Recently, I found an old reel-to-reel tape of the first band I was ever in: “The Watchmen”. It is 45 years old.
This 20 minute compilation of a few of the best songs we had in our repertoire, is now on a cd, and I’d like to upload it to YouTube and I have a few questions as I have never uploaded anything before. (my friend Zipper JJ was kind enough to do “M for Maggie” for me).
Anyway…
Can I upload something that long to YouTube?
Thanks and I’m all “hot 'n bothered” about this, because I was only 15 at the time and to be that old that tape had remarkably good quality.
How cool! That must be a blast to listen to after all this time.
Sadly, you can’t upload 20 minutes on one shot to YouTube, with a basic account. They have a 10 minute time limit. So, you could do it in 2 parts. Or, you can upload it to another service… Vimeo is one I use all the time (it’s also free), and they limit uploads by file size, not length.
I assume you know you need to upload the music set to video of some sort? The “video” could even be a still photo, but you can’t just upload audio to any of these video hosting services.
Anamorphic, could you “take me by the hand” so to speak, and walk me through how you would do it (the video part is kinda difficult for me. I know how to send an mp3, but not a video)?
Let’s back up then. What programs do you have available to you to do this with? Are you on Mac or Windows? If you are on Mac, you’ll have iMovie on your computer. If you’re on Windows, you should have Windows Movie Maker on the computer somewhere. In either case, the process is still essentially the same (although, I have to admit, I’m more familiar with the Mac side of things, but I can probably still walk you through it with the Windows application).
Open up the program (be it iMovie or Windows Movie Maker). Import your mp3 into it. In iMovie this is done by simply dragging the audio from the folder on your computer into the project window. (If you have Windows Movie Maker, I’ll boot into windows and figure out how it’s done there).
Then, you add your “video”. I put video in quotes, because you’re probably not going to add actual video, but just a placeholder. You can find a still photo from your computer, and drag that into the project the same way you did with the audio. Position it in the video window (you’ll see your audio there already) over top of the audio.
Heck, you could even just put a title card text (“Quasi’s Rarities!”) as your “video” instead of a picture. Then your music will play with just the title text as the picture. You add titles in iMovie by using the menu Windows --> Titles.
Then, if you’re going to split it into two pieces for YouTube… you…
Okay, I just realized how complicated this is probably sounding to someone who isn’t used to doing it. Seriously, I do this sort of thing (on a much more complicated level) for a living. If you want to email me the mp3 files, I can do this for you in about a half hour!
Here’s the first of three sections, containing three songs each, and although it’s some very raw stuff and recorded live with all mistakes, I sure would appreciate it if y’all would give it a listen? It would mean a lot to me to share this with you.
Thanks. I got this “nostalgia thing” going on right now, thinking about the band and where everyone is and hoping they’ll see this on YouTube and get in touch for a reunion concert, but who knows.
I know for sure that our lead guitarist has macular degneration to the point where he has to be led onstage to play with his new band, oor lead vocal is a doctor practicing not far from here, and so on and so forth…
Nice little trip back to the 20th Century, courtesy of our friend Anamorphic.
All three parts have been uploaded. Just click on More from TheWatchmen1965.
I have to tell you, however, that at the time none of The Watchmen thought it was our best performance, and boy did we rag on each other on playback!
Sadly, we had to buy the studio time, so we never went back to record like that ever again. The rest of our time together was spent in smoky Moose Lodges, VFW’s and AMVETS clubs.
I still remember, once during my “Wipe Out” drum solo, a fight breaking out, and Dewey saying “KEEP ON PLAYING!”
That was fine till some drunk came up on the bandstand and stumbled into my drum kit.
By then, I’d had enough, and, having had a few too many myself (at age 16 by then), I stood up, unscrewed my crash cymbal from its stand and sailed that damn thing across the room like a frisbee. Luckily, I didn’t decapitate anyone.
Imagine what your 15-year-old mind would have thought if it knew back then that anyone, anywhere could hear this performance on a computer in two-thousand and frickin’ ten!
I have a tape like that somewhere but, since one of the rules was that you could not play an instrument you had ever played before, and most of us were pretty damned marginal on the instruments we DID know, the results were as you’d expect. Our greatest successes were a version of Leslie Gore’s “Sunshine, Lollipops, and Roses” backed with a former runner-up to Miss Joliet singing what she won the Talent section with. The title escapes me, but she had AMAZING…er…hands. Real, spectacular, and completely off-limits.
ETA: Recording equipment: A mono cassette recorder and the mike that came with it, but it didn’t deserve better.
I am proud, Mean, and whew thanks for shocking me into that perspective!
If I had told the guys that in 46 years, they’d hear all this on a computer, they’d have sent me off to the nearest booby-hatch.
“No! I’m talkin’ about the FUTURE! This guy Mean Mr. Mustard told me that!”
“Huh?”
“Well, he got his name from The Beatles’ White Album!.. Yeah, I know you’ve never heard of it, but anyway, that’s the guy’s name, and he’s gonna think our music is very cool!”
I’ve been floating on Dr. Hammond’s voice for the past 3 days, and I cannot BELIEVE that the quality of that 3M tape made it through all those years!
We musta done something right!
I have to add (even though it isn’t on the tape) that Victor’s version of “Sleepwalk” was used at every Junior/Senior Prom when the ladies came out on stage and clasped hands with their guys.
Man! Victor could coax some beautiful notes out of that Gretsch Chet Atkins Anniversary edition! That man was/is a wonder to behold as he plays!
