 

[bosshoss]

Here's the latest database structure, after some advise from senior forum members

BASIC INFO (can mostly be seen on record label)
Label scan A 1000 x 1000 pixels
Label scan B 1000 x 1000 pixels
Label name (50 characters)
Catalog number (25 chars)
Country of origin (drop down menu of countries)
Artist name (50 chars)
A-side title (80 chars)
B-side title (80 chars)
picture sleeve (yes or no) (1 char)
scan of (both sides of) pic sleeve 1000 x 1000 pixels
label color (drop down menu) (2 chars)
date added (automatic) (date field)
basic info complete? (yes or no, automatic) (1 char)
basic info verified by (selected forum member or members) (25 chars)

ADDITIONAL INFO
research site link 1 (URL for example an article at 60sgaragebands or Garagehangover etc) (80 chars)
research site link 2 (as above) (80 chars)
research site link 3 (as above) (80 chars)
youtube link (youtube URL) (50 chars)
band photo (1000 x 1500 pixels)
G45 ranking (integer, 5)
song rating (A-side) (integer,2)
song rating (B-side) (integer,2)
overall rarity rating (integer,2)
overall sound quality rating (integer,2)
overall legend rating (integer,2)
"hot" designation (currently in-demand with DJs etc) (1 char)
A-side is a cover/remake of….(eg. Zombies) (50 chars)
B-side is a cover/remake of..(50 chars)
year of release (2 chars)
month of release (3 chars)
State of origin (50 chars)
Town of origin (50 chars)
name of producer (50 chars)
name of studio (50 chars)
vinyl or styrene (or both) (1 char)
deadwax info (maybe...) (50 chars)
copies estimated to exist (integer 3)
bootleg or repro exists? (yes or no)
DJ or promo copies exist? (yes or no)
Stock copies exist? (yes or no)
CD comp exists? (yes or no)
LP comp exists? (yes or no)
collector CD exists? (yes or no)
company sleeve exists? (yes or no)
known pressing defects (50 chars)
quantity finds (integer, 3)
band member names (80 chars)
songwriter names (50 chars)
pressing plant (50 chars)
quantity pressed (integer, 5)
current g45 owners (integer, 3)
value m- (integer, 5)
value vg plus (integer, 5)
value vg (integer, 5)
value vg minus (integer, 5)
value g (integer,5)
mood (drop-down menu "melodic", "moody", "raw", etc. )
pace (drop-down menu "fast", "medium", "slow" etc.)
beat (drop-down menu "swinger", "pounder", "ballad", "rocker" etc.)
influence (drop-down menu Kinks, Stones, Beatles, Yardbirds, Wailers, Zombies etc.)
vocals (yes or no) (1 char)
harmony vocals (yes or no) (1 char)
feature1 ( drop-down menu, elec piano, piano, harp, chimes, strings, woodwinds, brass, sax, acoustic guitar, fuzz guitar, jangle guitar, organ, tambourine etc. )
feature2 (same as above)
feature3 (same as above)
psychedelic sound (yes or no) (1 char)
folk rock sound (yes or no) (1 char)
lead break (yes or no) (1 char)
screams (yes or no) (1 char)
all info complete (yes or no, automatic) (1 char)
all info verified by (selected forum member or members) (25 chars)

 

[AZ54]

Wow!

 

[greenfuzz]

Wow!

I second that!

 

[Hicksville Hogwash]

That is a big pile of info for <100,000 records <500,000..... ????.

But to make it more complex and helpful. I'd separate saxophone out of horns as it is essential instrument to many of those early frat garage teens (the fuzz box replaced the saxophone player somewhat) also separate maracas and tambourine clattering from most percussion as these also give an idea of the total teen garage sound rather than clumping them with say tablas on some later psyche?

but that could go on forever... Echo? Reverberation? A rip off of a _____ song, production values - one mic, two mics, multi tracked, live,

It looks daunting the amount of info you want and how long will most of us take to fill in each form for each disc and scan and edit and resize. But how worthwhile to the future of mankind and alien races that may come passing by.

 

[bosshoss]

That is a big pile of info for <100,000 records <500,000..... ????.

But to make it more complex and helpful. I'd separate saxophone out of horns as it is essential instrument to many of those early frat garage teens (the fuzz box replaced the saxophone player somewhat) also separate maracas and tambourine clattering from most percussion as these also give an idea of the total teen garage sound rather than clumping them with say tablas on some later psyche?

but that could go on forever... Echo? Reverberation? A rip off of a _____ song, production values - one mic, two mics, multi tracked, live,

It looks daunting the amount of info you want and how long will most of us take to fill in each form for each disc and scan and edit and resize. But how worthwhile to the future of mankind and alien races that may come passing by.

Thanks for the helpful input Mr. Hogwash. There are probably less than 25000 45s worldwide that would qualify.

Separating sax and horns would be a good idea, as long as we're sure most contributors can distinguish between the two easily. I suppose most of us can.

As for percussion, I would probably not want to note tuneless percussion like tambourine and maracas which I would treat as part of the basic drum/percussion sound. A basic drum sound is probably not worth noting as a unique feature as nearly all garage/beat songs have it. Likewise bass. Regarding chimes/percussion I was thinking more of vibes, bells, xylophone etc. used as a melodic feature of the song. Like the bells in The Aardvarks "I'm Higher Than I'm Down". Maybe we should just call this field "chimes/bells".

Factors such as reverberation and mic placement are too esoteric and also impossible to quantify. Likewise the rip-off idea, sometimes it's obvious to one listener, and not to another.

 

[Hicksville Hogwash]

Thanks for the helpful input Mr. Hogwash. There are probably less than 25000 45s worldwide that would qualify.

Separating sax and horns would be a good idea, as long as we're sure most contributors can distinguish between the two easily. I suppose most of us can.

As for percussion, I would probably not want to note tuneless percussion like tambourine and maracas which I would treat as part of the basic drum/percussion sound. A basic drum sound is probably not worth noting as a unique feature as nearly all garage/beat songs have it. Likewise bass. Regarding chimes/percussion I was thinking more of vibes, bells, xylophone etc. used as a melodic feature of the song. Like the bells in The Aardvarks "I'm Higher Than I'm Down". Maybe we should just call this field "chimes/bells".

Factors such as reverberation and mic placement are too esoteric and also impossible to quantify. Likewise the rip-off idea, sometimes it's obvious to one listener, and not to another.

Boss, are ye krazee?

There ain't nothing tuneless, unmelodic or basic about a good tambourine bashing or a Jerome Green styled shashashaking maraca break. They can bring me to tears sometimes.

Not all garage songs have them and in some ways I'd go more for a song with these two percussive instruments featured over say a cowbell donk donking.

...mind You Can Make It - Richard and the Young Lions has those wicked tubular bells or whatever they are?

Another interesting addition might be time signature. I love those 4/4 to 3/4 changes some of these songs have. Makes my belly wobble as I'm sure was suppose to happen.

 

[Frantic]

Another interesting addition might be time signature. I love those 4/4 to 3/4 changes some of these songs have. Makes my belly wobble as I'm sure was suppose to happen.

HELL...Let's have a category of what kind of stimulents the band was on when they were recording, broken down by; pot, lsd, booze, uppers, downers, heroin, etc. C'mon man

 

[Monster Mike]

So much for keeping it simple! Lol I agree that since not all copies of TBM are sold that certain info should not be made public until that time. Why not exclude(for the time being) any record already listed in the book? The database should be considered more of an update and companion to TBM.

 

[greenfuzz]

I agree the scope is too large. I think a good starting point are the below fields. These should get everything off the ground fairly easily:

Label scans of both sides
Label name
Catalog number
Country of origin
State of origin
Town of origin
Artist name
A-side title
B-side title
date of release (if known)
G45 ranking
picture sleeve (yes or no)
scan of (both sides of) pic sleeve
verified by (selected forum member or members)
date added (automatic)
basic info complete? (yes or no, automatic)
band photo

 

[bosshoss]

Some good suggestions above.
As for excluding any TBM listed entries, it would be a very lean database for the USA. I can't imagine more than 50 valid records currently exist which are not listed in TBM. I think we need to take advantage of the good will of collectors (for example Rich) who have offered to help with their bulk collection info. That may not be possible years from now.
The good thing about a database is that fields can be left blank and filled in later. As long as the basic information is present, it would still be useful. The fields that Mike (greenfuzz) lists above are logical ones. However, all we really need to get a 45 started, is the information taken directly from the label. Then anyone can create a new listing, without having to worry about rankings , locations etc. and the inevitable mistakes involved.

Once the basic label information has been added (this may take a year or more), then we can move on to the other fields. By the time we got around to rankings, descriptions and locations, TBM will probably be sold out. Yes, a long time from now...

And in the meantime, we can still do all the worldwide (non USA) 45s without restrictions. That's thousands, and thousands of 45s.

 

[bosshoss]

I have made a change to the instrument description section. Instead of "yes/no" for each instrument (which added up to about a dozen "yes/no" questions), I have added 3 feature instrument fields. Each would offer an identical drop-down menu of featured instrument choices, such as "electric organ" "sax" "bells" "fuzz guitar" "tambourine" etc. So the most important 3 instruments could be selected, reducing the database from 12 fields to 3. Or it could be 4 or 5 featured instruments if anyone thinks it would be better to have more.
I also added "folk rock sound" to complement "psychedelic sound" and to distinguish between "jangle guitar" and actual "folk rock sound".

 

[Berman]

I'm also in favour of using links to youtube for the soundfiles. The advantage of this is, thousands of the 45s are already available there. And if we add the missing ones on youtube instead of hosting them here at G45central, we will not have to worry about copyright complaints. Youtube can take care of the hate mail...

Hmm... much was deleted from Youtube over the last years.. Divshare-Site or another possibility?

 

[Hicksville Hogwash]

The museum I worked at tried to get a data base up to the web of every artifact in the collection. It was a thankless task transferring all that info classifications became blurred. Objects ended up in 3 or 4 main categories sometimes...

You may have to simplify for instance -

research site links and youtube links - are going to get lost, deleted or changed.

hot DJ spin, monetary values, anything with outside of G45 influence for change I think should be out.

Song rating, overall rarity rating, overall sound quality rating, overall legend rating. I never really understood these and is way more abstract than some categories, we'll need to get a panel out again as my 10 would be a 4 for someone else.

Psychedelic sound, folk rock sound maybe lump these together with other categories in another drop down. greaser sound, novelty sound?!?!?

featured instruments could be a tick box section with a list of instruments. this could cover the whole band in one swoop.

Lead break could be a tick box section with a list of instruments Lead organ, harmonica, drums solo.. Maybe call these Solo Break instead?

The ideas are great but I think you need more of the factual and less (even though desirable) of the abstract opinions of lovers of this stuff. Less sections but more info within each section maybe the way to go?

Also a small point seems one of the most important info - Deadwax you are sitting of the fence over because for fear of bootleggers? What is the point of putting all this info in and excluding the magic codex.

Edit... so what I see is something like - Special effects (Y/N) then if Yes a drop down of check boxes. Feedback, Wah Wah, Phased, Backwards, Sci Fi, Theremin, Echoed, Sped up, Slowed down...... with the ability to tick more than one box.??

 

[Rich Strauss]

There is a basic info field that is missing (I mentioned it earlier, but it got lost):

the town & state of the record label

In olden days, if there was an address on the label, people assumed that was where the band was from. This, of course, was not always the case.

Also, I really think that some info on how to sort on the artist's name should be included. Adding it later is time consuming. I know this from experience.

FYI, here are the fields in the database for my collection, which I started 30 years ago (although some of the fields were added along the way):

InCollection?
Label
Number
Artist e.g. The Beatles
Aside Song Title
Bside Song Title
Release date
Artist state
Aside style
Bside style
Aside rating
Bside rating
Grade
DJ?
PS? and condition
State for record label
Value
G1000 ranking
TBM rating for Aside
TBM rating for Bside
Artist name for sorting e.g. Beatles,The

I have about 7,000 45s listed in my database. So, a bulk add of those would be a good start to the project.

I would leave some fields out for the bulk add:

InCollection?
Aside & Bside rating - these are my ratings - not the consensus from TBM
Aside & Bside styles - these are my own cryptic categories
Grade
Value - this is what I payed for the 45
TBM ratings

In addition many of the release dates are wrong. I'd leave these in for later correction.

-- Rich

 

[ShyC]

This could be the best project ever realized by mankind!

I don't know if this is too much to ask for, but apart from all those "specifications" I'd love something that's not only cold facts and nerd stuff: some kind of annotation field, where a story can be told. The story of the band ("Lead singer was decapitated in a motorcycle accident a month after the 45 came out"; "Guitar player went on to play in Manowar in the 80ies") or a story about the record, if there is one ("500 were pressed, 490 were tossed in a lake by the band members"), etc. Some kind of liner notes if you will.

This would combine all the knowledge/database stuff with something else to enjoy, like a mixture between TBM and the G500.

 

[MopTopMike]

I'm also in favour of using links to youtube for the soundfiles. The advantage of this is, thousands of the 45s are already available there. And if we add the missing ones on youtube instead of hosting them here at G45central, we will not have to worry about copyright complaints. Youtube can take care of the hate mail...

I would only allow Youtube links for sound clips, whether well-known, or obscure. As Mark noted, let another website handle the work.
I mean, what is the sense of having soundclips directly uploaded to the database for songs that have been on comps over the years? A waste of time, webspace, and effort to have familiar songs on this database. There is no need to have uploaded songclips for "I Never Loved Her" (Starfires) "It's A Cry'n Shame" (Gentlemen) and "Going All the Way" (Squires) at this late date.

I also applaud and insist on links for photos, because the majority of pics would be sourced from other places on the web. In this day and age of free yet uncredited "sharing" on Facebook, blogs, etc. those folks who take the time to upload photographs on their websites must be credited, and the database should always provide links to the appropriate page. Chris B, Mike D, Colin, are just a few of the guys who have uploaded cool pix obtained from bandmembers. Why not show some respect and use links for photos?

Yes, links do go out of date, but such changes could easily be kept up-to-date by administrators.

 

[bosshoss]

Yes, links do go out of date, but such changes could easily be kept up-to-date by administrators.

I'm pretty sure Aaron could rig up a system which test the youtube links automatically every day or every week, and report a list of broken links to the admin. That is assuming that once a link is broken, the same URL doesn't get re-cycled by youtube for a completely different video or sound clip. Does anyone know?

 

[Sebastian]

I mean, what is the sense of having soundclips directly uploaded to the database for songs that have been on comps over the years? A waste of time, webspace, and effort to have familiar songs on this database. There is no need to have uploaded songclips for "I Never Loved Her" (Starfires) "It's A Cry'n Shame" (Gentlemen) and "Going All the Way" (Squires) at this late date.

The only really sensible thing is to have soundclips of absolutely everything, regardless of how "common", "rare" or "well known" certain songs are. To only have soundclips of seldom- or un-comped stuff results in a woefully skewed focus/impression of the site. Everything should have a soundclip, a-side and b-side, regardless of the level of goodness/crapness.

To not have the intention of making a database like this as complete as possible is a waste of time. I think it's wrong to assume that everyone that have an interest in teenbeat/garage sounds has heard EVERY COMPILATION EVER RELEASED or is familiar with everything that is a "classic". In the case of Starfires/Squires/Gentlemen, I totally get your point, but soundclips should be included anyway.

Webspace/webtraffic has never been cheaper. Hosting 10.000 low bit-rate 3 minute MP3s (let's say 64kbps mono) will take up about 15Gb. You can get 30Gb of hosting with unlimited traffic for under $100 per year.

It's the only way to go in my opinion.