Oh, not another 70’s flashback, please. Okay, how about a “totally” 80’s moment?
Like any other kid I was fascinated by music from the moment I heard the radio. In fact, one of my first Christmas presents was a small red phonograph and three 45 r.p.m.’s. I was a happy camper. As I became a little bit older my tastes in music weren’t much in the early days.
It really didn’t take off for me until I discovered the 8 track tape in the summer of 1989 when I was just twelve. I found my first 8 track player discarded in a box that my grandparents were going to throw out. I felt sorry for the little machine and retrieved the LLOYD’S player. I brought it in the garage and asked my grandpa if I could have it.
If I can get that machine working, then I could have it. He plugged in the unit and nothing. At first, my heart sank. The track lights didn’t illuminate, the headphone jack was a foreign size that it required an adapter to make it compatible with the smaller (newer) headphone jacks. The speakers… oh, man… I had never seen the “prong type” jacks. I termed the notched speaker adapters “prong types” because standard speakers didn’t hook up to the machine.
Oh, and cartridge tapes. Where on earth was I going to purchase those? I knew that 8 track tapes went by the wayside and couldn’t be purchased new anymore. Regardless if I could get the machine to play or not, I was determined to learn all I possibly could about the 8 track player.
My grandpa scrounged through the garage to scare up some 8 tracks without success, then had my grandma looking for the cartridge tapes in the house. They located a few tapes and I could only have one cartridge tape I was told. My choices were: Elvis, Charlie Rich, Alice Cooper, and… who or what is this Kiss? I was perplexed, then instantly fascinated by their mysterious grease-painted looks. Needless to say, Kiss won in a landslide victory for musical superiority. My twelve year old opinion of Kiss was “awesome”. I didn’t care for country or the mellow sound of Elvis. The likes of Alice Cooper were too creepy for me at the time and I just didn’t connect with his style of music yet.
Yep, today its that rock group. Tomorrow, my parents will find a roller disco in my bedroom. The fascination with this particular rock group was very innocent and a lot of their excesses and infamy went over my head anyway. It was a novelty that lasted two years, almost. That was two years that my bluegrass parents had to hear endless renditions of 100,000 Years, Love Theme From Kiss, Nothing To Lose, Kissin’ Time (a then unknown cover of a 1959 Bobby Rydell song of the aforementioned title), and of course, Black Diamond.
Nowadays I’d best describe Kiss‘ sound from 8 track tape: “[They] have a quality about their early music that has this certain energetic ‘punch’ that I can’t hear from any new band. The closest band would be Metallica, but they’re thrash metal, not hard rock n’ roll and they weren’t on 8 track tape. Heavy metal music was all new to me when I was twelve and there were many other bands that had heavy metal roots that could be found on 8 track tape that I either didn’t hear about, or simply couldn’t find like that of The New York Dolls, who would have been in question concerning their gender-bending looks and early punk music.”
From my [then] twelve year old perspective: I would have classified every heavy metal act as “cool”, (80’s slang for “neat”, “fantastic”, “super”), regardless if they were veteran rockers or just new on the current music scene that would be here today, gone tomorrow.
8 track tapes didn’t make me unpopular in the fifth grade. I was a prior Learning Disability student that was starting over fresh in a regular classroom setting. It was a special time in my young life. I had discovered music in an old format that none of my peers knew about. Life was good despite there was talk of sending me back to the learning disability classroom (my teacher’s decision), and that hovered over me like a haunting stigma that I wanted to break free from.
What made this year special: my mom instituted a “reward” program for good grades on our report cards. Instead of money for grades because of my academic shortcomings, my parents decided on a cassette tape (within budget), used album (LP, 33 1/3), and for me, an 8 track tape since I was happy to find those in the thrift stores. Slim Whitman and Engelbert Humperdink become the running jokes because that’s all I seemed to find at the time on 8 track.
I kindly accepted any group on 8 track tape even if I wasn’t fond of the band. My parents selected most of the choices they thought I might like that geared around my new musical interests. With all good intentions, some of their picks didn’t make a lasting impression on my young ears. I had ZZ TOP on 8 track, but didn’t know how to classify their music when I was twelve.
I loved late folk singer, Jim Croce. I forget which album of his I had at the time though. 38 Special- Rockin’ Into The Night. Now that album had a good album cover. Song-wise, not so great. Kiss: self titled, Alive vol. 1 & 2, Ace Frehley 1978, Dynasty, Love Gun, Destroyer (tried to repair two tapes myself. The Destroyer album unraveled from the spool and was history. The Love Gun 8 track played, but not very well. The electrical tape splice repair I did became stuck in the capstan of the machine. To Be Continued…