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Finally a good sale, this one was listed in the paper as "Grandpa's 8 track collection for sale", and it was filled with lots of players with brands I've never heard of with phonographs built into them. I grabbed two of them that played quads, I can count the number of quad tapes I have on one hand but am a sucker for all the crazy dials that look like a WW2 submarine on them. One is made by Sanyo and the other is Panasonic, I'm more into the Sanyo since it has a 2 prong phono jack and I'm just too lazy to hookup 4 speakers but have no problem with 4 speaker headphones.
Next was a Panasonic pump in blue, I once had a blue pump over 20 years ago that I dropped of to be cleaned at a shop and two days later it was closed with all the merchandise and fixtures completely gone. It's good to have one back, also a Weltron space helmet missing the battery cover (anyone got one for sale or tape trade). Then a big ole box of classic rock tapes with a few gems like The Ramones and George Harrison's bad moog album.
I went back the next day for a few more and the lady told me she gave me a deal on the 70s players because a guy who called up there also wanted them and kept badgering her and lowballing her so when he show up mins after I got there quickly offered me them for $20 so she could tell him they were just sold. I liked being a pawn in her humiliation scheme, If only she was selling her house when I walked in.
Here's something that use to be a common sight but now pretty rare, a big score of tapes and a player thrown in for five bucks. I miss the same feeling as being a kid at Christmas opening up the box hoping to find a tape I've always wanted. Not this time though, lots of country, and big band but I give the guy credit for having about 40 rock tapes, nothing great Beatles, Rod Stewart, Bread, The Guess Who, and K-tel’s Wacky Westerns although this worked out well since I got a 91 Chevy S10 a month ago and just put in a Kraco player but the mini cab means with the boxes of tapes I have no room for passengers but probably for the best since Wacky Westerns is an acquired taste.
Another covid tragedy is a local rent-a-spot huge antique mall that has been here long before I have, you can tell the writing was on the wall when a month before it went under all the heat was turned off and everyone inside is wearing a parka and most of the stalls are 40% off. I'll be sad to see it go since I've got some epic scores here through out the years so I suppose I'll just double down on the estate sales when ever they come back. Some days I think I've been doing this crap too long since about everyone else I started doing this with has long moved on.
Any way I was able to obtain this nice avocado themed Toyo player for $6.00 that matches the laundry / tape room it has a touch of wow and flutter that I'm still working on.
Let's talk about 8 track soundalike bands, not to be confused with those nasty bootlegs where a person tapes an album on a tape and slaps a cheap label on it to sell at a truck stop, I'm talking about tapes where the company hires a band to crank out tapes of music that was popular at that time and actually hires a band to play them. Makes you wonder if these were taking away K-tel’s business or trying to bypass the laws by them by selling them in the US (K-tel is a Canadian company). 
Some of these are incredible simulations the way Beatlemania sounded before Legends In Concert picked up the ball and ran with the concept. These are a guilty pleasure of mine since firstly, they hearken back to a time when 8 track tapes were fun and quirky before they became expensive collectibles (never pay more than $4 for one of these). Also some of the bands do a great job getting the sound down and even Sexy Thing on the Convoy tape (A tape with a photo of a cheap plastic toy truck on the cover) sounds better than the original in my estimation. They're also a relic since now if anyone tried to put out something like this the royalties per song would destroy any profit margin.
Columbia House is known for its rare and hard to find 8 track tapes and I think I found one, keep in mind that just because is is rare doesn't necessary mean that anyone wants it, so I present to you Symphony On Wheels, each track has a different writer and I'm not sure if they are the performers or it's a studio band, either way it's a fun cash in on the very short fad of roller disco music, I challenge anyone to name a single famous band exclusively to the genre.
The sound is very period and is less disco sound than 1970's cop show chase music combined with a dusting of blauxploitation and if you don't like this review you can write your own but remember I said is was a rare tape and I haven't seen a single reference of on Google so I guess you'll have to take my word for it.
Phase 2 of the quarentine started this week and I finally got the carpet installed that I ordered in April and geot the music unit back together. I forgot what a non tinny tape sounded like and am a bit overwelmed by it, suddenly the Meet The Brady 8 track tape has all the nuance and clarity of an Original Masters Recording of a The Dark Side of The Moon LP. So nice to not live like a divorced guy in his parents basement.
Right before this plague hit I was scheduled for a new rug and had an appointment for the carpet men to install a rug that was a remnant from a retirement home that looks like a black version of the wall paper of Blanche Devereaux’s from The Golden Girls bedroom. After I cleared out the living room of the phonograph and 8 track player everything got pushed back 2 months and standing, so now I’m living in an empty sitting room and not sure if I’m ready to drag everything of the boxes just so I’ll have to go through the packing drill in a month, so this is my current sound system.
Long time no blog, but I figure no one wants to hear about me finding lots of country and classical tapes or machines that are stuck on program 4 and not worth a second glance which is too bad since it was a nice Sears portable, that being said today I found a beautiful low-fi SoundDesign player that brings back memories of one of those all in one TV/phonograph/radio consoles that use to be placed predominately in most of those gracious living homes in the mid 1970's. This baby plays cassettes 8 tracks and the radio and with the matching speakers will accent any mid century abode.
Also this weekend I found one of those drugstore rotating comic book racks I grabbed for a c-note. It's a nice way to display bronze aged comics and there's no pharmacist yelling at my 11 year old self that this isn’t a library.
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