Could this be the first 8 track player ? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=309&v=nBNTAmLRmUg

 

""He's really not dead...as long as we remember him."

Found a few Beach Boy tapes last week to add to the collection and counteract the winter funk, I have Pet Sounds someplace but not in this photo.

 

Hopefully this New Year will be more 8 track friendly, it’s been a while since I’ve found any kind of player that makes me happy that I have a ton of spares that do the job.  New Years Eve is such a bring down after all the fun of Christmas and I think it would be better if they added more props. X-mas is so full of imagery, colors and excesses you just can’t get bored, but New Year’s isn’t much more than champagne and a pair of novelty glasses with the year printed out on the frames. And don’t get me started on the music selection, I mean where are the New Year’s carols? All I could find on 8 track was ABBA’s Happy New Year on the Super Trooper tape. So the issue isn’t the holiday, it just has a PR problem.

I found this on one of those right wing "I hate Obama" websites.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It reads- "Since the Obama White House has become the equivalent of an ancient 8-Track tape stuck in a loop until it wears itself out"

 I've never had a tape wear itself out maybe the White House just needs some new presure pads.

 

 8 Track sighting, the GE Power Sound Loudmouth player on season 4 episode 10 of Portlandia, no use of the tape feature but the P.A. system still lives on.

 

Tapes can be found in the strangest places, Friday I went to a seafood restaurant that just went out of business filled with giant lobster tanks and lots of industrial pots and pans but in the corner were 20 tapes like Commander Cody, The Who and The Stones. I got them all for $2 and one of the workers said they’ve never seen one before and the other said they thought no one would buy them. But even more fun was I was told these use to be played in the eatery until it closed, that’s right a place in 2014 that still played 8 tracks, love it.

Also for the 2 other people reading this blog I’m looking for tapes from the band Pilot, they were a poppy Scottish band that have a Bay City Rollers vibe, I can pay cash.

And speaking of the Rock Alliance lightning stroked twice, sort of.  I found another one of their tapes titled Make Me Feel So Groovy, Rock Alliance purists may notice that is title is also the same one as one of their songs on their classic Flyin’ High tape, but the similarities don’t end there a look at the track listing shows that this tape is exactly the same on as the said tape with the only difference being the art work and more interestingly this band has switched labels so besides Misty the Rock Alliance is now on the Nice & Easy label.

 More importantly there is an address on it where this tape was manufactured in 1972 333 Park St in Troy Mich. I was excited about this and hoped that there might be some remnant of the factory but alas a Google search reveals that it’s a warehouse that can be had for $4 a square foot. If only this band was huge then we might have gotten the 8 track version of Abby Road.

Fate has thrown me another 8 track from the Straight to Bootleg band The Rock Alliance. This one is titled Homeward Bound and follows the same format as their other tapes 1/3 of the tracks have a R&B sound reminiscent of James Brown’s version of Night Train, also they cover a song or two from something popular at that time, this tape has a version of the S & G song I Am A Rock, finally the reason I’m such a fan of them is they also put on a few garage rock sounding songs that remind me of generic rock music that you hear on Gilligan’s Island before there’s an announcement that a hurricane is about to hit the island. I wonder how many others are out there? I still need Motorcycle Baby so the quest goes on.
 

Not a great score but what made my day was for the first time in at least 8 years is Goodwill is carrying 8 track tapes (see the price tag). Will this be a new trend? Was this a freak accident? Only time will tell but if I get any more Bobby Sherman tapes I'm going to invest in a Bobby Sherman lunch box to store them.

Last week I got the 8 track score of the summer. Summer may have just gotten underway but I’m willing to wager the entire Emerson, Lake & Palmer on 8 track that it won’t be topped.  Here’s a portion of the 142 8 track tapes from 2 large boxes, and unlike the usual bland Readers Digest Hits of America this collection could power a small FM classic rock radio station. Lots of Stones, Kinks, Elvis Costello, Beatles, some k-tel and even a few with the fun art boxes that rarely survive, I’ve already gone through a half a roll of sensing foil getting them in shape.

More interesting is they were obtained from a person who has been following this blog for 12 years and after nearly 15 years of writing about these tapes he’s the first person I’ve met with a connection to it, sad huh?  I only hope that one day I end up like the woman who ran The Bloody Board Buffy the Vampire Slayer board who posted nearly 40,000 posts and was the only member of the group https://encyclopediadramatica.es/The_Bloody_Board until she was found out and vanished. If obsession needs a patron saint it’s Jamie Masters.

I’ll be putting an 8 track player in the tiki room but am trying to find one with a tropical look to it as not to clash, these worlds rarely collide but I may be able to make it work with the brown earth tones that are prevalent in  wood grain consoles, let’s see where this goes.