The Return of KRAP Radio, A Bit of Basketball, Sound on Sound, A Good Friday Sermon, Commercials and PSA's

HAPPY EASTER!

I'm going to start with a sequel to a post I made just over four years ago, in which I shared a tape of some high school students and their fake radio station, KRAP Radio. Well, I recently found another tape of KRAP radio parody material, and thought I'd share it, as well. 

As it happens, in that post, I mention that the students involved in this project seemed to be from High School Radio Station KDBG, and by chance, I posted more material - real radio recordings, not this pretend stuff - from that station in my last post, so clearly, all of these tapes must have come from the same reel purchase, at some point. 

This is far more entertaining than the real broadcasts, I think.

Download: KRAP Radio - The Station That Is Full of It

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And here, for your further enjoyment, is the rest of that same reel - presumably some of the same kids, engaging in some reel to reel weirdness. 

Download: Material After KRAP Radio - Weirdness from Some High School Students

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We are in the midst of the annual insanity around College Basketball. I personally find the idea of caring about a college basketball team - and certainly caring about who wins a college basketball game - bizarre in the extreme. I would enjoy watching college basketball about as much as I would watching golf or soccer: 30 seconds would be more than enough, especially when one could be watching baseball, tennis or bowling (Three Cheers for Jason Belmonte!). Or streaming Monty Python episodes for that matter,

But anyway, in honor of this yearly event, and for those who do enjoy amateur basketball, here's a tape containing, within its 33 minutes of radio recordings, some moments from the 1958 Illinois State High School Basketball Final, some postgame coverage, and then a very short part of a newscast, some of which is also about that basketball game. 

Download: Excerpts From the 1958 Illinois State High School Basketball Final, Postgame and Newscast

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Now here's a tape I really enjoyed, not least because, prior to the late 1990's, every time I recorded one of my songs, I used the tape recording method known as Sound on Sound, where you record one track and then bounce back and forth between the two monaural tracks adding more sounds to your recording. Depending on the machine used, you may end up with a stereo recording in which one track alone has the final additions, or you may end up with one track which contains all but the last thing you added, and the other track which has is delayed a split second and contains your entire production, meaning your performance is in mono. The latter is the case here. 

Whoever recorded these guitar pieces appears to me to have only made a basic track and then overdubbed them once. But they are well done and, to my ears, quite enjoyable. 

Download: Unknown - Guitar Performances Using Sound on Sound, Volume 5

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Here's the list of songs you will hear, from the tape box, although the first song is not "Chattanooga Choo Choo", it's "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe": 

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With today being Easter, and of course Good Friday having just passed two days ago, here is a brief Good Friday sermon. What makes this recording remarkable is that it comes from a reel of paper-backed tape, the likes of which was phased out as a product around 1951 or so, meaning that this recording likely comes from the dawn of reel to reel recording, and is likely somewhere around 73-75 years ago. It ends sort of suddenly, and far from sure it was over when the tape ran out, yet it also ends with several seconds of silence, so maybe it did end like that. 

Download: Unknown - A Good Friday Sermon (From a Paper Reel)

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Here is a short collection of commercials, all of which are parts of series already heard on this blog. However, none of these specific commercials have been shared - just others from the same collection, a huge collection of ads, mostly from the Pacific Northwest, which I bought a few decades ago. 

Download: A Collection of Commercials

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Here is a recording of a radio broadcast of a play written by Woody Allen, titled "God". This is a recording from legendary Chicago radio station WFMT. It starts with a very short excerpt from the play, and then the announcement of the sponsorship, a commercial, a bit of introduction, then the play. There is a break about half way through and the second half of the play. There are credits at the end. 

Download: Woody Allen's "God"

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"Mélange": noun. a mixture; confusion.

I labeled the first half (plus) of this tape "Weird Melange of Sound". See if you agree. A little bit more than halfway through this tape, we hear a moment of an audio letter, and then more randomness, before the audio letter comes back at 7:37 and we hear its contents for nearly six minutes. Most of that duration contains a woman speaking to her mother, talking about her mother-in-law and griping about someone else in her family, before requesting a return tape. 

Download: Unknown: Weird Mélange of Sound, Followed by a Short Audio Letter

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And now, our very short reel. And it is extremely short - 55 seconds - and contains someone offering up a brief tribute to the very clearly remarkable Enrico Toti, a one-legged cyclist and World War I hero who you can read about here. With apologies to Rudyard Kipling and his poem about Gunga Din, our unnamed speaker offers a re-written version of that poem, in praise of his hero, giving it three recitations in less than a minute. 

Download: Unknown: Tribute to Enrico Toti

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Country Radio in 1965, Fake Radio in 1977, Ruthie is Cute, Mary is Not, Some Telephone Mayhem, and a Fifth Anniversary

 Hi, 

First, I want to offer a sincere and very deep thank you for anyone who read my last post, the one about my mother's life story. It is much appreciated. I particularly want to thank those who offered comments, either in the comment section of the post, or directly to my e-mail address (something which a few of my more frequent correspondents have). Each of them is treasured and, again, very much appreciated. 

Second, I want to thank an anonymous poster who responded to a March post (before the "mom" one), with a major correction, and one that I probably could have researched if I wasn't just going by notes that I made when I was 15. It seems that my labeling of the years when I recorded the "WIND Top 1000" is wrong. And I should have realized that anyway. The commenter has pointed on that the news reports during the broadcasts labeled "1971", including one about a mine explosion, are from the third week of July, 1972. What I should have noticed is that both broadcasts features the inclusion of "American Pie", which could not have been on the list in 1971, as it didn't finish its chart run (and qualify for such a list) until 1972. So either those recordings are from two different broadcasts of the list, both in 1972, or the shorter segment is from 1973. I'm guessing the former, since there are no 1973 hits in that broadcast. But anyway, one thing for certain is that the longer segment should be labeled as being from the third week of July, 1972 and not from 1971. Oops. Thank you for the correction!

Finally, I've been asked in the past to let folks know when I have reels for sale on eBay, and right now, that is the case. I have 20 reels listed. None of these feature anything I've shared in this blog - for the most part they contain material that I was not all that interested in. The listing is here. That auction ends on 5/11/23. And if you click on "see other items", you will find that I have listed more than two dozen acetates from my collection, as well. 

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I'll start today's offerings with the one (or in this case, two) that I am certain will be the most popular of all of those in this post. These two sound files contain the entirety of a reel of tape which captured some now-vintage country music radio, specifically, a show hosted by DJ Kenny Biggs, on WEEP, Pittsburgh. Based on the songs played, particularly those identified as currently on the chart or newly released, this is from some time in the fall of 1965. 

The first segment is just over an hour of his show, unedited and complete with DJ patter, station ID's, ads, etc. The flip side of the tape starts with several minutes which contain edits between the songs, but eventually, the edits stop, and a good percentage of the second side also features a lengthy unedited segment of a Kenny Biggs aircheck. 

Download: The Kenny Biggs Show, WEEP, Pittsburgh, Fall, 1965, Part One

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Download: The Kenny Biggs Show, WEEP, Pittsburgh, Fall, 1965, Part Two

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And now for something just barely related to the above two tracks. Here are a few kids presenting their version of a radio station just over a decade later. A sports report near the end of this segment demonstrates that this tape is from 1977, but I believe all of the "hits" featured are from 1975, for some reason. They don't really have the DJ / music mixed at the same volume level at all, but still, it's cute, particularly that sports report and an ad for an acne product.  

The tape starts with a station intro, before cutting away to a few moments of cello practice, which is interrupted by noise from the kids. The actual "radio station" stuff starts about 50 seconds in. 

Download: Some Kids and Their Fake Radio Station, WPDL, 1977

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Here's another home recording, one which is even shorter than the above, (7 1/2 minutes) and which I find quite endearing. This is a child named Ruthie and her family, and they're just going doing the things one did when one's family had a tape recorder - testing the microphone, interviewing a child about her birthday and singing songs. For me, the best part is at the end, when the children present take turns singing one line apiece of a very well known commercial for Nestles' Chocolate, complete (the last two times) with one of the children becoming frustrated with another child who keeps coming in too early - "don't break in my line!" 

Download: Ruthie and Her Family - Testing the Microphone, Ruthie's Birthday, Prayers, Jingle Bells and Nestles Commercial

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Okay, so nearly three years ago, I posted a woman named Mary M. Davis being ridiculous. Here's most of what I wrote at the time: 

This is a bit of virulently right wing propaganda - John Birch Society style - railing against the United Nations. I only have tape four of the series, and if I had more, I'd annoy you with those, too. A quick search shows that Mary Davison wrote multiple books on this and related subjects, and was called a "whistleblower about the United Nations" at least once.

As it turns out, I do have another tape from the series, so if you enjoy this sort of thing, you're in luck. Here it is: 

Download: Mary M Davison - The United Nations, Tape Three

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On the flip side of the tape, there was a bit of bonus anti-UN blathering from Hugh A. Locke, Jr., who manages to take a truly inspiring story (assuming it's true) and turn it into a John Birch Society-esque talking point.  

Download: Hugh A Locke, Jr - 1967 Speech At New England Rally, Part Three

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Ages ago, I bought several boxes of tapes all from the same location, many of which proved to contain Bell Telephone training tapes from Ohio. I've shared several of them, over the years. Here is one which is highly annoying - not as annoying as Mary M Davison, but annoying. 

There is a lot of noise on this tape, particularly a whole lot of repetitive beeping, interspersed with one sided conversations which appear to have been made to a person (or people) who were on a ship (or ships). But you can only hear one side of the conversations. There is also a whole lot of repetitive beeping. Oh, and the opening 20 seconds or so are particularly hard to listen to, and are followed by about 15 seconds of near-silence. What I've described above really starts about 35 seconds in. 

This tape is labeled "Traffic Training Tape" on the front of the box:

On the side it says, "Telephone Transmission Impairments and Sounds" (which it definitely is not - I have that tape, which was also in the collection), and on the tape itself, there is a sticker which says ""Training Tape Telephone Sounds":

After reading each of those titles for this tape, and listening to this reel, I'm still not sure what this is, or who was supposed to learn what from these 14 minutes of recordings. 

Maybe this is only going to appeal to three people (or fewer), but I do occasionally like to give a bit of the flavor of just how wide ranging the tapes in my collection can be. 

Download: Telephone Sounds - Traffic Training Tape

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And finally, a very very short "Very Short Reel". Here are 39 seconds which I found at the end of an otherwise reel of bland music recorded off of records. I suspect this is what was left from a longer recording, the rest of which was erased. From just a short 71 1/2 years ago, here is a tiny fragment of a few people just having a light hearted conversation about what was apparently the fifth day of marriage for two of the people heard here. 

Download: Unknown - Our Fifth Day Wedding Anniversary, November 24, 1951

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Happy New Year, 1961 (and Other Recent Finds)

Howdy!

I hope everyone reading this has had a happy whatever you had, or are having, or didn't have but enjoyed anyway. 

By chance, this week, I came across a recording of a group of family and friends in a brief recording as they celebrate the new year. Whether this is from late on December 31st, or during the day of January 1st is unclear to me, but it doesn't really matter. What is clear - and this is only clear from an extremely brief mention of having discussed John Kennedy's selections for his cabinet, is that this is from 1960 into 1961. 

The tape runs a bit over twenty minutes. The first third is some fairly random conversation. The second third, starting around the eight minute mark, features what I'm guessing is a young person, perhaps early teens, who has done fairly well with lessons thus far - he or she starts with a simple piece but then goes into some more challenging material. The final third (or so) features a more adept pianist (akin to what my friend Andy used to call me, "an impromptu pianist"), one able to provide an improvised accompaniment on command, to a series of traditional American songs, which is how the rest of the tape proceeds. 

I just eat this sort of thing up. I hope you enjoy it as well. 

Download: Friends and Family Gathering for New Year's, 1961, with Conversation and Music

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I decided to fill up the rest of this post (except for the "very short reel") with things I have only recently discovered on reels in my possession. Note that this does not mean I just acquired these reels, only that I have just heard them for the first time. 

And that includes the following relatively short Audio Letter. I find this to be a fairly fascinating artifact. It appears to be from a man in the military (I haven't heard anything to discern which branch), talking about some of his activities while perhaps on leave or otherwise with some free time in Japan. This is actually the last part of what must have been at least two tapes sent at once - the opening moments indicate that he is picking up were the previous recording left off. As far as I can tell, I do not own part one. 

Anyway, there are some interesting stories and observations here, and it's a good little listen. 

Download: Unknown - Audio Letter from Japan (Part Two)

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From the sublime to the ridiculous... here's a short tape of someone making a pass at doing a "funny" newscast. Much of it is presumably original, and all of it is aggressively unfunny. A few bits are lifted, with a few minor changes, from George Carlin routines, but carried off here without any sense of what made the Carlin material "work" for Carlin. I come across stuff like this every now and then, and thought I would share it with all of you. Ecch. 

Download: Unknown - A Painfully Bad "Funny" News Report

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And now, from the ridiculous to the horrid. Four and a half years ago, I featured a short tape I labeled "Badgering a Toddler", in which a man tried, with increasingly abusive tone, to get a very small child to speak into the tape recorder. 

Today I have a sequel, not featuring the same person, but similar behavior - actually quite a bit worse, in my opinion. 

This comes from a much longer segment (over a half hour) in which the child you will hear - clearly an early learner still getting the hang of reading - reads a book, haltingly, with a lot of errors and requests to know what certain letters spell. Near the end of that segment, which overall is quite tedious, an adult, most likely his father, joins him, and the abusive treatment you will hear below follows. The kid doesn't even react - I am of course speculating, but my guess would be he was used to treatment like this from daddy.

Thankfully for this child, a woman (again, presumably his mother) enters the room, and, perhaps having heard what was going on, suggests that the child read to himself in his head, and she shuts off the machine. 

This tape, by the way, was almost disintegrating before my eyes. Much of the sound of the reading segment was audible only in small segments, with silence or tiny sounds in between, although this segment played well. Anyway, the tape was quite damaged, and appeared more damaged after it ran across the heads, as if the recording tape itself was disgusted with what it contained. I ended up throwing it out after making the sound file. Which is where behavior like this belongs. 

Download: Unknown - Badgering a Child Who is Learning to Read

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And now it's time for our "Very Short Reel". This one is a little longer than most, and is another "announcer demo reel", of the sort that would be sent out by aspiring (or established) voice-over men and women (and/or by their agencies) to any and all prospective clients. In this case, it's the wonderfully named Bucky Kozlow, who did a less than professional job in creating this tape - it really does start the way you'll hear now, with a bit of garbled conversation leading into the sales pitch, which seems to begin mid sentence. I also enjoy the fact that he leads off by referring to the recipient of the tape as "an old friend", but almost immediately afterwards, introduces himself as one would to a stranger. Otherwise, it's pretty much standard issue for this sort of thing. 

Download: Bucky Kozlow - Voice Over Narration Demo

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Finally, as I did on my song-poem blog, I am sharing my family's Christmas card for this year. For most of the past decade - with a few exceptions - we have tried to create something interesting and different each year, and most of my late-December posts in recent years have featured a sharing of the latest card - you can click around in those old posts if you're interested. 

Anyway, here is this year's card. The concept was mine, but my older child Sage had the wherewithal to make it work via computer wizardry and such.