Update on my 33 8-track lot form ebay:

I listened to Orleans first. Love takes time and it's hard to find...blah blah. Fluff. Here at the 8-track Museum our goal is quantity not quality. We're happy when we get a great album, but no 8-track is unwelcome. We are going for total 8-track saturation. All 8-tracks ever made. So that's probably automatically many more bad ones than good. To a critic. It's almost all the same to me. I like P-Funk and moog and jazz and Fleetwood Mac and Otis Redding.

Anyway, then I listened to Tommy Tutone 2. The whole album. It was okay. Recalled the fifties to me somehow. a little tough guy music or something. Plus 867 5309. Funny song.

Now I'm listening to Liz Damon. She's great! At Allbutforgottenoldies.net They said she was a one-hit-wonder, the one hit being 1900 Yesterday. I never heard it, but I love this album. It's Ray Coniffy singing. They cover Something, and Everything is Beautiful. It's sappy, syrupy, lugubrious and yet somehow lighthearted and chipper. It's called Orient Express but there's nothing oriental about it as far as I can tell. It's easy-listening.

I also looked up the movie The Minx. On Scorebaby.com they said it was an X-rated movie, but the soundtrack is more like the Beach Boys or the Monkees. Sounds cool. An excellent website for 60s and 70s soundtrack info.

Back to my research and Liz Damon's mellow stylings.

Oh I should mention I told my sweetie, Cathy, about that remark she made about no 8-tracks for Christmas. She said okay maybe there'd be some. At least one, I hope. It wouldn't be Christmas without 8-tracks.

Finally some 8-tracks came from ebay! Hooray! I bought 33 on one lot for 15.50+shipping. These are the ones that lured me into bidding: Sesame Street Gold! The best of Sesame Street - 2 LPs on one 8-track and Tommy Tutone - 2 with 867-5309 on it. Remember that one? "Jenny I got your number. I'm gonna make you mine..." Also, in the picture I could see some things I thought might be good.

So I didn't really know what I was getting. I love to get mystery tapes in the mail. It was mostly junk. I like these ones though: Ray Coniff - 's marvelous; The Stereophonic Sound of Stan Kenton; Don Ho "Live" (sic) at the Polynesian Palace; Sea Level - Cats on the Coast, Ronnie Laws - Pressure Sensitive; Grand Funk Railroad - Good Singin' Good Playin'; Deodato 2; Volunteer Jam featuring the Charlie Daniels Band, the Marshall Tucker Band and Dickey Betts; Orleans - Forever; and just because I love Cnristmas music, Christmas with Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass in it's original RCA sleeve too.

There were also nine that I already have: Roberta Flack - Chapter Two; Rex Smith - Sooner or Later; Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. - The Two of Us; Burt Bacharach - Reach Out; Mike Oldfield - Hergest Ridge; Tom Jones' - Greatest Hits; Sly and the Family Stone - Greatest Hits; Elvin Bishop - Raisin' Hell (try not to picture the California Raisins in hell); Maureen McGovern - The Morning after and the Heart-Touching Magic of Jim Nabors.

These are the ones I'm not very excited about but at least I don't have them yet: Roger Williams - Self-Titled; Henry Mancini - Theme from Love Story; Nancy Wilson - Broadway-My Way and Who CanI Turn To; and The Cole Porter Songbook played by the 101 Strings.

These are the ones I've never heard of: Margo Smith - Song Bird; Johnny Bush - The Sound of Heartache ( says Vivid Country Sounds on it);and Liz Damon's - Oriental Express. Also I got a bootleg of DebbyBoone - You Light Up My Life with a nice cover design and a tape with no front or back label, just a typed sticker on the end that says Barry Manilow - Greatest Hits. Are you counting? That's 32. The last one has a melted, gooky pinch roller. It is the original soundtrack to the Minx featuring Cyrkle. Guess I missed that one! So that's the lot. Now I'm going to read up on them and listen to them. I finally finished listening to both the Rare Earth albums I got yesterday. They're good. Can't trust music critics.

Well it was a pretty swell birthday all told. I got a book I've been looking for for years: 201 Yiddish Verbs.
My coworkers threw me an ice-cream party at work. My girl came to meet me after work and brought me a hot scallion pie direct from King Fung Garden in Chinatown - Yum! Then we went and played skee ball for a while and had dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse. The steak was good; the atmosphere stupid, but whadaya want?

Oh and...did I forget the 8-tracks? Well none came in the mail and I was sad, so I went around the corner to Looney Tunes and bought a couple to cheer myself up. I'd buy all they have if I could afford them but they run pretty high. $4.99 mostly. I paid that for a Rare Earth 4-track cartridge called Get Ready. I wonder if it is a pirate or if the company had all the info on a sleeve long departed? It only has six songs on it which seems strange. The cover art is weird too, but who knows, maybe that's how it was. I'll have to do some web research. I also got an 8-track of Rare Earth - Ecology. This one is the actual label release on an ampex cart with the label being rare earth though. But now I have two new carts for my birthday - Yay!

I like to look up groups in my Rolling Stone Record Guides (the 1979 1st edition and the 1983 "new" edition) and see what "the critics" thought. Dave Marsh said Rare Earth was the worst white soul group ever and where was Berry Gordy? Out to lunch? Critics can be so cruel. I usually find I like the music fine.
For more Soul than you can shake a stick at plus a discussion of white soul artists like Rare Earth check out Soul Patrol.

A word about 4-track cartridges. These are like 8-tracks without pinch rollers inside. You needed a special machine that stuck an internal pinch roller in the hole in the 4-track to play them. These were a precursor to the longer lived 8-track. Both were made to be played in cars primarily, where vinyl did not work - they tried. Then they made a little gizmo with a pinch roller to insert in the 4-track so you could play it in the 8-track player. I have this gizmo. (See below.) I have a 4-track player too, but it doesn't work. Someday I mean to learn how to fix players. Now to listen to Rare Earth!

Yesterday a sad thing happened. My sweetheart Cathy, said she didn't think there'd be any 8-tracks under the Christmas tree this year. I was devastated. Why would she say such a thing? Have I not been good? My coworker, Michael said I should wrap some up myself. Maybe I will.

Today is my birthday and so far no 8-tracks. Hopefully when I get home from work, some will have arrived that I got on ebay.

A day without 8-tracks is a day without sunshine. Today I went by a used record store in Somerville, Mass., called Record Hog, but it was closed even though it said the hours were 2-6! Inside I could see a milkcrate full of 8-tracks. There were at least 2 Elvis, one was Separate Ways; and two pirate carts, one was Wilson Pickett; and the rest I could see was mostly easy-listening, Ray Coniff Singers, Guy Lombardo, Herb Alpert and the Tiajuana Brass; and Fiddler on the Roof; and Leonard Bernstein. Tomorrow I will try to go back and get some. I definitely want Wilson Pickett.

I like pirates (sometimes called bootlegs). They seem to come from all these little fly-by-night operations, who claim all statutory royalties have been paid, but who knows if they can't find you? I like the funny covers they put on the tapes, sometimes woefully mismatched with the music.

Also I like easy-listening. I mean, it's not my favorite thing, but it amuses me. I have a ton, here at the museum. I like musak versions of rock songs and Pery Como and I love moog instramentals.

A note about the blog's name change. Yes, today we have become the 8-Track Museum. We are coming out as our true selves. While we may very well frequent thrift stores in pursuit of the endless loop, our focus will rarely wander from it.

Hooray! Finally! I got a Velvet Underground 8-track! I won , I won, I won! I'm not being at all thrifty here at the beginning of Boston Thriftblog, alas. I paid perhaps the most I've ever paid for an 8-track - $24.40 including shipping. Oy! But wait'll you see how much rationalizing I can do. I mean I'm really good at it.




First, I've been collecting 8-tracks for at least nine years and I've never stumbled onto any affordable Velvet Underground.

Second, I bought 108 8-tracks on ebay all told (this month) for a total of $95 so by that logic they were less than a dollar each even including the vaunted VU. All right so most of them are probably easy -listening schlock and even duplicate ones I already have. Whaddaya want from me?
As they come in I shall log them here for anyone's entertainment. if there's anyone out the who is amused by such ramblings email me.

I posted an image of that crazy little 8-track-playing robot 2xl at the top of the page so everyone could see why I chose the robot template for my blog. A remarkable resemblance.

Swamp Rat 8-Track Fanatic
Check out my website. I haven't updated it very much recently, but still some interesting stuff here.

Welcome to Wednesday at Boston Thriftblog

Impatiently awaiting the arrival of many more 8-tracks in the mail. I spent more on ebay then I should have. Got to watch that. Couldn't get to the thrift store today because I'm waitng for plumbers to come fix my radiators. Sigh.

Welcome to Boston Thriftblog

This is going to be an ongoing saga of my adventures hunting for 8-track tapes in the Boston area and the gradual development of the 8-track Museum at my house.

Today I got an 8-track I bought on ebay. It is The Temptations -Puzzle People. Truly a rad cart!