| StoreTags: time capsule, foreign music, analogue
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I recently won 28 tape reels for my reel to reel deck on ebay. As soon as I opened the box, I was hit with the smell of dust and a faint whiff of mothballs. All the boxes for the reels were intact, but yellowed and faded with age. I opened the first reel container, and a yellowed piece of paper fell out. To my suprise (and delight) it was a tracklist written in Russian! I started opening all of the other boxes, and sure enough, all of the other slips were written in combination russian/english. All of the reels were recorded in the 1960's, and as far as I can tell, contain combinations of music from russia, the middle east, and greece, but they all have that 60's studio flavor of smooth mantovani or 101 strings.
It's kind of like opening a time capsule. I doubt that they've been touched for decades, and handling these things makes me feel like I'm somehow connected to whoever recorded them in the first place.
Now I have to decide whether I actually want to record over some of them, or if I should try to find another lot of reels that hopefully doesn't include music that's so durn interesting. | |
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07/02/07
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theflame
Hey Trip, I got a box of blank tapes in my office!
07/02/07
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jdg
thx for the pics.. iwill stfu
07/02/07
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jonbro
yah, this music is sick! please post when you get it all recorded. Populus once gave me a reel to reel that had some peoples death threats on it. I think his brother found it in the trash. Freeky shit. I think i posted it, I will see if I can find it again and post it again.
07/02/07
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RogerRoger
A real treasure you've found here. Very Gypsy radio hour. Please release what is salvagable!!
07/02/07
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deltasleep
Bear in mind that you never, ever know with things like this. You could be in possession of the only copy of this in existence. Maybe you could solicit a musicologist to help you identify the stuff. Here's a recording like this that I found. Of my uncle:
link
07/03/07
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dach
hehehehe i fell into the exact same situation!!!
07/03/07
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bew
I found a crate of about thirty reels a few years back when the school I was working in relocated. Unfortunately they're in storage and I don't live in the country anymore. I think they were all religious advice about the perils of drinking alcohol.
There is something fantastic and maybe a little spooky about listening to old tape recordings, when you don't know the person who recorded them. Whatare the doing and where are they now? Are they still alive?
It reminds me of the speculation that a lot of canned laughter we hear on TV was originally recorded back in the 50s and that many of the people we hear are now dead and buried.
Old tapes - One part romantic and one part eerie.
07/03/07
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SeanShea
When i was at Brown university i recorded a lot of things to Reels because it was the only cheap (free) medium that i had and that was audiophile quality.
One of the things that i recorded over was a demo from Lisa Loeb.
Some might see that as a loss so maybe you should back them up to cheap CD's
As for finds,
I recently came into a bunch of NOS reel tape from the early 1950's. It is completely unused even has the original stickers.
07/03/07
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Tripnik
ok, bloody hell. If any of you guys have blank reels and don't want or need them, I'd be interested in purchasing them.
07/03/07
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Otterfan
My brother has some found tape of notes by a doctor that counseled patients on whether to get "therapeutic" abortions--i.e., aborting potentially retarded children. There were hours of patient reviews, followed by recommendations. The apparent rule of thumb was to abort any fetus that had an outside shot at being too slow to get into Princeton.
I'm a pro-choice guy, but I still found the thing totally creepy and eugenic.
07/03/07
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Psyingo
deltasleep, you'd love what i have, i have hours of lectures, conversations, radio talk shows etc. on reel to reel and i have someones answering machine reels, awesome stuff. theres taped plays off radio and stuff, its all quite awesome, and i can go back to the flea market where they were and get about 30 more reels.
07/03/07
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Psyingo
oh, and tripnik, what size of reels are those? i think 5 or maybe its 3? i dunno 5 or 4 or 3" reels make perfect CD cases that fit those paper cd sleeves.
07/03/07
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Tripnik
They're 5". This is actually my first time using anything other than 7".
07/03/07
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Psyingo
right, 5" that makes sense since cd's are 5"... so yes, those cases are perfect... try it out.
07/03/07
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soundhdack
@otterfan
"totally creepy and eugenic" is right.
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