January 5, 2004

I was digging through the 8 track storeroom with Marlene and Sly today and after going through the 1000+ tapes he said that for a such a collections I don’t have too many quad tapes. I had to tell them that I go for artists more than forms. For instance, Any Andy Williams quad is just as bad as a stereo cart, maybe more so since this time we get 4 speakers of Andy instead of 2. Right now I have 6 8 track players in various parts of this house and not a single quad player. I have 2 quad player in the garage and was even looking at one with one of those joy sticks to adjust the speaker at Goodwill today. But why bother with such a small sampling of the artists. A lot of people say quad never caught on because it came out a little before the oil shortage of the 70s and was too expensive and used inferior materials. For the record, I keep my quads in a small vinyl holder that carries 12 tapes and its not full yet. Here’s the ones that I decided to keep just in case.

Kites Are Fun- Free Design

Metal Machine Music-Lou Reed

Touch Morton Subontnick

The Best of Sly and The Family Stone

Shaft St

Best of The Guess Who

Mama Lion

The only other tapes that I’d like to add to the pile are The Archie’s Sugar Sugar, and The Best of The Doors.

January 15, 2004

Before the 8 track Usenet became a giant flame war one of the fun topics use to be “What artists would you like to see on 8 track?”. My tastes have always been eclectic and I don’t think I’ve been a blushing fan boy for any single band since high school and when I go to a music store today I’m usually at the placards after the letter “Z” looking at miscellaneous compilations and the unclassifiables. When I feel the need to mourn the demise of 8 tracks all I have to do is look at the state of music today with all the over manufactured sound and the target market being 16 year old girls and I never give it a second thought. When I am rarely in the buying mood and either don’t have a clue or don’t care I look at album covers and a sure fire way to find something decent is look at a picture of the performer and if they’re ugly buy it. Today's audience doesn’t care about talent and mostly go for looks. So if you see an artist who’s unattractive with more then one CD you know that they’re more than just a pretty face and worth a listen.

February 2, 2004

I still think that 8 tracks are rich man’s music. When you look at old ads for music 8 track tapes were always more costlier than records or tapes, my first experiences with them was in a spoiled kid’s Jag in high school hearing the Rolling Stones’ Some Girls in all its leather seated glory. Driving late night down the streets of Waikiki made me feel like a dignitary even though we were going to McDonald’s with no money. But because they were priced out of the range of the common man back then most thrifts get real old guy music taking over the shelves like Readers Digest instrumentals and piano solos. I use to buy everything and everything on 8 track in my salad days of collecting and remember dumping 6 garbage bags full of this stuff at a The Salvation Army before I moved and I think it may have reproduced since theirs no shortage of it around these parts and the most rocken tape I’ve seen in weeks is a Carole King tape from the early 80’s.

I think if John Lennon was still alive he’d add a verse in his song Imagine Saying “Imagine There’s No Ebay” and it would be just as deep, if not more so.

February 15, 2003

I haven’t bought a player in months because most of them I’ve run into are either incredible cheaply made (Sounddesign) or they just aren’t anything to get excited about. Once you hit your 15^th player you realize you can afford to be picky although it wasn’t too long ago when I’d buy anything with an 8 track deck even those giant consoles that come with a record player on the top (usually missing a needle). However this weekend at a yard sale that most of the merchandise was covered with a mysterious gray powder I found an industrial sized General Electric player recorder. This machine is like command central with it’s airplane control panel and loads of useless buttons. My favorite is the eject switch. I think the ultimate in laziness is having to press a button on an 8 track machine to release the tape instead of simply pulling it out. It also has a fast fwd and one of those “Full Cycle” or “One Cycle” settings. One day I’ll figure out what the AFC switch does but I don’t think it means American Football Conference.

On a side note that play does anyone know why The Vaginal Monologs is playing in three different venues in this peninsula this weekend? I just may take it in tomorrow, either that or finally see Nemo.

February 28, 2004

After being chased out of a sale for being an early bird I found one by a storage locker that seemed like it hadn’t been opened since 1974. I expected to find something like King Tut’s tomb in it but instead the retiree who owned it use to work at a radio station here with the call letters KAPY, when I heard this all I could think of was a jingle that said “The happy sound of KAPY”. The locker had boxes and boxes of old 45s and I snagged one filled with fun records from the mid to late 50s. When someone says the 50s pop culture has planted seeds and archetypes of Elvis, Rockabilly, Neon Diners and pink poodles skirts but the reality musically are people like Doris Day, Frank Hunter and his Orchestra, Jack Quigley and all kinds of show tunes. This box was all like this. I don’t mind, I think a true historian shouldn’t be so short sighted and get caught up in The “Laverne and Shirleyfication” of the 50s and see it as the whole mixed bag it was. A lot of this music is ripe for a come back, mark my words.

What made this sale was the guy had a whole box of those radio station “carts” with all kinds of public service announcements on them. These carts have taken a life of there own now. I don’t have a player and may never hear one but I like the look of them with the transparent “Visible Man” design and the whole endless loop of course. I have over 30 of them an will soon gut one and see if I can do a Frankenstein in an 8 track tape and play it. Commercials are a fun look into the past and I like them so much that when ever I tape something on the tube today I never edit them out. In 20 years they’ll be much more interesting than say that Terminator movie that was surrounding them.

March 9, 2004

Today I picked up what I think are the south of the border equivalent of American K-Tel 8 tracks. Here we have Viva El Norte and Viva El Norte II. They are both compilations and if I could read Spanish I bet it says “Original Hits, Original Stars. The cover art is similar (K-tel has the most pedestrian art and the only ones that seem to have any thought in them are either the one with the blonde chick on this page or that one that has the robot on Lost In Space on the cover.) but I would have liked it better if they were named something like, “Tijuana Dance Tonight“. Other than that it looks like the executive order in Goodwill’s power structure has raised the 8 tracks up to $.59 now. I read a tread on this a few months back in a newsgroup but like everything else in this town it usually takes about 6 months from a change in a big city to reach this rural hamlet. I can’t really complain, I was driving through Seattle last week and hit 5 different thrift stores and couldn’t find anything remotely interesting. I even asked a clerk about 8 tracks and was told a guy comes in there regularly to shift through them so I don’t need the competition and $.20 more a tape is a small price to pay to be the roster in the hen house. Goodwill is become obsolete anyway, my thrift is supplied by the Tacoma store which now lists the cream on ebay so I’ve become more of a yard sale person and love bargaining and hearing war stores of certain items and how they came to be, it’s more of a coffee hour.

March 17, 2004

This weekend at the estate sales was was an experience more like a socially acceptable form of voyeurism rather than the usual barging hunting. I went to a run down trailer run by the children of a woman who I later found out was nicknamed “Dirty Doris”. It was one of those sales that you walk in 6 hours late and they pretty much let you have everything in a box for a buck. Most of it was picked clean but being the bottom feeder that I am I hit a bookcase with old newspaper and found a small box filled with fun and nasty novelties and pictures of 70s pornography and gags. I have a Penthouse Forum from the 70s there where a few of the articles are socially redeeming like vitamins and exercise. A few other items were those boxed jokes that say something like “Bridal Shower” then you open it and find a mini douche bag inside. Also penis nose Groucho glasses and all kinds of inert flatulence toys and dirty greeting cards. Fun stuff and it was interesting to see the evolution of the sexy fold out how they were once fleshy, almost middle aged, with very average bodies and now how they look like they teach aerobic classes. Most of this stuff has a date with Ebay very soon, even the pen you turn upside down and see the strip show. So remember, if you’re going to die soon plan ahead or some wise guy might be thumbing through your personals.

And speaking of Ebay, I just made a score of such magnitude that the Gods themselves will be singing praises of it. I’ll bring up later as not to jinx it and once I get "My Precious" in my eager hands you’ll hear all about it.