In a Quandry

Hello everybody,

I want you to know that I truly, deeply appreciate those of you who read and listen to my posts. I know there is a good, consistent audience out there, because I see the comments, and also can see how many people read each post. I am deeply appreciative that people followed me here from WFMU or discovered my work later, and stuck around.

I've been putting this off since the end of last year, but I don't see another way to address the problem.  You see, my beloved Teac machine needs repairs that cost more than the machine is worth. What's more, it needs both motors replaced, and they can only be found on the used market, which the repair shop, understandably, won't guarantee (or even purchase - I would have to do that).

I have other machines, but they are also either in disrepair, or work poorly. My Teac has been failing for two years or more, and I've been nursing it along, but as of the middle of December,  it simply doesn't work. The posts you've enjoy since then have been one's I'd built up for future use. There are several more, but they won't last forever.

This is nothing I'd usually bring up, but my finances are not such that I can afford to remedy this. The days of buying large quantities of old reels because they looked amazing or intriguing ended many years ago. I don't have the extra money to spend on a luxury like a ten-inch reel playing four track stereo reel to reel machine in good working order. I don't even know enough about them to know if I was getting a decent one, based on whatever is in the ad. But I'm sure I could get a perfectly suitable one for less than the $700+ that it's going to cost to fix my machine (again, with no promises from the repair shop).

It goes against the grain for me to suggest this, but I know that other sites have done fundraisers, and that atl least a few do them yearly.

I guess I have a few questions. First, are there those of you who would contribute to such a request, and second, would anyone with more knowledge than me point me in the direction of a model which would likely be a good purchase?

In case you'd rather not answer this in a comment, you can e-mail me at Rasmaster@aol.com

Again, thank you all for reading, listening, enjoying and commenting. I appreciate it more than you could possibly know.

Boy, That's a Hunk of the Ozark Jubilee!

Before getting today's two recordings, I wanted to share a question/request from a reader, which I received a few weeks ago. The writer found a stack of cassette tapes a few years ago, and mixed among recordings of lectures and of music off the radio, there were several family recordings. Nearly all of these, however, are in Japanese. The man who wrote me sounds like something of a kindred spirit to me, and he is very interested in learning about the conversations on these tapes. If anyone out there both speaks Japanese and is interested in helping out, please write me with an e-mail address in the comment sections, or contact me directly with the e-mail address which is found at the end of this WFMU post, and I will put you in touch with my correspondent.

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I have two completely unrelated items for everyone, today.

The first is a rare recording of what Wikipedia describes as the first successful Country Music show on network television. It's The Ozark Jubilee, hosted by Red Foley. I'm not knowledgeable enough in this era/style of music to be able to nail down a date for this episode - and sadly, whoever recorded it cut out the commercials and nearly all between-song banter, so there are no clues in that area, either. That doesn't take away from the enjoyment of hearing the sounds of music and television from a very different time and place, however.

The sound in the opening few minutes is fairly ragged. And while the overall sound never approaches excellent, or even very good, after a bit of that poor sound, it settles down into a listenable quality.

Download: Various Artists - The Ozark Jubilee
Play:

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Today's second feature is from the large pile of tapes in my basement (frequently featured here and at WFMU) which contain raw takes of various TV programs and commercials, In this case, it's 15 minutes worth, mostly made up of several repetitions of a small section of a Studebaker advertisement, apparently from the mid 1960's, near the end of that company's existence.

For most of the tape - ten minutes or so - we hear work on a single section of the ad, in which a young boy is supposed to excitedly state, "Boy, That's a Hunk o' Sumpin'!", followed by some voice over about the happy family and their new car. The reason why these two things had to be done as a single piece is a mystery to me, but that's not a surprise, as I know nothing about advertising. In the last three minutes, the voice-over man works on a short segment from elsewhere in the ad, including the Studebaker slogan, "Different By Design", a slogan which appears to date this ad from 1964.

Download: Unknown - Boy, That's a Hunk o' Sumpin'!
Play: