Just recently I purchased a CD that I had not heard in years. The only thing that was different was that the last time I heard this CD—it was on tape (yikes!!).
As I listened to this CD, I was flooded with memories of days gone by when I would record hours on music off of the radio as well as the times I would “dub” the tapes of my friends.
Here are some of the funny memories that come to mind:
#Running through the house trying to find a tape to record “the jam” only to discover that the only tapes that were available had preaching on it (not to mention it belonged to my parents).
#Asking friends to make me a copy of one of their tapes. Because of their lack of detail, my favorite song was ALWAYS the last song on side one that was abruptly ended right at the best part of the song. I had to quickly flip to side 2 to give it that “continuous” feel.
#Accidentally leaving favorite cassettes in the hot car.
#I always knew that I had listen to a tape too much when I could hear the music from side 2 faintly playing backwards while listening to side 1.
#When a tape would break, no problem. If the tape had screws, I would reach for my finger nail clippers and use that part that nobody ever uses (you know, the nail filer) as a screwdriver (if I was really desperate, I would use either a butter or steak knife). I would use masking tape to connect the two pieces together again. If the two pieces were not aligned correctly, I would just loose 5 more seconds of my song by cutting and trying it again.
Before the days of dual cassette decks:
#To make a copy of a tape, all you would need was to find a quiet room, find two cassette players/boom boxes and face them towards each other. The distance had to be just right, otherwise your tape would come out too distorted. The most important step was to make sure that is was totally quiet in and around your room for at least one hour. This meant that the phone could not ring, mom or dad could not holla’ for you or your siblings, no talking outside your door, and the dog had to be quiet. If quietness was not achieved, then your favorite song (s) would be overdubbed with your brother telling someone to “shut up”, or the phone ringing downstairs.
What are your memories?
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August 28th, 2005 at 7:14 am
What memory? I STILL use them! Just kidding. But I do remember while using background music tapes to sing at prison ministry or weddings and whomever was running the music started the side with the Demo voice. So after the intro when I started to sing, here comes Andre Crouch or Yolanda Adams SINGING WITH ME! THEN because it was a tape you had to
“talk” while they flipped the tape over and rewind it to the right spot…you could only say “Let’s give the Lord a praise offering” so many times until the audience started to know something was wrong. Yes I have sweated my way out of many cassette adventures!
August 28th, 2005 at 9:03 pm
I loved making mixed tapes.
Mixed tapes where all of the songs followed some kind of theme were the funniest to create.
Of course, you can still do so on CD, but something is lost in the process somehow.
Also, stealing music before I knew I was stealing music.
You know, the same as you mentioned borrowing someones elses tapes to record music off of or borrowing yours out to them.
August 30th, 2005 at 11:55 am
I was the QUEEN of mixd tapes! Remember the “fast side” and the “slow side” tapes? Those were the best…I used to record off my records so I could listen to my old skool in the car…shame!
I used to love to hear the crackle of an LP while I was driving in my Caddy…in 1995!