Direct mp3 download or play:   Christmas 1984 Scrabble Pt.2

Here is the other side of the tape. Details are the same as “Christmas 1984 Scrabble Part 1.”

Direct mp3 download or play:  Christmas 1984 Scrabble Pt.1

Quite often my family liked to play scrabble when visiting during the Christmas holidays. I recorded this in stereo on my Sony TC-D5M cassette recorder using metal tape and Dolby B noise reduction. The microphone was an ECM-939LT one point stereo condenser. The voices of my mother, my father, my grandmother, and myself can be heard. I am presenting this unedited and with no audio processing.

Direct mp3 download or play:  Water – Hot & Cold Torture

Here is something that will smack you! It consists of a tape loop played on my Roberts 192FT tape recorder, featuring a children’s song about safety. The artist is Frank Luther, who recorded nursery rhymes and children’s songs and stories throughout the 1940s and mid-1950s. I have intentionally made this too long. That’s where the “torture” comes to mind.

Direct mp3 download or play:  Bicycle Horn Tease

Here is a recording from Christmas, 1981, when I had a talkback speaker set up where my mother and grandmother were talking. This is their reaction to “Bicycle Horn Underwater.”

Direct mp3 download or play: You Cooked Your Goose With Me (original capture)

You Cooked Your Goose With Me (original capture)

Direct mp3 download or play:  You Cooked Your Goose With Me (no processing)

You Cooked Your Goose With Me (no processing)

Here is a 78 RPM record from a thrift store that I think might be a good addition to the “How Dare You” kind of thinking. I recorded it again with no audio processing. A Newcomb TR-1625M turntable with a General Electric variable reluctance magnetic cartridge played the record. The signal from the cartridge bypassed the built-in amplifier and was fed to a UREI (United Recording Electronics Industries) 1122 preamplifier. Since the UREI is a professional unit, it is known as a “transcription preamplifier.” Then I connected a balanced (3 wire) line from the 1122 to my Yamaha MG10/2 mixer with the controls at flat (no frequencies boosted or cut).

Capitol Americana

UREI Model 1122 phono preamplifier

Direct mp3 download or play:  The Poppy Seed Tape


This is the original recording, which was transcribed and used as an insert for the first Negativland release “Negativland” in 1980. Keep in mind it was not recorded and only presented as printed material. Also the recording actually starts after the dotted line and then goes to bottom of the page, then jumps to the top of the page and ends with “Ehh-hemm,” which is my grandmother clearing her throat. At the time, we felt the text would look better if it was rearranged. If you would like to follow the text with the recording click on the text to get a larger, clearer image. The other side of the same insert has the “Coffee Desserts” recipe.
I made this recording in the early 1970s on my Norelco 1530 cassette recorder, most likely using the dynamic microphone supplied with this machine. The quality is somewhat poor, mainly because of something this recorder was doing before I realized it was happening. Quite often I would set the controls in ‘record’ and ‘pause’ at the same time to check the record level without rolling the tape, and I would do this anywhere on the tape including parts I had already recorded. Little did I know, doing that would make a noise where the record head was resting on the tape. I realize now the record head was operating and recording even when the tape was not moving.

The Original Super Cosmic Goose

Backside

Award for The Super Cosmic Goose

This is the original version of an idea that has stuck with me for many years. I have several other drawings of “geese” including one with two heads. From time to time I will post the others. Incidentally, there is another version of this already here, which I made in 2006.

This is the actual “tacky little pamphlet” which I discovered in my parents bottom dresser drawer. I believe it may have played a role in how I turned out. I probably don’t know what I’m talking about. What do you think?

Direct mp4 download or play:  La Choy Soy Sauce

In the early 1970s, preparing Chinese food was still considered “exotic” by a good number of Americans, and the gooey canned variety was the only way to go. It’s obvious that Beatrice Foods was trying to make Chinese cooking acceptable in America by hiring Captain Binghamton’s sidekick, Lt. Elroy Carpenter, (Bob Hastings) to dump La Choy on his steak and potatoes meal.
This commercial used to bother me when it was on network TV, and I captured it the same way as “Law Day USA.”

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Here are two slightly different views of my Electro-Voice DL-42 shotgun dynamic microphone. I think this model was manufactured in the 1970s. It is similar in appearance to the older 642 which won an Academy Award in 1963 for technical achievement.

Direct mp3 download or play:  Harry To The Ferry

This is the original recording from 1970 or 1971 as heard on the Negativland album “Points.” It features my mother playing accordion and my aunt singing. The voices of my father and a cousin can also be heard. This is part of a college drinking song from Cal Berkeley and you can go here to see more information about this song. I used a Calrad 500c dual crystal microphone for my aunt and a Calrad DM-59HL dynamic microphone for my mother. Separation was about 25 feet with my mother in the kitchen and my aunt in the living room at my house in Martinez, California. The tape recorder was a Sony 560D running at three and three quarters inches per second, which my father recently purchased from White Front on Contra Costa Boulevard in Pleasant Hill, California. There is a little distortion on the side where my aunt is singing which is most likely due to the mike preamp in the recorder being overdriven by the Calrad crystal microphone.
In addition, the Calrad 500c has what I think is a cult following, as it is used as a “dummy” microphone on infomercials and it seems to be somewhat collectible as seen in this link. I bought mine in the late sixties for ten dollars from the now defunct Olson Electronics.

Calrad 500c Dual Crystal

Calrad DM-59 HL Dynamic

Sony TC-560D Instruction Manual

Direct mp3 download or play:  Where Are My Cigarettes? – Part 1

Part 1

Direct mp3 download or play:  Where Are My Cigarettes? – Part 2

Part 2

Here are the original recordings that I made with my mother in the early 1980’s. I used my Superscope C-104 monaural cassette recorder. This recorder has a line input and automatic record level only, so the sound is quite compressed and noisy. Also, the room (my bedroom in Martinez, California) didn’t have much to absorb the sound, which accounted for the reverberant sound quality.  I think I used Sony F-98 dynamic microphones and an inexpensive older RadioShack mixer with no level meters. I may have had my dbx 161 compressors in line as well and as far as I know there was never a stereo version of these recordings. You can hear how Part 2 was used on the third Negativland release “A Big 10-8 Place” in the piece called “180-G: A Big 10-8 Place Part Two.”

Direct mp4 download or play:  Piezoelectric Transducer

This is another bit from the same session as “Microphone Test Part 1.” The only things I did to the sound were putting fades at the beginning and end and limiting the peak level to – .4db. This is the largest file I have put up so far, so let me know how difficult it is to play.

When all else fails, this could be the (goddamn) answer!

Direct mp3 download or play:  Honey

Direct mp3 download or play:  The Roller – Skaters Waltz

This was from my favorite record shop in Berkeley, California and it shows someone (probably me) had just purchased some electronic music. It looks like it was “Cords” by Synergy.

Direct mp3 download or play:  A Bee Fly

I think I recorded this in 1973 on my Norelco model 1530 cassette recorder and it can also be heard on the second Negativland album “Points.”

Direct mp3 download or play:  Bicycle Horn Under Water

I made this recording in 1973 on my Norelco model 1530 cassette recorder. The pictures are new, but that is the same horn.

I bought this as a kit from a little hi-fi shop in Berkeley, California for $79.95 and built it myself in the early 1970s.