History's Dumpster = GLORIOUS trash! Kitsch, music, fashion, food, history, ephemera, and other memorable and forgotten, famous and infamous pop culture junk and oddities of yesterday and today. Saved from the landfill of time...
In 1942, Yvonne DeCarlo, then 20 years old, a rising star and future Lily Munster recorded a musical film called a soundie, which are pretty much the very earliest music videos. They would be shown in theaters sometimes, or in coin operated jukeboxes and you could also order them on 16mm film for home showings.
When it came to tape machines, the German made Tefifon was one odd duck.....
....That's because it was no ordinary tape machine.
The Tefifon (or Tefi) used perhaps the very first example of an endless loop, like an 8-Track. But no magnetic tape. Instead, it used grooves in the tape, like a vinyl record.
Unlike the 8-Track, most Tefifon tapes are still playable after all these years. The Tefi machine was invented in the 1930s and refined before becoming available in Germany (and it's US export brand, Westrex.) from 1952-1964
The thin grooved tape had the same fidelity as an Evatone sound sheet. Each Tefi tape could play for sixty minutes up to four hours.
Each recording began with 40 seconds of fanfare. This was for the listener to adjust their sound equipment for the best fidelity and insure stable tracking of the stylus and groove.
Here's a full Tefi recording. Their repertoire was mostly of unknown German acts.
The Boomer Sound Expander (1981) was the essentially an upside down wastebasket that housed a large speaker and a handle. It connected to your portable device's earphone jack (it had a monaural output) and came in blue, green, yellow and red. It sold for $10.
