I ran into a Sundesign portable player last week but the $15 price tag left me cold. Sundesign wasn’t exactly know as state of the art hi fi and the styling was very bland. What made it a fun sale is next to it was a trash can with 10 tapes in it that I asked if they wanted to sell and the woman said I could have them because they were broken. They all needed to be respliced except the always fun Mason Williams Phonograph Record which would be much more fun if they titled it the Mason Williams Phonograph 8 Track but I suppose Big Black can call a CD The Rich Man’s 8 Track so we’re even. Anyway it has one of those mushy pinch rollers that I one day hope to find a reasonable facsimile at Home Dept to replace. Also a fun Billy Preston tape with a non politically correct song titled N-word Charlie, I think I’ll work on a list of songs like this from the 8 track era, that Rolling Stones song Some Girls is chock full of stereotypes.

Another local thrift will bite the dust at the end of the year. The causality is St Vincent DePaul. http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20091109/news/311099990 I’m still not sure how non-profit store have to shut down because they can’t make a profit but I see they already sold the building for 450K so that might have had something to do with it. If anyone wants to buy the junk store I work at I won’t balk at that amount either. But on the upside now we’re down to 2 thrifts in this town and hopefully the voodoo doll I have at work with a pin through it and a Goodwill label on it will be next. If you go back far enough in the inner bowels of this journal you’ll see how I use to champion these outlets on the amazing scores that could be had, but since they started auctioning the good stuff on their corporative WebPages and shunned 8 tracks or calling them retro and tripling the prices I won’t be shedding too many tears.

On a personal note this week will make10 fricken years of the site. Judging by the great scores of late I just might have to move up to Cds from their availability. Don’t feel too bad, I’m still quaint since MP3’s are now the standard. And half my allotted bandwidth from tripod is used up so in 2019 that could be the end. But at least I’ll go out with the satisfaction I outlasted St Vinny’s.

Halloween is nearly upon us and this year instead of bringing out the Bobby 'Boris' Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers 8 track (On the Parrot Label) I’ve decided to go more authentic and will be playing Witchcraft by Coven. This is one of those ahead of times tapes that makes you look twice when you see it on 8 track. Ozzy Osbourne has since pushed devil music but is so mainstream his music no longer raises any eyebrows and his daughter competes on Dancing With The Stars for her proud parents.

Covent is relevant since they are more underground and other than that song everyone was whistling in the early 70s -One Tin Soldier aren’t much more than a cult band and that only helps their occult. Most of this tape has a Jefferson Airplane sound with great tunes and titles like For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, Pack With Lucifer or Dignitaries of Hell, but what makes this album legendary is the track Satanic Mass that covers 13 minuets. Fun stuff that’s a little stereotypical with all the Latin phrases, goat references and commands like “remove your garment and lie down at full length upon the altar.” and Prepare to receive through me the Benediction of Our Lord Satan.” It is rumored that they signed their recording contract with Mercury Records in blood.

This tape sounds best when you turn off the lights and light candles. They just released a CD 34 years after their last recording or you can come to my house on the 31^st of this month, make sure you come in costume and I’ll supply all the candy corn you can eat.

My favorite season is here with lots of color, light jacket weather, and no kids running garage sale but back in school where they belong. I think I can get aboard Obama’s statement about extending the school year I hope it pans out.

I’m not sure if 8 track tapes are recession proof but I couldn’t tell that to some guy who wanted $2 per cart of weak 70’s artists, maybe the lone Jackson 5 cart make the dollar signs replace his pupils. I think I can safely say I’m an 8 track snob and have no problem shunning such sellers and leaving a snide comment behind as I leave. My persistence paid off since the following sale brought a small collection of carts for a quarter and since I had most of them I grabbed one titled The Love Game by The New World Orchestra. I wonder if ELO got their New World Orchestra from this band? I never liked anything that is considered New World unless it was inspired by Christopher Columbus, most of the time it’s some organization by either some crazy Christian group or some political group telling you they have the “answer“. This tape couldn’t be farther from anything revolutionary since it sounds like a Montanovani bootleg. By now you’re probably wondering why I’m rambling on about this tape? Simple, it is on the enigmatic Misty label that I have a soft spot for. Even if it’s the most pedestrian music the covers usually save it and most of them look like they were from the mid 70s by the guy who worked on The Clairol Herbal Essence Shampoo ad campaign. So I proudly it display with the others on the label and hope one day the secret of this label is exposed someday, Misty=Mystery.

Here’s something fun, I was watching The Monkees yesterday and they had a quick view of the boys driving the Monkee mobile and for a few seconds showed the dashboard with an 8 track player in it and surprise of all surprises it was playing the first Monkees cartridge. When I paused the disk I saw that is was filmed upside-down, how avant garde.

Summer is over and I’ll soon be able to count the weekly number of yard sales on one hand. Every year they say sales are getting worse and the scores are becoming far and in between but either this isn’t so or I’ve adapted to them and still find decent stuff. This isn’t an intro to the great finds I found this week I’m referring to the whole summer with my giant fish on the wall, and my garage exploding with 8 tracks and cool vinyl. What I’ve discovered is not to waste time on , any sale where donations help some children, most parents are too young to have anything interesting and if they do it’s not going to end up here. Even records that were once a staple are now a rarity and I see CDs following suite.

This week has been slow since this town is going all ga-ga over the Twilight celebration. Since this town was mentioned in the novel a few times its been a tourist boom and they’re trying to milk it for all they can with silly trivia contests and dvd showings of the film., but the real town -Forks down the road is going full force with tours of the high school and look a like contests. The natives are pretty mixed about it since their favorite dives and coffee shops booths have been taken over by giddy teenaged girls (Twi-hards). I find it silly that that town is one of the rainiest Seasonal affective disorder place in the country covered with moss most of the year but now all the tourist revel in it and are disappointed when it’s sunny. Part of me loves the PR and wish someone would write about the neighboring town Sequim that is full of ancient drivers who think driving 20 miles under the limit is speeding and make that cool and with it.

Nothing worth mentioning on the 8 track front but a fun overly produced 10 cc tape where the splice broke after 2 mins of play, not sure if I want to fix it or not, and these cool bar stools carved into these mutant buglike tikis from the 70s. I wonder what the deal with bar stools and the 70s was? They're all over the place and have that signature crapy styling of over upholstered earth tones that swivel.

These waning days of summer brought a nice bounty of 8 tracks in one of those 30 year old cardboard boxes covered with dust, a well used JC Penny player, and crammed with tapes. They wanted $10 for everything but I’ve been in this business long enough to know that it really means best offer and after noon it might end up a free box by the curb. So I told them I don’t need the hardware but will offer them $5 for the tapes. After a good 20 seconds of pondering I had a nice box of carts. Good classic stuff like Beatles, Aerosmith. Lou Reed, Santana, Jethro Tull and even an Elvis Quad. Then later I scored a mini holy grail tape by The Village People titled Renaissance.

I see their film Can’t Stop the Music as the coffin for this band and this tape was the last nail in it, but don’t let the dopey new wave cover scare you away (It was change when it was released on CD.) this one isn’t bad and I bet if they released it under a different name it would have had more staying power. Songs like Spend The Night, and 5 O Clock in The Morning hold up well in the genre and I wish those 80’s flashback radio shows would give them some airtime instead of playing Melt With You all the time. Also if I ever run into one of The Village People at the grocery store I’m going to ask them what the deal was on the songs Food Fight, Big Mac, and Diet. They seem to be filler for the album but work the same way Cher’s Half Bred, Dark Lady and Gypsies Tramps and Thieves do as a themed trilogy. I was hoping McDonalds would have played the Big Mac Song in a McDonalds Land commercial at that time and I think a homoerotic clown in the pre John Wayne Gacy era would have fit in well with The Village People image as a singer.

Other scores I got was this cool super heavy turntable by Technics Quartz model 1200 that even has a wiki entry that is big with the rappers who affectionately call it “One Two” so I feel so urban and cool this week. Also I waded through boxes of Lps that looked they have been stored in the hold of a battleship for the last few decades and found a cool album titled Blood Moon by Fraction that musically sounds like Jim Morrison sat in with Black Sabbath and when you listen to it with those thick Pioneer headphones you start hallucinating and the walls melt. I’ll be taping this on a cart soon to make it more portable and getting in touch with my inner lizard king.

Can’t wait for summer to end and for the trendy Walmartesque family yard sales to end and the hardcore ones to resume. I’m sick of sales put on by people in their late 20s and early 30s with kids in grade school and nothing to offer but last years worn out Christmas presents. I need estate sales and 40 years accumulation and if the owner has a foot and the grave and a European accent all the better.

The sale of the week (Out of 26) was one that was a pet shop that went out of business decades ago with lots of outdated pet supplies. I was tempted to get a wall of heavy steel 6 tiered by 10 small mouse cages with latches to use a tape holders. If I had a basement I would and keep my finest stock in them behind a small padlock. Instead I got a bunch of aquariums covered in baked on mold and thick dust. I was thinking of getting into fish but balked at the price of tanks and found a nice 40 gal for $3. Also this garage had a small box of 8 tracks that use to be played in the store. I got them all for a dollar with Seals and Crofts and Steely Dan being very well represented.

I also found a huge 9 foot mounted fish at a B & B that was going under that had a best offer sticker on it and I left my number and a bid of $75 and got a call last week. It hangs proudly in the tiki lounge and this fish theme seems to be a constant in my life now. No wonder I’m a Pisces.

The Cheap Trick tape finally arrived and since I haven’t been able to make anytime in my schedule to listen to it yet I can only give it a partial review.

What’s with the cover art of 3 band members using metal detectors on a beach while the guitarist is emerging from a hole? Are they looking for him and completely blind or is he lending a hand by digging a hole and searching? Could they be looking for car keys? We’ll probably never know and since it’s done in arty fartsy black and white it can be dismissed as “art” and have to remain unaccountable, it’s like we’re not deep enough to understand it. The back is a bit of cliché with the bands silhouettes but at least they didn’t to the ultimate music stale joke and have the band pose in front of a brick wall with attitude sneer on their faces. The sleeve is a generic white one with no printing on it (And this was a $30 tape.) the message I get is that they are a generic band but that only works with ones that aren’t’ household names and I don’t think they are being ironic. But for all this the cart is a dead ringer for a factory one and with it’s white shell looks like it would be at home with those Columbia mail order tapes and with no bubbles on the label, a clean pressure pad and not having to put on a preemptive foil splice it’s like I woke up in 1978 and just came from Tower Records. So its music is irrelevant to me and it’s not like anyone goes to their concerts anymore to hear their new stuff, so bravo.

Last week I found one of my kitschy most wanted items in a framed print of Jesus invading the UN building. I’m not sure if this is political where Jesus is needed in this godless building or he’s blessing it but regardless he’s now on my kitchen island. I put it there since he don’t go with any interior design anywhere so I can't go wrong.