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Will 8 track tapes become the next hipster thing ?


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OK, cynical skeptics - here are five reasons why cassettes were the best playback medium ever.

 

And here's an equally tongue-in-cheek argument for the phonograph record being the best playback medium ever. At the time of this story, there was the great fear of a perfect digital clone of a commercial recording, and there was some (t-i-c, of course) support within the audio community that there can be no perfect clone of a wiggly groove.

 

 

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I'd rather put myself out of business than have someone do it to me.True that.
Andy Grove, ex-Intel CEO, believed in killing their cash cow. Grove called it being the ultimate cannibal. Intel's R&D primary job was to put their current CPU out of business.

Steve Coscia

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I'd rather put myself out of business than have someone do it to me.True that.
Andy Grove, ex-Intel CEO, believed in killing their cash cow. Grove called it being the ultimate cannibal. Intel's R&D primary job was to put their current CPU out of business.
Very cool, thanks for contributing that.
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If it does become the next hipster thing, the NEXT one will be picking up a stick and beating anyone who brags about it.

 

Full disclosure: I have 40-year-old cassettes whose fidelity remains all but unblemished. So, I'm an old fart, a living testimonial for the format and a cackling old collector who still listens to Charles Ives' "American Variations" for simple pleasure. Tip: Teens may be impressed by "Close To The Edge," but most run from Captain Beefheart.

 "I want to be an intellectual, but I don't have the brainpower.
  The absent-mindedness, I've got that licked."
        ~ John Cleese

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If it does become the next hipster thing, the NEXT one will be picking up a stick and beating anyone who brags about it.

 

Full disclosure: I have 40-year-old cassettes whose fidelity remains all but unblemished. So, I'm an old fart, a living testimonial for the format and a cackling old collector who still listens to Charles Ives' "American Variations" for simple pleasure. Tip: Teens may be impressed by "Close To The Edge," but most run from Captain Beefheart.

 

 

Hahaha!!! I've a good friend from Holland who loves "symphonic rock". I introduced him to the Dregs, that went down pretty well. He had heard of Return To Forever and Weather Report but needed a reminder. Fine.

 

Captain Beefheart terrorized him!!! We used to listen to Trout Mask Replica when it came out because it would make my friend's parents leave the building. I have my Captain Beefheart moods to this day. I consider him to be one of the most under-rated and influential musicians in popular music.

Not on 8 track or cassette though, must listen to horrible sounding YouTube music!!!! :- D

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Hahaha!!! I've a good friend from Holland who loves "symphonic rock". I introduced him to the Dregs, that went down pretty well. He had heard of Return To Forever and Weather Report but needed a reminder. Fine.

 

Captain Beefheart terrorized him!!! We used to listen to Trout Mask Replica when it came out because it would make my friend's parents leave the building. I have my Captain Beefheart moods to this day. I consider him to be one of the most under-rated and influential musicians in popular music.

Not on 8 track or cassette though, must listen to horrible sounding YouTube music!!!! :- D

 

On "Trout Mask Replica" and "Lick My Decals Off Baby" the music is pretty difficult to "enjoy". One thing that's happening is that individual band players are doing repeated riffs/motifs/little melodic ideas. But they're asymmetrical and disjointed sounding. After dismal sales of "Lick My Decals Off Baby" , Beefheart enlisted Ted Templeman (producer for Doobie Brothers and Carly Simon among others) to produce "Clear Spot".

 

I believe Clear Spot is one the the great R&R albums. But it seems to have been too late. I listen to Clear Spot on a regular basis, with Bluetooth headphones while out on walks.

 

Also, a composer named Sam Andreyev did a YT analysis of "Frownland" - the 1st song on Trout Mask Replica. Andreyev shows that there were repeated asymmetrical riffs being used. Similar to some music Igor Stravinsky composed.

 

Wikipedia on Clear Spot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_Spot

 

[video:youtube]

 

 

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If it does become the next hipster thing, the NEXT one will be picking up a stick and beating anyone who brags about it.

 

Full disclosure: I have 40-year-old cassettes whose fidelity remains all but unblemished. So, I'm an old fart, a living testimonial for the format and a cackling old collector who still listens to Charles Ives' "American Variations" for simple pleasure. Tip: Teens may be impressed by "Close To The Edge," but most run from Captain Beefheart.

 

 

Hahaha!!! I've a good friend from Holland who loves "symphonic rock". I introduced him to the Dregs, that went down pretty well. He had heard of Return To Forever and Weather Report but needed a reminder. Fine.

 

Captain Beefheart terrorized him!!! We used to listen to Trout Mask Replica when it came out because it would make my friend's parents leave the building. I have my Captain Beefheart moods to this day. I consider him to be one of the most under-rated and influential musicians in popular music.

Not on 8 track or cassette though, must listen to horrible sounding YouTube music!!!! :- D

 

I was fortunate to have been exposed to music across a wide range from an early age. I developed my prog favorites, but I also learned that the winning question wasn't "Why do you like that?", but "How did you first come to hear that?" Its led to the kinds of cross-connections we all love, like my discovery of Cannonball Adderly because his keyboard player, the great George Duke, was part of Zappa's band for a while. Its only sensible that you find your own personal partitions so you can make worthwhile music of your own, but its never a bad idea to be open to new influences.

 

Beefheart's angular "Tropical Hot Dog Night" slays me. I took an opportunity to play it for a group of rather straight-laced people and the reactions were amusingly mixed. Some puckered up, some laughed out loud in spots. Hm! Look Mom, its an audio Rorschach test.

 "I want to be an intellectual, but I don't have the brainpower.
  The absent-mindedness, I've got that licked."
        ~ John Cleese

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If it does become the next hipster thing, the NEXT one will be picking up a stick and beating anyone who brags about it.

 

Full disclosure: I have 40-year-old cassettes whose fidelity remains all but unblemished. So, I'm an old fart, a living testimonial for the format and a cackling old collector who still listens to Charles Ives' "American Variations" for simple pleasure. Tip: Teens may be impressed by "Close To The Edge," but most run from Captain Beefheart.

 

 

Hahaha!!! I've a good friend from Holland who loves "symphonic rock". I introduced him to the Dregs, that went down pretty well. He had heard of Return To Forever and Weather Report but needed a reminder. Fine.

 

Captain Beefheart terrorized him!!! We used to listen to Trout Mask Replica when it came out because it would make my friend's parents leave the building. I have my Captain Beefheart moods to this day. I consider him to be one of the most under-rated and influential musicians in popular music.

Not on 8 track or cassette though, must listen to horrible sounding YouTube music!!!! :- D

 

I was fortunate to have been exposed to music across a wide range from an early age. I developed my prog favorites, but I also learned that the winning question wasn't "Why do you like that?", but "How did you first come to hear that?" Its led to the kinds of cross-connections we all love, like my discovery of Cannonball Adderly because his keyboard player, the great George Duke, was part of Zappa's band for a while. Its only sensible that you find your own personal partitions so you can make worthwhile music of your own, but its never a bad idea to be open to new influences.

 

Beefheart's angular "Tropical Hot Dog Night" slays me. I took an opportunity to play it for a group of rather straight-laced people and the reactions were amusingly mixed. Some puckered up, some laughed out loud in spots. Hm! Look Mom, its an audio Rorschach test.

 

I was also very lucky. Mom had diverse tastes in music, from Roger Miller to Brahms. When Carlos Montoya, Artur Rubenstein and Joan Baez came to town, we went to the concerts. We watched Ed Sullivan, Red Skelton, Smothers Brothers, Johnny Cash and Glen Campbell's TV shows, all kinds of popular music. My brother put a decent stereo system together with Garrard turntable, Fisher tube power amp and a pair of homemade 3 way speakers using Radio Shack drivers. It sounded better than everything else I'd listened to at that point but more importantly, he would go to Tower Records and buy stuff that was more or less off the beaten path for Fresno boys. So I listened to story-telling songs from Kenya, Turkish Village Music, Monk, Miles and Mingus, Sun Ra, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Blind Blake etc. I remember when he came home with a John Lee Hooker album and mom didn't like that one so he went back and got another one!!!!

 

Then my friends started buying anything by Zappa or connected thereto like Wild Man Fischer and Captain Beefheart.

 

And concerts - being inbetween LA and San Francisco meant we often got major acts coming through. I saw Yes and ELP twice, UK, Jethro Tull, The Dregs/Dixie Dregs, Herbie Hancock on the Headhunter tour, The Who on the Tommy tour and a huge list of other great stuff. Plus we found out you could go to the dress rehearsals for the Fresno Philharmonic for free so I hear Jean Pierre Rampal and other artists whose names I have forgotten. It was interesting when the conductor would stop a piece, discuss corrections and go through it again, that was an education you can't buy anywhere.

 

So I am very open-minded and curious to hear just about anything. But not on 8 track tape!!!!

 

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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