Sometime in early 2002, a friend of mine gave me a box of loose cassettes.
They were mostly mixtapes by random people with no labels. I played a few of them out of curiosity. I still like doing that sometimes whenever I run across an old used blank cassette. I can still do that because I still have not just a cassette deck, but a full blown audio component system. Hey, I was "hipster" before they even had a name for them.
Some were stuff recorded off the radio, others were full albums. Babylon And On from Squeeze and Tango In The Night from Fleetwood Mac was on one of them. Another cassette had The Division Bell from Pink Floyd recorded on one side, The Spice Girls on the other.
But nothing in my life prepared me for one mixtape that was the craziest one I have ever heard in my life. Side One started out with "Somewhere" Barbara Streisand.
Genteel, I know. But I let it play as I was writing an article on vintage record label designs for a friend's web site. I figured it was probably a Babs tape. Or a mix of something of the "Lite Adult Contemporary" ilk.
I suddenly spit out my sip of Jim Beam & 7-Up all over my keyboard when I heard the next song - a GG Allin song.
WTF? (And if you don't know who or what a GG Allin is, here. But let's say he's just not the kind of guy they play on "K-Lite".) And FYI, that wasn't the actual song on the tape. Just the only one in his repertoire clean enough to play on a fairly PG-13 blog. You can look up YouTube for the rest. But make sure grandma is out of the room.
The tape continued with The Dazz Band, Waylon Jennings, unknown ragtime music, Motley Crue, Ed Ames, The Buzzcocks, Rita Coolidge, Yngwie Malmsteen, Sylvester, Mercyful Fate, Gordon Lightfoot, Millie Jackson, The Mentors, Parliament, Dan Fogelberg, Scritti Politti and so forth.
In that order.
I had to put the whiskey away and finish the article the next day (with a more stable soundtrack.) My brain just couldn't process the mental whiplash of everything.
And I am NOT making any of that up. I still have that cassette.
But to the point of the matter.
At the bottom of this box, next to a dead spider, was a DAT (Digital Audio Tape)
DATs were a short lived digital format in the early '90s that was popular with amateur/developing musicians. Mostly for mastering demos, as this tape is.
The problem is I can't tell you what it really is because I don't have a DAT player. The group (or solo project) is called Innervision and I'm not sure what it is musically, but from the song titles, it would appear to be some kind of progressive rock act.
The track listing:
1. Someone To Love Me
2. The Goblin
3. Deja Blue
4. Dark Days
It's an audio mystery in fading pencil writing on the J-card. And most importantly, (which the scan did NOT read) was "MASTER". This means whoever did this recording must've put some serious dedication into this.
All I want is for this DAT to come back to it's rightful owner. It's been here long enough. Maybe I should just scoop up an old DAT machine somewhere and hear what it sounds like. But I know musicians and they tend to be picky about things. So out of courtesy and respect, I will hold on to it. Someone knows somebody. And a chance look through Google. That sort of thing. I don't know if it's a priceless, one of a kind demo. But I have it.
Let me know, wherever you are.
They were mostly mixtapes by random people with no labels. I played a few of them out of curiosity. I still like doing that sometimes whenever I run across an old used blank cassette. I can still do that because I still have not just a cassette deck, but a full blown audio component system. Hey, I was "hipster" before they even had a name for them.
Some were stuff recorded off the radio, others were full albums. Babylon And On from Squeeze and Tango In The Night from Fleetwood Mac was on one of them. Another cassette had The Division Bell from Pink Floyd recorded on one side, The Spice Girls on the other.
But nothing in my life prepared me for one mixtape that was the craziest one I have ever heard in my life. Side One started out with "Somewhere" Barbara Streisand.
Genteel, I know. But I let it play as I was writing an article on vintage record label designs for a friend's web site. I figured it was probably a Babs tape. Or a mix of something of the "Lite Adult Contemporary" ilk.
I suddenly spit out my sip of Jim Beam & 7-Up all over my keyboard when I heard the next song - a GG Allin song.
WTF? (And if you don't know who or what a GG Allin is, here. But let's say he's just not the kind of guy they play on "K-Lite".) And FYI, that wasn't the actual song on the tape. Just the only one in his repertoire clean enough to play on a fairly PG-13 blog. You can look up YouTube for the rest. But make sure grandma is out of the room.
The tape continued with The Dazz Band, Waylon Jennings, unknown ragtime music, Motley Crue, Ed Ames, The Buzzcocks, Rita Coolidge, Yngwie Malmsteen, Sylvester, Mercyful Fate, Gordon Lightfoot, Millie Jackson, The Mentors, Parliament, Dan Fogelberg, Scritti Politti and so forth.
In that order.
I had to put the whiskey away and finish the article the next day (with a more stable soundtrack.) My brain just couldn't process the mental whiplash of everything.
And I am NOT making any of that up. I still have that cassette.
But to the point of the matter.
At the bottom of this box, next to a dead spider, was a DAT (Digital Audio Tape)
DATs were a short lived digital format in the early '90s that was popular with amateur/developing musicians. Mostly for mastering demos, as this tape is.
The problem is I can't tell you what it really is because I don't have a DAT player. The group (or solo project) is called Innervision and I'm not sure what it is musically, but from the song titles, it would appear to be some kind of progressive rock act.
The track listing:
1. Someone To Love Me
2. The Goblin
3. Deja Blue
4. Dark Days
It's an audio mystery in fading pencil writing on the J-card. And most importantly, (which the scan did NOT read) was "MASTER". This means whoever did this recording must've put some serious dedication into this.
All I want is for this DAT to come back to it's rightful owner. It's been here long enough. Maybe I should just scoop up an old DAT machine somewhere and hear what it sounds like. But I know musicians and they tend to be picky about things. So out of courtesy and respect, I will hold on to it. Someone knows somebody. And a chance look through Google. That sort of thing. I don't know if it's a priceless, one of a kind demo. But I have it.
Let me know, wherever you are.
I still have a lot of the mixtapes I made in the 90s and my tape player in my car works well so that's where I play em. The other day I was going to work and I heard the simpsons song come on.
ReplyDeleteI was like whaat?