Actual Swedish Magazine

Now THIS Is A Car Stereo!

The Dodge La Femme

It's pretty much a 1955 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer with a pretty pink paint job, it's own nameplate and a few extra goodies.

The Dodge La Femme was the first car specifically marketed towards women.

It was a gorgeous car. And it had everything the modern woman of 1955 could want. Including a matching shoulder bag/purse, matching makeup case, matching rain cap, matching cigarette case, matching umbrella and matching raincoat. (Matching dream house extra.)

While finding a 1955 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer is easy, the La Femme's are much harder.

In spite of the dealer hype, few women felt the need to change their entire wardrobe around a car. Even back then, this vehicle probably evoked horrifying images of matching poodles in their minds as well.

But this car was, after all, a patronizing appeal to the classic male ideal of femininity, rather than how the woman of the 1950's actually saw herself.

It wasn't a real model either. The La Femme was a $143 option for the Lancer. So it's hard to tell how many were actually made, but it's presumed something around 2,500. It was discontinued in 1957.

8-Track Flashback: The Flipside

Remember those old 8-Track music tapes you still probably got stashed somewhere?

How one day, somewhere in the summer of 1980 as you're driving your AMC Pacer to a Sambo's for pancakes, you decided to break out that Loverboy 8-Track out of the glove box.  Thirsty as hell, you stop by a Tradewell store on the way to Sambo's and buy a can of Tab.

You open up the can of Tab and the can erupts, spilling the fizzy brown saccharine flavoured liquid down onto the Loverboy 8-Track.

Well, it looked like only the label got soaked. So you think 'why not' and put the thing in the player. "Working For The Weekend" plays and...well...never mind, just listen to this:

http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/BT/Egnekn_-_Going_off_the_deep_end.mp3

Now how MUCH would YOU pay to hear THAT again?

For only $15, you can have this damaged classic and more JUST LIKE IT on one dysfunctional CD. Introducing 8-Track Magic, a compilation CD of music from messed up 8-Track tapes from Artists Throwing Money Out the Window.

And surprisingly, this disc was made in 1994.

http://www.generatorsoundart.org/GL-02.html

ATMOW has either gotta be the trippiest bunch of aural freaks I've heard since Negativland (or even The Residents.)  Or the biggest rip-off in the name of "art" in history. Perhaps it should be "People Throwing Money Out the Window"

I mean, for that same price, I could buy a whole box full of REAL messed up 8-Track tapes (including the player) and actually get a more artistic experience because I am WATCHING the machine destroy the tapes before my eyes.

Here's another one.

Check this out: OK, your buddy calls you and dude says his refrigerator is silent. I mean like, REALLY silent. So for some reason, you don't plug it in, call the landlord (or even maybe grab a blow dryer and do a defrost.) Instead, you stick a tape recorder in it (WARNING: THE FOLLOWING AUDIO MAY BE SHOCKING TO SOME LISTENERS):

http://www.generatorsoundart.org/sound/GL-06.mp3

This ENTIRE smash CD The Silent Fridge of POP.AC also is yours for $15:

http://www.generatorsoundart.org/GL-06.html

THINK WITH YOUR DIPSTICK, JIMMY!!

Attention all units we have an all-points-bulletin for a crazed Scotsman in a 2009 TV commercial for Castrol motor oil who has assaulted several people with a large automobile oil dipstick. Subject is described as about 5'10"  Caucasian male in his late forties to mid fifties with red hair and beard, a red plaid flat cap and thick Scottish accent. He approaches at random, assaults victims and shouts "Think with your dipstick Jimmy!"

Citizens are advised not to publicly discuss their motor oil. On top of being dangerous, subject is considered a major pain in the ass and most likely is mentally ill......

The Last Checker Cab

Would you believe Checker Motors were still making taxicabs with the same unchanged look from the '50s all the way up until 1982?

Halloween Hits: "D.O.A" Bloodrock (1970)

This is another super creepy song and a heavy metal classic. Single handedly inspiring countless classics such as "Detroit Rock City" Kiss and "One" Metallica. With a lead singer whose voice and style of singing was an irrefutable template for Ronnie James Dio's '80s career.

"D.O.A." is a song written from the perspective of someone dying in a horrific plane crash, inspired by an actual event the band's guitarist witnessed when he was 17. "D.O.A." was Bloodrock's biggest hit (and the song was released as a heavily edited - and sucky - single version) So here it is in it's full 8:25 album length glory. This is from their album Bloodrock 2.

Bloodrock broke up in 1975. 

Electra Woman & Dyna Girl

Part of the Saturday morning Krofft Supershow, with some of the cheesiest special effects in TV history.

It wasn't until some years later I realized how cheesy this show really was when I found out about the Electra Complex. Since then, I've had to bite my tongue every time someone mentioned this show in high school to keep from laughing......

Loved the Electra Car!

A Virtual Time Warp To 1975......

I found this awesome YouTube clip that will REALLY take you back to 1975.

It's an unscoped aircheck from a rock station, "The All New K-Keg 92" KKEG-FM Fayetteville, AR from 1975.

Complete with music, jock and original commercials. The guy who posted this said he found it on an 8-Track tape somebody recorded and he transferred it on YouTube.

".....this was most likely recorded in order for the owner to be able to listen to the radio while driving through the dead-air area between Fayetteville and Little Rock that existed in NW Arkansas during the mid-70s......."

And believe me, this can take you there and beyond. I don't know who Bo James was, but he definitely had the right sound for this format.

This was what Classic Radio REALLY sounded like back in the day. You'll hear the Doobie Brothers cover version of "Jesus Is Just Alright" ad nauseum today. But NEVER the Byrds ORIGINAL.

See how much of this music you haven't heard in EONS - if at all. (Segues like Blood Sweat & Tears cover of "Ride Captain Ride" into "Liar" Queen anyone?)

KKEG is still on the air and still rockin', but they've moved up the dial to 98.3 FM. KKEG's original 92.1 frequency is now home to an ESPN sports station. 

Pop open a can of Tab and enjoy......

AMAZING TV/Car Stereo from the '80s!

The Yugo

What can you say about a car that literally rusted on the dealer's lot?

Basically a pop can on wheels, the Yugo's idea was good. A compact car for a compact price. But that's where it ended.

The Yugo's engine tended to break down. Often (the timing belts needed constant inspection.) You also had to use a specific octane of fuel and did I mention the Yugo was a pop can on wheels? Extremely high winds could literally flip the car over.

Also being a car manufactured in a then Soviet-bloc country didn't help it's image.

Yugo ended US exports shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of Yugoslavia itself in 1992. 

The History of Cassettes

The advent of the cartridge style tape began with the usual seven words that begin the road to any invention. Fourteen if you count those other seven nasty words (that usually precede these):

"There's GOT to be a better way!"

Tape, like the wire recordings that came before them were on spools or reels and had to be hand threaded through the playback mechanism. A time consuming feat in itself for the average person.  And prone to accidents.

When the first reel tape became available to the masses, it had immediate advantages over the vinyl records of the time. First, they were in stereo years before the first stereo LPs were available. They didn't scratch or have surface noise (other than a very low level audible hiss. Noise reduction would be another 15 years away.) And best yet, you could record 3 hours of uninterrupted, high quality music or radio broadcasts per reel.

But to a consumer base who were used to instant playback as offered by records, they didn't want to waste time setting up and threading a reel of tape and take the risk of any clumsy and at the time, expensive accidents. No matter what the audio advantages were.

RCA noticed this and sympathized. And ever the innovators, they began work on a simple, self threading style of tape and unveiled it in 1958.                                          

Blank tapes, as well as pre-recorded titles like these, were made available.

They were played on machines like this;

Most of these machines and tapes still work gloriously after all these years. Note the RCA plug inputs on the side of the unit. They're STILL compatible with home stereo/computer inputs/outputs of TODAY with a simple cheap patch cord!

It did impress an number of people. But the problem was it was still big and bulky. And reel tape deck machines shrank in size over early '60s.

Super small, but not super sounding

Philips developed the Compact Audio Cassette in 1963. At the time, it was only one of several competing cartridge based formats (including RCA's cartridge) designed to simplify tape recording. 

The very first cassette tape recorder, from 1963

The very first cassette tape, 1963

The format initially offered fairly poor fidelity and was marketed for voice recording and dictation. It's super slow speed, 1 7/8 ips pretty much made sure of that.
 

But Philips approached Sony Corporation in Japan after realizing that Japanese acceptance of the new format would vastly improve the chances of success in America and Europe. After some hardball negotiation, Philips agreed to license the system to Sony without royalties. In fact, by 1965 Philips had opened the format up to other manufacturers free of charge.
 

Technology improved quickly, including an ability to play stereo tapes, and new tape formulations soon assured a higher quality sound from the cassette than the earliest tapes. 

One of the very first pre-recorded cassette tapes. From 1968.

Pre-recorded cassettes quietly appeared on the market in the late '60s and at first, didn't gain much traction. First, there were few car stereos..... 

....and very few high-end home units at the time to play them on. The 8-Track was still the dominate portable tape playing medium. Most cassette players were tinny sounding mono portables.  

And cassette tapes, for all their improvements still sounded pretty bad compared to the reel tape and even the 8-Track. But it was soldiers in the Vietnam war that quickly embraced the cassette for it's small size and ease of mailing to and from home. By the dawn of the '70s, things began looking up. Even more improvements, such as Dolby noise reduction and increasingly better tape formulations started putting cassettes on nearly the same par as the other tape formats.

Ampex and Sony were the companies that REALLY pushed for the cassette's survival in it's early days and paved the way for other companies such as Maxell, Memorex and TDK....

Remember when pre-recorded cassettes came in boxes and colours like THIS?

Ever try to REMOVE a cassette from one of THESE things? It's vice like grip made for an epic struggle that often took about 5 minutes average just to remove the thing from it's case! New, easier opening cases, similar to what blank cassette manufacturers were using for their products were introduced by the major record companies a few years later.....

The first Cr02 (chrome) blank cassette tapes came out in the early '70s. These tapes were not compatible for recording in a Normal bias cassette deck because the erase head needed to re-record over a chrome tape had to be much more powerful than a Normal bias erase head as well as the recording head itself had to be more powerful to make a loud enough recording on them. But a normal bias cassette deck can PLAY a chrome tapes (or later metal formulations, which required even more powerful erase/record heads) perfectly well. For those with unswitchable Normal bias decks, increasingly better Normal bias formulations appeared to put the lowly Normal bias tape nearly on par with the chrome tapes 

By 1975, cassette tape was starting to overtake the 8-Track as the popular tape format of choice and by the mid-late '70s, the first car stereo cassette players and stereo portables had become popular and the cassettes had improved to the point where it rendered the reel tape pretty much redundant beyond radio stations and professional recording studios.

New hope for those left behind with 8-Track machines

The Sony Walkman was introduced in 1979 and acceptance of the cassette as a serious home and portable medium started really taking off. 

In 1980. The British New Wave group Bow Wow Wow released the first cassette single "C·30 C·60 C·90 Go!" in the UK. 

 

By 1983, pre-recorded cassettes were actually starting to outsell vinyl LPs. Record companies began doing extra gimmicks such as adding extra songs to the cassette versions of their albums to help foster the trend. Blank cassettes were also unbelievably cheap.

And I do mean CHEAP.....

New looks to the cassettes themselves helped improve the staid appearance of the typical cassette.

Remember THESE things? (1985)

In 1985, Warner/Reprise broke the mold of the old bland pre-recorded cassette look by introducing clear cassette shells and cases for their pre-recorded cassettes, starting with Prince's Around The World In A Day album and Brothers In Arms from Dire Straits. 

It was in part a reaction to the look of the newly introduced CD, but also illustrated a higher quality mechanism and should the tape have problems, you could directly see what the problem was. Other record companies quickly followed - except for RCA and Columbia/Epic. They would use standard cassette shells and cases until 1989.

...and who could forget THESE?

The standard playing time of a blank cassette tape was 60 to 90 minutes which corresponded to the typical playing time of a complete album for each side. There were 30 minute and 40 minute tapes available in the '70s (they were phased out by the beginning of the '80s) and some 120 minute tape lengths and TDK even made an insane 180 minute tape.

The problem with the longest lengths (120 and especially 180 minute tapes) were they were on EXTREMELY thin tape, which were far more prone to stretching and breakage (the manufacturers themselves advised that you should not rewind or fast forward these tapes.) Due to the thinness of the tape, they also suffered from an effect called "print through", in which loud passages from adjacent layers of tape would increasingly echo through the tape several seconds earlier during playback.

But with the introduction of the CD, the running time of a typical album increased by nearly 10 minutes. And the polymer backing had to be strengthened to allow rewind/fast forward capability as well as eliminating the print through effect, as CDs had a much wider dynamic range and louder volume level than a typical vinyl album or cassette. 110 minute cassettes were introduced by 1987.

1987 also saw the rebirth of the cassette single, this time for the US market. Which the recording companies hoped would jump start the sagging market for pop singles as sales of the 45 RPM record began to seriously decline.

A&M records released Bryan Adams "Heat Of The Night" as a cassette single, the first one since the Bow Wow Wow cassette mentioned earlier. Note the unusual case. "O" slipcards would be introduced by Warner/Reprise a few weeks later with their first cassette singles and all recording companies - including A&M, immediately followed suit.

The mid '80s to the mid '90s were the glory days of the cassette tape. And CD prices were still ridiculously expensive ($15 - $20 average). A lawsuit targeting the major record labels for overcharging the public in the late '80s and '90s for CDs resulted in CD prices dropping to nearly the same price as cassettes.

And cassettes themselves got a high tech upgrade when the DCC (Digital Compact Cassette) was invented. They played and recorded special DCC tapes and even standard analog cassettes.

DCC Cassette tape

DCC Recorder/player

But the tide really started turning in the late '90s with CD-Rs. With the new MP3 format and computers and some stereos capable of playing MP3 discs, a single all 128kb bitrate MP3 CD could play continuously for over 12 HOURS. 

The last American major label pre-recorded cassettes were released in 2005. (In some areas such as India, Thailand and Indonesia, pre-recorded cassettes are STILL being manufactured.)

But like all audio formats once considered "obsolete", they never truly are. And like vinyl, the cassette is enjoying a new revival too. Not from long time tape heads, but a new generation who are tired of virtual mediums like MP3s and want something PHYSICAL and retro-cool. As well as independent DIY rock groups who are sick of the corporatization of digital mediums and want something real instead of mass copied MP3s and CDs

Bless 'em all......  

More cassette resources:

http://www.c-90.org/index.htm 

http://www.tapeheads.net/

http://www.designboom.com/contemporary/cassettes.html

http://www.sweetthunder.org/tapes/