The Time? 1966. The Place? Arizona. The Event? Slide Show

My posts have been few and far between around here lately, so I'm going to continue to triple up on my offerings, this week with three completely unrelated items, and a minimum of commentary.

First up, another tape for those of you who have asked for more slide shows. In this case, it's a woman documenting a trip to Arizona in 1966, for 35 minutes. Makes you want to go back in time and visit the state yourself, doesn't it?

Download: Unknown - Arizona Travelogue Slide Show, 1966
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Then I have this oddity, which is admittedly fairly hard to listen to. It is a short tape, and badly recorded, featuring some sort of comedic dialogue. It involves someone portraying a shrill old woman named Muriel, and a man with a dumb-guy voice. Perhaps you can make out more of this than I can - I have the feeling if someone takes the time to decipher this, it might be worthwhile, although you should also know, in advance, that it's incomplete, stopping mid-sentence after just over 2 1/2 minutes. .

Download: Unknown - Comedic Dialogue
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Finally, I wanted to make sure you knew that there's still time to go to to RIVERFEST, '97!!!

Download: Riverfest, '97
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Personally, I cannot wait to see Uncle Knucklefunk.

Adventures in Sounds!

Before getting to today's triple feature, I received this nice note from Ken, regarding the second tape featuring Bob Hopp, which I shared a short time ago. The note contains a link to a Youtube video which, given its nature, will probably not be up for very long: 

I downloaded this just after you posted it but just got around to listening to it, hence the late comment. Fascinating. He gave his address as 830 High street, and on the earlier tape he mentions he lives in Aurora IL. Putting two and two together, I found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk_ay2nPsDY

I also received the following about the tape with the banjo music and the older woman talking, from frequent correspondent Timmy: 

The old gal dictating to her tape for whoever, sounds like she got a Cajun accent. And I would think SHE is the banjist, as well. She mentions 1969 a couple times, so there's the date of recording.

Thanks to both of you, and to everyone who offers up comments!

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For today, three different types of Adventures in Sound. I'm naming them such because the first of them is literally labeled "Adventure in Sound", on the tape box. The tape came in set of boxes of tapes, many of which had some relation to the phone company. While there were several there which had no apparent connection (recordings of a community house-type production of a play, high quality recordings of live TV from the '50's), they all have notes on them in the same handwriting. I've featured several of them here and at WFMU. 

Here is the sheet of paper which comes in the "Adventure in Sound" box, and it gives you a good road map to the many short bits of sound - some only in one channel, others in both - which are going to come at your rapid-fire. The sheet indicates 15 different bits in just over six and a half minutes. 

And here is the tape. Clearly, this has something to do with the continual changes and improvement in the way sound is transmitted, but I wonder for what purpose. If you have an idea, please offer your thoughts!

Download: "Adventure in Sound"
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The next adventure is from a sound stage. From another batch of tapes that I've dived into here several times - the group of tapes that feature raw tapes and promotional items from various TV productions of the late '50's through the mid '60's, here is yet another twelve or so minutes of raw takes, from a production of something apparently called "Greenwich Village", according to the tape box.

It sounds to me like these people are REALLY not getting a lot done. The number of shouts of "CUT" while people are still talking, and the occasional curse make it sound like a rough day. Or maybe I just don't know how life on a sound stage works. These takes average about three seconds each! Maybe they were just fixing specific shots.

Download: Raw Takes from "Greenwich Village"
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And finally, a place where people once went to have a few adventures. Here's a commercial for the Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey, the same classic park that Chuck Barris wrote a song about and Freddie Cannon sang that song about.

The whole thing isn't technically here. What I have here is an entire, very entertaining jingle for the park, with spoken details afterwards, which are cut off by whoever was recording the bland "beautiful music" programming that day on WOR-FM. This was the only thing worth salvaging in that entire 30 minute tape, and it's sort of wonderful, if more than a little moronic, too.

Download: Palisades Amusicement Park Ad
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