Found a small collection of disco carts in a barn that was so dark I ended up thumbing through them with the light of my cell phone. Most disco is pretty terrible but it’s probably the only genre that all the music existed in 8 track tapes and died before it did. I’m hoping one day to find one of those 8 track players that have built in disco lights which are getting really hard to find. Three of them are compilations by sound-alike bands, my favorite is one by a group called Studio 78 which is fun because Studio 54 was an A list club with top acts and this is a tape of crappy covers by a band that is a takeoff of Studio 54. If I was an adult in 70s I wouldn’t be let into Studio 54 but would have to settle for Studio 78. This tape was made for me. The other tape is titled The World’s Greatest Disco Party Album which looks like a disco mix tape.

Finally one to get excited about, this is Boney M a fun tape that still holds out and even one of their songs made it to the Nintendo video game Just Dance, with the disco history song Rasputin, and for jollies they cover King of The Road and Heart of Gold and pull it off without getting cheesey.

Posted by gregg-n at 7:51 AM PDT

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^{This is a fun one that takes me back to Tower Records in the early 80’s.  I use to go to school nearby and popped in quite frequently to see new music and waste time. I feel sorry for kids today since with itunes that part of life is pretty much over. Anyway, during one summer a huge part of the store was transformed into Elvis land with lots of life sized standees and a few suspended albums on the ceiling. They were all showcasing the release of this silver record boxed set titled Elvis Aron Presley 25th Anniversary Limited Edition. I barely had two nickels to rub together at the time but was impressed by the ideal of having 8 records at once.  Last week I saw the set for the bargain price of a dollar it was mine. Later I got home to inspect it and was surprised and happy to find out that this set was also in 8 track in the form of 4 carts and lots of bonus material in the box.  It even has a limited number edition and is number 13 for all those hard core collectors.}

Posted by gregg-n at 3:33 PM PDT

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Finding an 8 track tape that doesn’t say Readers Digest on it nowadays is always a special occasion or in this case last Saturday. Garage sales in winter separates the men from the boys and when you stand in front of on for 45 mins in the cold with numb hands you’re probably standing behind me. This was a couple moving south and doing some extreme downsizing. Mostly bad furniture but managed to find a Panasonic Panapet in white that was converted into a smiley face with black electrical tape for a buck. I soon discovered a back room that I wasn’t sure was off limits so I went in any way with a bunch of people and we all got yelled at to get out, but in the few moments I noticed some 8 tracks and asked if they were for sale and they were her sons so with a little prying she ended up calling him on the east coast (I felt special) and after about 10 mins of hearing about the weather and such he gave the ok and I ended up with 11 classic rock tapes for a quarter each good stuff too like my 1,000,000 Led Zepplin tape  a few Clapton, Grateful Dead and Eddie Kendricks who sounds like a cheaper version of Curtis Mayfield.
                                                         

Posted by gregg-n at 1:51 PM PST

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^{Eight tracks aren’t as valuable as they use to be, ain’t it great?  Last week on ebay I acquired this baby that was once considered one of the rarest 8 tracks for a buy it now of $9.99. It has a rich history of being yanked from lawsuits from the band because of sound quality but I have carts from the late 70s that sound worse even with new pressure pads. But what is amusing about it is the way the crowd noises were dubbed since the engineer thought the real ones weren’t enthusiastic enough. Instead it’s like noise from a situation comedy that’s sounds likes it on a loop and not conductive with a rock concert. I’ve read some of the cheers were taken from bull fights. I may have to put a few cuts on YouTube and put in my own background noises like that John Belushi chanting “toga toga” at the breaks.}

Posted by gregg-n at 4:03 PM PST

Updated: Monday, 28 January 2013 4:04 PM PST

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Found another tape I’ve been on the hunt for many years, this is Yma Sumac’s Miracles. I would have loved to find her Mambo tape but I’m not sure it exists and while that is better musically this one is more surreal. Miracles teamed up the Inca princess (Although many believe her name is really Amy Camus which is Yma Sumac spelled backwards, I think if she says Amy Camus she’ll be transported back to Brooklyn just like Mr. Mxyzptlk of Superman.) with exotica composer Les Baxter and what we get is fuzz guitars and psychedelic rock that neither of them have any business doing but to their credit it is very listenable. Yma doesn’t sing any words but mostly goes up and down her 5 octave scale saying “woo woo woo”, and Les Baxter uses her as a groovy theremin. I bet if John Lennon met her instead of Yoko they’d be right up there with the Beatles.

Now if only I could find The Velvet Underground & Nico or PIL Second Edition I’d be nearly done with my Ka-chunk list.

Posted by gregg-n at 4:49 PM PST

Updated: Friday, 21 December 2012 4:51 PM PST

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^{This is a fun one, next time you see an infomercial or a regular commercial pushing some artist you’ve never heard of like the pan flute styles of Zamfir you can thank this guy- Peter Lemongello.  He was the first person to sell a million copies of his lp all through TV marketing playing the ad for Love 76 (It’s on YouTube and was even parodied on an early Saturday Night Live episode.) up to 100 times a week in New York City.  Today he’s one of the stars of Branson Missouri that would be a good place to set up an 8 track tape store. This tape is his second album that was picked up on the Private Stock Label that was also the home of such 70’s K-tel staple artists as Starbuck, Austin Roberts, and Samantha Sang. Musically he is poured out of the same mold as Englebert Humperdinck, with a dusting of Wayne Newton.}
 

Posted by gregg-n at 6:42 PM PST

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^{Walmart has taken a beating this year dragging in their workers in on Thanksgiving and them demand a working wage with a good deal of full time workers on food stamps.  All good reasons to hate the company which makes me wonder if this year’s Walmart Christmas village entry was them playing it down and pining for the good old days when Sam Walton ran it and paid a decent wage.  It’s based on the first store in Bentonville, Arkansas that still stands. I applaud them going vintage instead of the usually variation on the same theme and hope this marks a trend where each year they try something new. Next year I hope they have a future store where all the workers are imported from sweat shops and live in it after their shifts.}

Posted by gregg-n at 8:33 AM PST

Updated: Sunday, 9 December 2012 8:35 AM PST

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^{This week I scored one of the 8 track tapes I’ve been hunting for a while- Frank Zappa’s Where Only in it For The Money. I  can’t tell you how many times I’ve been outbid on this one and probably would have lost this auction too if the seller wasn’t vague in the title and listed it as a cassette.  But he was even too muddy in the description for me. The photo looked just like an 8 track but when it arrived I saw that I was the proud owner of a 4 track, if only this was the Lumpy Gravy 4 track I’d be moving into a larger house about now. So I went into my 8 track tool box and found one of those detachable rollers that pop in the slot and it works like a charm. I haven’t played a 4 track for a while forgot that it doesn’t have a metal splice to change tracks so this one will be Ka-Chunk free.}

Posted by gregg-n at 8:59 AM PST

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I found a few 8 tracks from what I think is a very anal retentive person. These tapes were found placed in a cardboard box that itself was a sight to behold with its lavender color and handicrafted perfection. Once I got the tapes home and examined them I saw that they had most of the cellophane on them and one of the sides was split to remove and replace them on the same corner. All of them were wound to the splice and to add to the mystery they all had the original price tags and in the case of 3 the receipts were still on them. They’re sort of unpleasant to play since they conjure up memories of when I was a kid and my mother told me to stay out of the back room since I would mess it up.
 

Posted by gregg-n at 11:26 AM PDT

Updated: Sunday, 4 November 2012 11:27 AM PDT

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Here’s something I found fun yesterday, for anyone in high school in the 70s and 80’s it was mandatory to have one of these cheaply made Pee Chee folders with the clip art sports scenes on them. The best thing about them is when you got bored in class and customized the pictures to make them more interesting, my thing was to replace the heads with monkey heads (I was a big Planet of The Apes follower). Anyway while digging threw a box I spied what looks like a Pee Chee cash in put out by the company Pow Chee that are an obvious “boot” of those folders. It made me feel sorry for the poor kid who got teased by classmate because he was too poor for an official Pee Chee portfolio.
 

Posted by gregg-n at 8:47 AM PDT

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