Greetings!
I have something extra special today - at least I find it to be extra special, and I think a good portion of the audience for this site will, as well. I only have one reel (plus the almost mandatory "very short reel") today, but it is just over four hours long and is both a treasure and amazing example of something I might be willing and able to share more of if there is interest.
For those who don't dig this, I will have a more varied program of taped wonderment next time around. Although this is pretty damn varied.
The story behind this offering goes back well over 30 years ago, and involves the Mammoth Music Mart. I have mentioned this wondrous sale at least a dozen times in various posts and on the multiple blogs I've written for or current write. The explanation I've given for it is here.
The short version is that this an immense tent sale, which ran for 25 years on the North Shore of Chicago, with literally all formats of recorded sound for sale, in support of ALS research. And whoo boy did they have reel tapes. I would go there for the whole day with my best pal Stu and both of us would pore over the tapes.
One of those years - I'm guessing around 1990 - we found that someone had donated a remarkable set of tapes. Perhaps the recordist had died and the family had donated all of his tapes (I'm absolutely going to assume this recordist was a man - precious few women would have been this obsessed with collecting sound).
And what amazing tapes they were. This person had recorded virtually anything that appealed to him or interested him, off the radio, off of TV, from personal conversations, from in-the-field (i.e. lectures given at national parks while on vacation), and more. He was Chicago-area based, but recorded things when he was in other cities and towns, too.
He seemed to be particularly interested in advertisements, which crop up repeated between other recordings, often not bothering to record whatever show was being sponsored by those ads. And he also seems to have been more than a little ADHD - recordings of certain things go on and on and then are interrupted by something else, mid thought. Just as you think you're going to hear the whole program - whatever it was - you don't. Other times, he might record something at length - in today's offering, he does this with a Frank Sinatra movie - and then would erase part of it with something else, resulting in a segment of tape that has xx number of minutes of movie, then x minutes of something else, then xx minutes more of the movie. It's REALLY scattered.
And he also appears to have recorded things on other tapes - perhaps cassettes - and transferred them to his reels, so that the order of things recorded is not always chronological.
He decorated nearly all of the boxes with pictures of albums and performers. Here is the box cover for the tape I'm sharing today:
And he kept METICULOUS notes about what was on the tapes, almost to the point of obsession, but not always in the most helpful manner - a page of notes might have the first section of the tape listed on the right hand side, then the second part on the left hand side, the a bit more of the contents listed on the back of the same paper. He also sometimes listed the number (of the tape recorders odometer) where something starts, but other times just wrote in sections ("1" "2", etc.), often, as with this offering, regarding the same side of the same tape.
Here's the big news - I have hours and hours and hours of this stuff. Between Stu and I, we bought well over two dozen of this man's tapes (this one is labeled "#53", but the ones we own start in the single digits and go well into the hundreds - sadly we were not able to get the full collection). And what I'm sharing today is only one channel (of four) on one tape. The left channels are almost always recorded at 3 3/4 IPS, which on this tape means nearly two hours to a side. The right channels were recorded later, presumably after he got another machine, and they are almost always recorded at 1 7/8 IPS, meaning, in this case, nearly four hours to a side. This tape alone has nearly 10 hours of material on it, and my friend and I have more than 25 of these tapes!
So, if anyone is interested, let me know, and I will do my best to digitize more of these and share them again. Understand, though, that it takes hours to go through these, first. And not all of them are as interesting or as varied as this one, although many are.
This particular tape comes from the tapes my friend Stu bought (we each bought about half of them). I have had Stu's tapes in my house for about ten years, having promised to listen to them and give them back and, well, I still haven't done that. I listened to all of mine 25-30 years ago, long before digitizing was a choice. Thanks to Stu for allowing me to have these tapes all this time, and for agreeing to let me share this tape.
In the case of this tape, I have scanned all of the content notes, and they are below. I think I have posted them here in order. Most of what is on this tape is from 1970, but the first material in this offering is from 1969. Some of the highlights, in order (there are myriad commercials listed, during and in between these segments):
A program featuring the work of young Black poets
Recordings made during visits to Jacksonville and Miami, including some music and other things from local radio, including news of Moratorium day the day before (this was actually in 1969 - the date on the sheet is wrong)
The Frank Sinatra Movie I mentioned
Recordings from a Christmas Eve Church Service
Kukla, Fran and Ollie on Chicago Public Television (this is extraordinarily wonderful - I love KFO)
Al Capp being the A$$hole that he was., or at least had become, by 1969-70.
Coverage of portions of the 1970 Super Bowl and Post-Game
Part of a Tonight Show Episode
A local Chicago newscast from 1/20/70
Segments of a few sitcoms
A home recording of a visit from a family member
More news, specifically about the end of the Chicago Seven trial
A few more shows, including a documentary on beavers narrated by Henry Fonda. I have not been able to identify that show called "Change" in the notes.
Recordings of part of an Ecology forum which took place at Northwestern University.
Here you go - let me know if you'd like me to delve further into this collection.
Download: 1969-1970 Media Variety
Play:
Well, that was a heavy meal. How about a light dessert? This little tape is pretty wonderful in its own right. It comes from Los Angeles Top 40 powerhouse KHJ. The tape starts with a few internal promos, for special programming and for a contest they were running at the time (this tape is dated 10/18/75), presumably read by Chuck Martin, whose name is on the box (see below). The rest of the tape contains KHJ production music - backing music for sports reports and for news breaks, and then typewriter noises, presumably also for news reports. The tape ends with two PAMS style KHJ "stingers".
Download: KHJ - Ads, Jingles, Sports Themes and News Backing, 10-18-75
Play:
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