I probably paid too much for this one but even with that it’s a fun tape. It’s called Lenny & Squiggy presents Lenny & The Squigtones. It’s from one of those shows that come along every 20 years that get all warm and fuzzy about the past, in the 70s Happy Days & Laverne & Shirley romanticized the 50s, and in the 1990s That 70s Show took on the 70s, even now Portlandia is going deep in the 1990’s.

It’s full of lots of humor that that hasn’t dated that much unlike anything from Steve Martin back then, and while there is a fake Spinal Tap promo 8 track tape out there this tape could be described as the roots of that phony tape since it features Michael McKean and Nigel Tufnel and like all good things classic it is rumored that Peter Criss is the drummer. The live party atmosphere of it reminds me of the Briefcase Full Of Blues Blues Brothers tape which is a fake blues band so lots of masks in this posting.

Posted by gregg-n at 3:17 PM PDT

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I found yet another one of the tapes on the short list of must haves.  This one is the soundtrack of Dark Shadows. It’s like old school Goth with all the organs, bad poetry and black hair dye free. I wish I had a great story that all the cool kids had about rushing home after school to catch it and dressing up like Barnabas Collis for Halloween but it was too heady for me at the time and most of my TV time then was full of loud games shows like Gambit and The Jokers Wild. Musically, it reminds me of a Moody Blues cart where they break into poems between songs that sound real deep, I was weened on Claudine Longet's version of Shadows of The Night and the original version is here but I like Claudine’s exotic version better.  I hear it’s going to be made into a film which I don’t understand since devotes of the original show aren’t exactly the target demography for films so I hope there’s a senior discount when it's shown.

Posted by gregg-n at 9:07 AM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 7 March 2012 7:11 PM PST

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Check out the Yahoo music graphic on the upper right of their webpage.

Posted by gregg-n at 6:08 PM PST

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The 8 track has always been a major fashion accesory, Madonna last week Ru Paul this week. I just might change the background to fabulous pink.

Posted by gregg-n at 6:53 PM PST

Updated: Thursday, 9 February 2012 7:00 PM PST

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The all video music station here was running a Madonna marathon in honor of her half time show,  I watched it like I go through life- half paying attention then her video Deeper and Deeper was shown and there was a quick  flash of a nice collection of tapes from the 70’s. I got a screen grab today but only can identify The Boston one and a Capt and Tennille cart.  It’s been that kind of week since I hit an estate sale the previous week and found a copy of the scandalous 1992 Madonna Sex book with its Warholesque mylar silver bag. This book is fun because everyone in it is naked and the covers are made out of heavy metal plates. I’m surprised that we haven’t heard of any stories on how it saved anyone life when they were shot and the bullet was deflected from the shiny Kevlar cover.

Posted by gregg-n at 11:54 AM PST

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Every so often I like to mix things up and rotate the players in my lair and while the Planetron player is a classic sometimes you want a thicker more domestic sound so I went into my garage of mystery and dug up this Wentworth AM/FM player that looks like 2 cubes. Long time readers of this may remember it from when this was a preblog webpage.  This thing can really crank out a tune and the beauty of it is can also double for a pedestal to turn the most mediocre sculpture into a work of art. It has a 10 foot chord to spread out the sound and you can even hook up a phonograph to it, I hope they sold record players in the same shape to make things really interesting.
 

Posted by gregg-n at 4:06 PM PST

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I like novelty songs, but even more fun is when the band realizes that their 15 mins are up they go to the well again with nothing new and we get a shadow of the one hit that is quickly forgotten. For instance The Royal Guardsman did Snoopy and the Red Barron that followed the popularity of Peanuts in music form. The timing was perfect then they basically revamped it for the holidays and called the new song Snoopy Christmas and that was that. Other examples are Bobby Boris Picket’s Monster Holiday. He wasn’t content to have the top Halloween hit and wanted to go Christmas carol.  I only wish Rankin Bass made this song into one of those stop animated specials so kids could enjoy it for the next 40 years (Christmas music and TV has been completely hijacked by baby boomers). Let’s not forget Meri Wilson’s Telephone Man about a woman seducing one, this girl had quite the libido when she does it all again in the song Peter The Meter Reader it’s on youtube. You gotta love the 70s and women’s lib. Yesterday I learned that The Devil Went Down To Georgia has a sequel titled The Devils Comes Back To Georgia which is nearly indistinguishable.

 What brought this on was I was listening to The Buoys 8 track and after hearing that cannibalism song Timothy, was hoping they’d make a few sequels themselves like being trapped in a space shuttle and having to consume Tim again, or stuck in a submarine in the bottom of the ocean eyeing him hungrily, how about getting accidentally locked in the car. I don’t know what happened to the band but if I see them on an Indian casino tour opening for Terry Jacks I’ll be pitching these ideas to them. This song is long overdue.   

Posted by gregg-n at 2:16 PM PST

Updated: Tuesday, 17 January 2012 2:23 PM PST

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I’m still buried under 6 feet of snow (not really, this is the Pacific Northwest, more like 3 inches of rain we don’t get bad winters here but it’s a trade off since the summers are nonexistent but don’t tell that to the people with yard sales to them this is Antarctic weather.). So enjoy the eye candy for now.   I’m now on twitter for the new year and seem to only attract  Russian sex workers, I feel like man crack. Search for Yearofthetrack in browse categories.

Posted by gregg-n at 7:32 AM PST

Updated: Sunday, 15 January 2012 6:28 AM PST

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New Years, I’m only posting this because I don’t want this webpage to be like my neighbor’s house who doesn’t remove his Christmas decorations until Martin Luther King day.

Posted by gregg-n at 2:32 PM PST

Updated: Friday, 30 December 2011 2:38 PM PST

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Happy Merry Holiday Christmas! While some people are obsessing on the war on Christmas the silent war on holidays doesn’t seems to get much press. So I figure I’d go neutral. Not a creature is stirring not even a tape, so I figure I’d dig out a few fun items for the season like this Panasonic Panapet and this flying saucer speaker, I think they were manufactored a decade apart but they seem to go together nicely.

And to keep it 8 tracky and sort of follow a 6 degrees of 8 tracks, we started with moon zoom sled, then went to a flying saucer speaker, and end with a fun SL Stereo 8 AM/FM tape player mother ship. The tape in it is the soundtrack Star Trek The Wrath of Kahn but in hindsight I think that ELO tape with the colorful UFO would be a better choice.

Posted by gregg-n at 2:29 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 21 December 2011 4:05 PM PST

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