Sorry about the lack of Posts..

But it's been the holidays.. I'll get back to regular postings in the new year..
But.. to pass the time, what better than a "Holiday Rant" ;-)..
 As some of you may have noticed, I've also started to post covers from a net pal in Australia,
And I've noticed that there are a lot more copies of rare tapes  down under, than in the rest of the world..The warm weather, maybe?
However, they , almost to the man, charge 2 to 5 times as much as everybody else in the rest of the world asks for the same items. At first I thought it was just a few pricey vendors. but now I see it's everybody.
 The normal conclusion would be that that's because the market will bear it , but I've been checking "completed transactions", to see if they actually *sold* for these inflated prices, and, lo and behold, there are so few that it almost counts as none...
If nobody's parting with the cash at these prices, why do they persist in pricing that high? Is it because in the shops, that's what they go for?
  That's poor judgement, because that's the case everywhere, but you can get away with higer prices on the shop floor because of the ability to touch and examine the item, as well as the immediacy of the transaction.. after all, you can walk home with it..

 Secondly.. and here's a good example.. marking a tape as "Ultra Rare Cassette" would seem to be OK, if in fact it's *true*,  and for some it must surely be, as I found over 20 copies for sale on ebay of one particular issue , and they ALL said "ultra rare" .. so it MUST be true :-)
 But seriously..as i just showed, it's misused, or blatantly false..
The example of the website, given above, lists *EVERY SINGLE cassette* as "ultra rare", even, say, a bar coded Madonna one. Seriously..
Although i couldn't find the madonna example with aa light search, i found a "dukes of hazzard" soundtrack listed for 51$.. that's the kind of tape that they throw in the 99 cent barrel around here..
Lastly,, the whole "but it's got Paper Labels" as an excuse to overprice is ludicrous..
Here's the real facts about them..
Paper labels are an easy way for the unscrupulous to manufacture cassettes from scratch.. and except for a certain very few exceptions, send up red flags all over to me..they certainly dont *increase* a tapes value..
EXCEPT.. with very early Capitol/Apple and Decca/MCA/Polydor ones.
In these cases they help date the tapes.. Capitol/Apple used paper labels twice, white semi gloss ones originally from 1967 to approximately 1973, and matte yellow ones for a short period somewhere between 1976 to 1978.

Capitol and Decca circa 1968 and 1971, respectively:

Decca USA , and later on , MCA, also used them until about 1975.. There are isolated other examples, but the point of this is, they're not more valuable because they're *paper* but because they help date the tape earlier.. people that collect cassettes often aren't aware just how early the process of printing the titles directly on the casette shell started.. i've got examples of Capitol 'Special Markets" tapes from 1971 done that way:

The later (1977-78) Yellow labels:

Anyways, soon as things slow down,  I'll be posting more quality '60s cassette scans..
Happy New Yeah , y'all now..!
Doc

HISTORY IN THE MAKING!!!!!!!!!

(PS -- I've bumped this back by a year.. so that it's kind of "archived" It's actually dated 2012, not 2011)

This here is the RAREST Beatles cassette set.. this is SO rare that you will never again see another for sale in your lifetime.. (there's only, like.. what.. 6.. and NO sealed ANYWHERE... this is IT) in the WORLD.. and I am damn luck to have even been able to play a PART in the bidding..
There is no way I will win this. it will go well over 1000$  and I just don't have that tick..
but for a short time, I can say I was the highest bidder..
wow!

AND HERE"S THE PUNCH LINE!!!!
if you were to unseal this, you'd have 3 cassettes worth 150 Bucks each, and a really EXPENSIVE cardboard box!!!!!!
hyuk.............................

                          I was the first bidder, and held it for 5 days.. but then,.. the BIG BOYS started moving in (sigh).   Well, it was worth a shot.... just wait'll the last day of auction...when it tops well over 2 grand...   and it WILL. mark My words!!!!!! I mean, it's the cassette equivalent of the "Butcher Cover" Yesterday and Today... in fact, it's *rarer* than a First State Stereo Butcher Cover!!!!

More about THE BEATLES DELUXE 3-PACK USA CASSETTES BOX SET

Lately.. I have been apprehensive about this set.. Live all mega-collectibles, the location of all of them is KNOWN, yet this SEALED box appeared out of nowhere.. The store has NOT offered a Provenance, or suggested that one exists. Furthermore, this is NOT something one should buy sealed.. as in this case one needs to examine the contents, to assure the three tapes are still sealed.

Perhaps that's why the bidding hasn't gone as high as I would have expected.

I don't know if anyone ever had the nerve to try to "Fake" a box like this. I DO know that there are lirterally thousands of fake "Butcher covers" out there...

Hmmmm

ATM only 48 minutes left to go... currently 88o$

I do wish I could afford the box, after all, I *have* one of the three tapes that came in it. they DO differ ever so slightly from the rest of the issues, in that they have a glossy sleeve, as opposed to the normal matte print on all other Capitol cassettes

Just a thought..How would you even authenticate a box like this without access to another?


OK y'all Here's the closing total:  $1, 277.88 ! ...... for 3 cassettes.. wow!

Too rich for me ;-)

I seem to have lost my last two posts..

I clearly remember posting them..
I even have the cover pictures i posted..
Wonder what happened?

Who 2 U 2

Another of my old scans from the ones i lost.. i've not seen this one before or after either.. no tape label for sure this time..

Another from the trunk...

Here's another very rare one..out of the boxes that I no longer have..

In Memoriam to the trunk of a car...

Here's one i don't have anymore...it was part of a couple boxes of rare tapes lost when my car got appropriated by some bad seeds.. never got the car or it's contents back..
In te case of this tape it's particularly lousy, as there's less than 100 of them ever made.. I've seen MoFi cassettes of the Beatles selling consistently for over $400..

I'm pretty sure I also scanned the labels.. if I find those scans, I'll add them..
...Fond them..

Just a small rant!

As you can obviously tell.. i collect cassettes.
Well, like the rest of the world, i also sometimes use .. horror of horrors brrrr (evil theme music now!)
...ebay...
Why are so many sellers on Ebay  totally Brain Dead..
Like "RARE Out of print 'advance promo' cassette complete with with case and labels.. works"

I mean Duh.. you forgot 'has pad and tape reels'.. and i mean when has a 'promo' cassette ever been IN print... Not that I ever buy them. Especially from sellers with just too many.. it's possible for 1 or 2 promo cassettes to slip into a collection.. but NOT 10 to 20...
Looks like the printer's been warmed up then...
And if you stick RARE in front of EVERY listing it looks like you're a PRIME f**ing DUFUS..
Lastly.. $16 to ship a cassette?
And if you confront them with this they get *ever* so offended...
Like "i have to take the bus with my tape to the post office.. that cost me too" and "I use expensive packing to keep them safe.. how everyone else can ship a tape for 5$ I don't know!"
..Well.. if you have to take the bus to the post office with your *one and only* ebay sale.. I'd suggest another line of work..
And have you heard of cardboard? it's free! It protects tapes just fine.. so does the entirely replaceable plastic case that it comes with, that in fact, some dealers have done away with entirely..

Aaaarh!!!

King's Burglar

Very rarely.. I run into a Freddie King cassette.. even on Ebay they're scarce.. to the point of being nonexistent.. since demand is also really low they don't tend to go for high prices, but, being a real Freddie King fan, that's no comfort, when there's none to be had, at any price..

One of the very *hardest* to get, period.. is this one. Yet there it was , on Ebay.. needless to say I didn't need to think long about it..

I'd say I  lucked out...

...And thanks ta missis svlemke vor the lovely cabbage rolls...

Ok this is as shleppy as i'm gonna get..
Just recently i bought a whole box of lame tapes , the kind that sit in thrift stores for ten cents each.. for ten years.. The kind that , in a million years i could never figure out *why* anyone would buy them, used or .. brrr.. new (!).. the kind that, especially if they were donated to the thrift store, get marked up to 2$ apiece by some flunkie when the shop is taking inventory of the value of it's store stock..
But yet,  i bought em.. thing is  they had *flawless* cases, which I needed.... And so now I'm stuck with a whole bunch of left over liners and tapes for 'Otto Wein und his Special Organ'..  Lawrence Welk specials.. 'Magic Accordian Melodies ' Mrs Mills singalongs at the piano..etc etc..
And the archetypical POLKA tape of all history..
Really.. (I can't get SCTV's polka corner out of my head!) in this mess, I ran into what has to be the ultimate "Polka Time" tape.. even all the song titles are , well.. square as .. i mean it is the epitome of shlepp.
If you ever want to show someone the most 'Olaf and Mrs Gorky Cabbage Rolls and Perogey' polka tape.. well.. here it is!

Some gas please. check the oil, wipe the windows, and turn over the tape?

Remember the old days.. way back when.. when you pulled into a 'service station'.. you'd have some young feller still in school come up to the car askin what you wanted.. you'd barely be able to hear him 'cuz cousin Jimmy was sawing another hole in the hood of his nova  so as he could make that 6-71 blower fit!
And they'd have trinkets too..see, like if you bought enough gas.. you'd get coffee mugs with the gas station name on it. or free wiper blades that never quite fit right, or baby shoes that you could drape over the rear view mirror..
Or audio tapes.. the artist of the moment, promoted by Shell, or Esso, or Chevron, or Texaco..
Like these two..
Now the Esso steel band is at least legit, even though the artists likely never got more than 2 cents out of it..
But Chevron's entry (betcha didn't know Chevron had a 'music' division didja?).. Chevron's entry is 'The Queen of Country' who? wudda wot?  'Billie Jo Spears'

Well who ever.. these two are a piece of history just like all the other tapes..
And the Esso steel drum band might even get a listen from me.. now there's a sad tale behind those steel drum artists.. but that's for another time...

Early Creedence Fantasies...

Back in the 1960's, when these cassettes came out.. tapes weren't always made by the record companies, but rather specific 'tape' companies like Ampex.. they would just make them to order, and add the label's logo on it somewhere.
The typesetting was done by hand, using metal type and spacers, on an  individual basis, so that depending who was on shift, the fonts and proportionality could change.. from album to album.. if you look at the backs of these three CCR albums you'll see how different they are from each other, as well as how the lines themselves have variable darkness and thicknesses on all the letters, due to the ink presses being mechanical. On a modern computer's font, you see the letters perfectly formed with the darkness of each letter perfectly even..
How thinks have changed..

Her Satanic Majesty's Early Blues

Two unrelated items.. except that they were both distributed by Polygram here...
First is that old Stones nugget.. 'Their Satanic Majesties Request'..
That wasn't the title they were trying for.. it's only a compromise..it was intended to be "Her Satanic Majesty Requests..." according to the old Royal British invitation..
Seems the Queen was 'Not Amused'.. nor was Decca.. who absolutely refused to release any album with such title.
This cassette is the second format that it came out on.. the first were 'London' cassettes made by Ampex..
I *never* see them anymore.. even these , the first "ABKCO' issues, are getting quite scarce.

This next one is a Semi-British compilation ..although Compleat was a UK label, they were issued here by Polygram.. they tended to reissue compilations of sixties Decca and Immediate artists.. I think about the early to mid 80's since they have bar codes on them. I recall that these reissues were ultra cool at the time.. being before the wide availability of the internet, often the mixes or tracks were monstrously hard to obtain. I don't often see these on cassette anymore.

Danchiva baby yeah.....

Yup.. it's Bob Welch  time.. (Hi Bob!)
Really.. i am glad to have a mint first issue cassette copy of his first real solo album..
The album isn't rare at all.. it was a good seller.. this cassette issue is, though.. as they changed cassette formats right about the same time the album came out.. (and soon introduced bar codes as well).
He's still making music, you know, and giving it away.. head over to his website if you're curious

[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[

Update:

Not long after I posted this, he commited suicide, as probably most of you know by now.

The media has , up to this day, still not released details as to why. I feel , however, that any real fans of his ARE owed an explanation of his motives, in order, at least to prevent any "easy way out" accusations..

Although I do NOT agree with his actions, I do understand them. He had recently undergone spinal surgery, and it appears he suffered complications from the surgery that were irreversible, and were bound to eventually cause complete paralysis. He felt he would not only lose his ability to play guitar,  which was the only thing that really meant a lot to him, other than, of course, his family, but he would eventually also become an unmanageable physical and financial burden on his family,  needing care for basic functions day and night. I am sure he considered this for some time, before writing a detailed note explaining his feeling on the matter.

Many of us have grown up alongside of Fleetwood Mac,  and  I myself since 1970. I completely missed the "blues years" period, and my firstr introduction was with  Kiln House & Future Games. Future games was a sea change for the band, and was entirely due to the new combined talents of Dan Kirwan and Bob Welch.. the title track even being Bob's first contribution to the band.

 For the next four years, Bob proved a mainstay of Fleetwood Mac, carrying the band as it's unacknowledged leader (IMHO) It wasn't until the mid 70s that Mick Fleetwood "took up the reigns", as it were, to really run the band per se...

So for most of my formative years, musically speaking, Bob was a significant influence.  After leaving the band, which he managed to steer through an overwhelming number of bad breaks and financial, legal, and musical personnel troubles, the remaining members, along with the new  additions of Nicks and Buckingham, shot up to mega mega stardom.. Bob meanwhile released two awesome completely uncompromised albums as "Paris", and subsequently a really cool solo album. (French Kiss) . Also, aside from his subsequent solo releases and other musical projects,  he also developed a stronger interest in the paranormal, which led to fascinating  extra content on his website. Over the last few years, we became site-mates on a music promotional entity called "Audiocandy", where Bob recorded hundreds of experimental  tracks  of various styles, and just gave them away.. I got to know Bob somewhat well during our time together on "Audiocandy",  a great thrill for someone who had grown up with his music for 40 years.. I can tell you.

In all this time, NEVER did I see any evidence of Bob being a "quitter" or someone who ever took the "easy way out".

His suicide must be seen, then, in this light, with a good understanding of the reasons behind it, so that his memory avoids the stain it would otherwise develop.

Bob was a good person, and caught more than a few bad breaks...

Rest In Peace, Robert Welch...

Ooby Dooby in the Sun

So ok not a Rasta Doob.. but a Roy Orbison Dooby..
Another guy i don't exactly care for.. *but* there's no  avoiding the historical impact of, shall we say, his circle of acquaintances ..
Incuding Elvis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and the rest of the Sun label artists.
Sun was huge, as far as the history of rock and roll goes..
And there are not very many Sun cassettes.
Even though this is a reissue, it's still on the Sun label.. and they didn't issue that many.
I suspect it followed the same route as many other smaller labels, as when they're up for sale, they reissue a select number of albums to increase the label's worth.. and after the acquisition is completed, the albums quickly go out of print ...

All the way 2Z ( London) Top

Before ZZ Top were on Warner Bros (when WB was a label, and not one of those Mega Corp combinations of companies such as record company/diapers & Drugs/toothpaste/ rubbers/ TV shows/ food company .. and  god knows what else... they were on London Records , until 1979..
It seems that there were enough changes between tape issues that I can place this one exactly at 1976.
 This also, was one of my favorite albums, and the wide-open acoustic drum sound on the album is just great..
You can't hear that on the new remixed cd's however.. i suppose there are CDs with the original mix still on them, but I don't know which they are..
Anyways although I wouldn't go so far as to call it a 'rare' tape, this issue is *somewhat* scarce...

Here's another ZZ Tape I picked up later on

You may have noticed the labels came off the tape housings.. a common occurrence with 40 to 50 year old tapes..!

And now a Pickwick 'Ditto'

The UK pickwick label released some cassettes as 'Ditto' labels.. it never dawned on me why they changed it from just 'Pickwick' until I realized they were all.. well (doh!) double CDs..
Ditto.. got it..
This is a U.K.  T-Rex compilation from '76..
I don't know if it's rare there, but it certainly is over here in N.America...

Ole' Poco...

I used to have the tape with the orange on it (their second album), but that long ago disappeared into the haze (or the flame)..
However this one is , i think , their third or fourth,  after the orange album  .. an early 70's US issue .. and why do bands make us have to call albums these workaround titles, what's so hard about giving every album a title?..
Well, at least this one has one..'From The Inside'

Who is Lee Michaels?

Other than the fact he had 2 good albums, 2 bad albums, and this one, all I know is he also played with Jimi Hendrix.. I don't think he's on any officially released stuff, but he's certainly on some boots..
All in all, his albums are scarce, in any format.. especially cassette...
This his fifth album.. called, surprisingly enough, 5th..

Westerdays guitar...

Here we have Wes Montgomery..

Back when Fantasy was snapping up all the prestige labels like , well, Prestige, Riverside, and Stax, among others, some long out of print albums got a new life , of sorts.. most of these reissues didn't stay in print very long.. only because of the limited markets of  styles involved..

That makes the first two Wes Montgomery cassettes here still *quite* scarce.. not maybe as much as the last one here, but scarce, nonetheless..

As far as more about the albums per se.. I'll let the original cassette liner notes do the verbiage.. just click the covers (as always) for a better view..

                                                                'So Much Guitar'

'Boss Guitar'

And this last one from 1967, his first for A&M, and one of hist last before .. and i kid you not ..."unexpectedly" dying in 1968 from a heart attack.. have a look at the album cover... (!)

I'd definitely look out for these three..The music from these albums is not hard to find online if you just want to have an introduction to his cool style...

Are these stars that may have lost some 'lustre' ?

Well.. sorry to say,, them's the breaks..
But it does mean that their cassettes are much rarer..
From 1971 or 1972..
John Philips' solo album:

And another band that definitely had already seen their best days... The Hollies: