Wednesday, October 31, 2018

A Wonderful Audio Letter from Alaska, circa 1958

First, a big thank you - I am greatly indebted to Tony Hart, who filled in the blanks regarding some the items I posted last week. There is too much information to repeat here, but you can find it all here. Specifically, there is an explanation of why the commercials are most certainly from Canada and not France, as well as a mention of what the fragment of music is from, then there is an explanation and findings from a web digging expedition to find the source of "The Flabby American", and finally, a full translation of the French (Canadian) commercials. THANK YOU!!!!

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Today I have a lovely little audio letter, labeled "ROY'S TAPE" on the box, and featuring a young man reaching out to friends and family back home, from his Naval placement in Alaska. I will let the delights and idiosyncrasies of this tape reveal themselves to you, but I do want to add that I'm pretty sure that I own the tape he was responding to!!! That'd be a first, I think, and if I can find it, it'd be a wonderful bookend with this tape. Everything he mentions from "your tape" (i.e. the one he previously received) sounds familiar to me, so I just need to track it down. That said, and with no further ado, here is Roy, from Alaska, circa 1957 or 1958. 

Play:

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As an added bonus, here is a pompous little promo for KSYL, in Alexandria, LA. The station was founded in 1962, so presumably this promo is from not long after that, based on its contents. I wonder how they did with that "good music - no rock and roll" format as the decade wore on.

Download: KSYL Early 1960's Promo
Play:

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And finally - and I know this is very much overdue - sorry, teach' - here is Dan's final audio project, labeled just that way (plus his last name - available on the actual file name) on the tape box/ The first two minutes are achingly dull, but I'd have loved to hear more that sounded like the last minute or so:

Download: Dan - Final Audio Projects
Play:

3 comments:

  1. The tones at the beginning of the KSYL promo belong to NBC's MONITOR program, which is odd considering KSYL's Wikipedia page mentions past affiliations with ABC and CBS but not NBC. Also odd is MONITOR not being mentioned in the spot even though they emphasize news and their new programming structure.

    More on MONITOR: http://monitorbeacon.net/

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  2. I wonder if the sound effect heard both on KSYL's intro and "Monitor" come both from a sound production library, as was very common in the '50s.

    Roy in Alaska mentioned a few towns and cities, mostly leaning towards Florida, but also Tennessee, which his accent sounds very much like.

    Dan's Final Audio Project recounts Men at Work's "I Can See It in Your Eyes" from their "Men at Work" album, followed by the first 30 seconds of "Amnesia" by the Tubes. The Men at Work cut dates this at earliest to summer of '82.

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  3. Thanks Bob, for more slices of life.

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