Recently added:

NOTICE TO EVERYBODY.... You may have noticed entries have slowed down lately.. one reason is that I am undergoing a renovation and cleanup where I live..
As part of this, there will be no entries anymore (barring a few late last minute ones) for about a month (estimated) as my computer will be disconnected, and all my hardware and components moved into temporary storage..
Once this is done, I will be able to add all those entries I have been wanting to, including the full set of mint first issue Beatles cassettes, and some so rare they are purported to not exist at all, according to the "experts"
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Keep checking in.. it won't be long !!!!
Doc .....July the 17th 2012
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Added... A Pink Floyd section..
Added.. A Fleetwood Mac section, (updated on May 20th!)
Added... A Ten Years After section.
Added John Lee Hooker.. (updated May 20th)
Added.. BB, Albert, and Freddie King (BB King updated, 20th of May)
Updated.. The Reel to Reel section
Added..An extensive John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers section
Updated.. "Historia De La Musica Rock"  (May 20th)
Added.. A new "Small Faces" section (May 20th)
Updated the David Bowie section (May 21st)
Updated.. the Eight track cassette section (May 26)
Updated.. "Historia De La Musica Rock" (May 28)
Added, & updated, a "Beatles" section     (June 11)
Updated... The "Beatles" section (June 14)
Added & Updated.. The "Eight tracks" section.. added an incredibly rare 1st edition "Let It Be" 8 track cartridge..!
Updated...Beatles section.. added German cassettes (June 15)
Added... a "Humble Pie" section (June 23)
Added.. an "Ampex tapes" section (June 26)
Updated.. The Beatles section with one of a kind United Artists AHDN cassette.. (July 9)

Added.. A Steve Miller section September 13th

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NEW! April 25th 2014
Added......Apple John & Yoko tapes
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PS.. Don't lose your way here simply because I have posts up front.. MOST OF THIS BLOG is NOTHING BUT CASSETTES!

Incidentally, Mike's survey is now HERE

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Finally.........
I have been ahead of the "curve" all my life.. essentially, any time I develop a serious interest in something, it's popularity blows worldwide about 2 to 3 years later.. i have a mental block giving examples (as itr has been very painfil and frustrating) and  I DONT want to go over this painful sh*t again, but hey, get in now, with cassettes , 2 to 3 years they're not gonna be cheap no more, basically going where reel to reels have gone (80 - 300 $ apiece) that'sa just too much for a tape, y'think?

A Very special cassette.. the FIRST Beatles cassette!

Yup.. the first Beatles cassette EMI ever issued..
 I missed out several times in the past, trying to obtain one.. one sold for over $120.00, and the other was in a lot of  all 5 of the first issues.. but this is the very first one, period that they ever issued..
 Most of the cassettes that came out later, were 2 tone color only, until 1968, but in 1967, the Beatrles warranted a full color sleeve.
 I had given up on being able to ever post a scan of this one,  but thanks to
Alex, at Spiral Archive Records the current owner of this tape before it (just now) has changed hands again, who submitted some excellent scans for this blog, I am able to show you a good copy of , as I stated earlier, the VERY FIRST EMI Beatles cassette, and possibly one of the very first cassettes ever issued. THANKS ALEX!!!!!!!!

At almost the same time this came out in 1967, another cassette *also* was one of the first 30 made, and I do own a copy of *it*

It's George Martin's solo album of the tunes he produced for the Beatles. called "Off The Beatle Track".. You'll notice that this has the more typical for 1967 Two tone color cover.. Full color cassettes didn't arrive at EMI until 1968:

Both of these tapes will eventually be moved to the "Beatles" section, but for now, here they are...

Best of Fleetwood Mac 1972 with Purple Dancer

This is an astounding album.. and it is such a shame that it is the only one that has NEVER been reissued on CD. Nor have the two standout tracks on it, one of which is the studio rendition of "World In Harmony" Although other takes have since come out, this is by far the best one.. The second is "Purple Dancer".. and the back story is pretty much the same.. other takes have surfaced.. mostly live.. but this is the superior one by far. Both of these came out only on singles, until the appeared on this German compilation in 1972..
 I got lucky finding a pristine tape source.. Judge for yourself if you don't think it is the under-appreciated gem I think it is. As it is out of print in any format, and at this late stage, likely to remain that way, I don't expect many chances to hear it come up...

A New sister blog, for Vinyl, is coming soon..

Yup.. after i discovered just how HARD it was to find artwork for so many of my older blues LP's,, most of which are B.B. King "United" issues etc, I went and scanned them myself.. a whole lot of work too, as to properly scan an LP on a typical scanner requires 4 scans per side, which then need to be "puzzled" together..
 I will post the link here when it is up....

A Steve ~Miller section..

OK I'm nearly moved, and in the mneantime I've managed to scan all the Steve Miller cassettes
I was dumbfounded when I ran into, on two seperate occasions, absolute first edition Steve Miller cassettes, and in mint shape.. I never thought i would ever see any of these, ever, never mind all of them..
Boy was I nervous taking them out of the housings to scan them.. as clearly they had never been even opened before...!
So first.. in order of cassette issue numbers:
Children Of The Future

Next is Sailor:

Next is Brave New World:

Next is Your Saving Grace (a favorite of mine):

And their fifth one, called, amazingly enough, Number 5:

After I had found these, I really doubted I'd ever manage to fill out the collection with the next5 two, as they're rare as hen's teeth.. Yet within a month I ran into them too...

Rock Love:

And Journey From Eden..

Amazing, Eh?

Next one is "The Joker".. I found a mint first edition, but it hasn't arrived in the mail yet...

So, Onwards to

Fly Like An Eagle, which is the one everybody knows, and lots of less informed folks thought was his first album!

Back in 1972, there was a compilation that came out, and was still in print when Fly Like An Eagle came out.. in fact, it was the only way to hear his older stuff, as they were all out of print:

This is the compilation..Anthology:

The box it came in:

~The last one I'm going to post is "Book Of Dreams", which, I think was really "part 2' of 'Fly Like An Eagle', as it's from the same recording sessions:

I'll post the cassette tape housings a bit later on, maybe after I've finished moving

Cheers!

Ampex tapes

This category I'll make a hodge podge of those early Ampex tapes..

This first one is interestring, in that it's an Ampex tape, but nowhere does it say so.. It simply says RCA/Dunhill,  which is a strange combination, as Dunhill was an ABC subsidiary..
It must be one of the very earliest RCA tapes made though..

Here's all the cassettes, wher5e you can see that the John Philips tape is in fact identical in man ufacture to the Ampex's...

Here's a more normal Ampex.. these are Canadian ones , however, so they're EXTREMELY rare..

95% of ALL the Ampex tapes you will ever see, will be American ones, as Canada had (and still has) a much smaller population than the US (about 10%, or at the time, 20 million)..

and so , naturally, far fewer tapes were made here...

Humble Pie

I'll get to the rest of the Humble Pie tapes on Monday.. tomorrow's rest day... These first ones are really cool though.. not exactly "Promo" tapes, they're really intended only for the engineers, producers, and marketing guys to take out of the studio with them.. meaning there's WAY less copies of them ever made.. typically a dozen or so... Pretty cool too, as it was for the best compilation of Humble Pie stuff ever issued..It was likely in the planning stages while Steve was still alive too , as it came out a little over 2 years after his death. (I'd hate to think it was a tactless cash-in on his tragic death)

 More later...

A PLEA .. FLEETWOOD BLACK MAGIC WOMAN EPIC

I have been looking for the cassete of this for some long time.. SOMEONE out there must either have one, or know someone who has one. Here's a shot of the 8 track, which is currently for sale on ebay.. I don't have or want the 8 track, but the cassette..
If you have ever seen one and can dig it up, I'll give a generous "finders fee"

You'll like this!

Well.. i got my Ogden's and.. not impressed.. all except one of the "new previously unreleased" rarities are simply renamed tracks .. for example.. "Bun in the oven" (previously unreleased) is simply the mono single issue of "rollin over".. and all the others are the same.. and all save one have been released before.. but the SHADIE$T track on it, is the "14 Ogden's Nut Gone Flake (Alternate Take - Phased Mix - Stereo)" which is.. get this.. the mono single version of that track.. simply REVERSED..
It's a con folks.. i'm really disappointed!

The only nice thing is the packaging...

I'll enter more shots of in in the morning (morning for me, anyways for me;-)

The BEATLES

OK time to update my Beatles section:
I'm going to bump the previous post of the Canadian tapes down a bit.. so that first I can start, at... where else, but the beginning.. with the very first Beatles tapes ever issued by Capitol, in 1968 and 1969:
 These are all very first issues... However, although for the first 3 tapes I've included scans of the tapes too, mostly I will be not necessarily be matching the sleeves with the tape labels, as Capitol didn't issue sleeves and tapes cassettes concurrently.. that is, changes in the design of the sleeve were not always accompanied by changes in the tape housing / labels.. which followed a completely independent schedule:

A first issue "Meet The Beatles"

This "Second Album" , although a first issue, is a slightly later style (you can tell by the larger "Capitol" oval on the spine) than the other two, as it was issued after the first batch of albums.

Capitol did not issue all the Beatles' albums at the same time , choosing instead to try out whether cassettes would 'catch on' by issuing only a few in 1968.

Next is an album that was finally available on Capitol in the US, comprised mostly of their debut album "Please Please Me". It came out so much later , in 1965, because Vee-Jay had previously had manufacture & distribution rights. "Introducing The Beatles didn't sell, though, even though they tried several repackagings..

When Capitol obtained the rights, they wasted no time issuing it in cut back form.

Here's something new!

Beatles '65 Despite the fact it came out in '64!)

                                                  The first Pepper's cassette.

The matching first issue tape housings.. notice that nowhere is the word "Stereo" 

The very first Beatles cassettes had no "bars" .. although as they introduced  more of the Beatles catalog, each tape got the then current Capitol design, which is why the first issues of all of them can appear so different.. the "Second Album," above is a good example of this...even though it came out only 6 months later than the first 6 releases, the design had already changed slightly..

All of these tapes had paper labels, which continued up to the beginning of 1971, when they switched to printing on the housings directly.. the tape housing changes, however, were carried out independently of any changes in the sleeves..
These three below also were the very first format, meaning they were part of the first releases of beatles' cassettes by Capitol I think they released maybe half the whole catalog.. a good way to tell is by looking at the Capitol Oval onthe spine,  that I mentioned earlier.. it's noticeably smaller than later ones...
ALl three of the cassettes below are very first issues from 1968...

More later...
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Next is a recent acquisition.. I really didn't know what I had here, until it arrived..
There appears to be NO record of this variant, anywhere in the world, online or otherwise.
It certainly is the first one *I've * ever seen..
It's the 1968 hardshell United Artists "A Hard Day's Night"  (K-9006)
except it does NOT have the boxed logo, has the peculiar "liberty" black and white sandwiched cassette housing, and has a typo for sides one and two..that is, the tracks for side one are listed on side two, on the cassette housing (but not the case).. side "1" lists the tracks for side two, and side "2" lists the tracks for side one.. upon playing the tape, i found that the tracks are correct, that is , side one starts out with "A Hard Day's Night".. I have NEVER seen, or heard about, another like this..
Any Beatle experts out there? Have any of you?
Anyways, here it is..:

Funky eh?

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So here, are a few Canadian pressings.. we were lucky here to get the Beatles before much of the rest of the world, and in True Stereo, no less.....
so here goes.. These are later issues, but even so, I have to say, the color balance and artistic lack of clutter, makes these some of the most attractive sleeves I have ever seen.. plus the bonus of exceptionally GOOD sound.. hey if you ever see these in your local shop, grab them FAST!

The Beatles' Story: and what a nice clean design, eh?

Completely UNIQUE to CANADA.. this album NEVER got issued anywhere else in the world on cassette, ever, and the closest it ever even got on cassette was when it was chosen to be the first release, by Capitol, on the DAT format, but then canceled, and therefore this is the BEST sound you will EVER get for this album, right here (if you can even find a copy, they're rare as hen's teeth even in Canada!), which is why the "Good Doctor" (Ebbets) went out of his way to rip any and all Canadian albums

The famous Y&T album (Trunk, naturally ...;-)

 Twist and Shout.. another entirely unique to Canada album...

 And what has to be a serious surprise for any Beatles fan who wants to hear them live.. I find it a miracle of audio engineering              

Sooo aint these jus' SWEET?

Canadian cassettes weren't always the nicest looking.. here's an older issue that doesn't do nuttin' for me ;-)
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Now to an amazing set of issues..
Anyone who read Mike's interview earlier in this blog, must have noticed his glowing recommendations of New Zealand cassettes.. At the time I had only a very few, but I lucked into 14 Beatles ones. I have no idea of the various issues, as they seem to differ, some later ones being EMI, and some earlier ones, Apple, as opposed to the order that they were reissued time and again ...only the "Rarities" one can I date, to 1981..
 I did receive them in a blue "Beatles Collection" box, but unlike the US ands UK ones, where the tapes all show identical dates of issues (as they should) these NZ ones vary considerably.
  Where they do NOT vary, is in the astounding quality of manufacture!
The cardboard is thick and solid, the printing is clear and finished with either a good semi gloss, to a very thick indeed, high gloss.. They do not appear capable being subject to wear, or  fading..
The cassette shells too, all have well attached paper labels, and solid shells , every one attached with screws, to facilitate repair. as you will see in the scans..
 I have no extra info to add, as I am not knowledgable on this  subject (NZ tapes) ..
I'll just list the scans:

The last tape, and sleeve , above, is actually an Australian one, that I added into the scan to save time..

Enough for now..!
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Next.. It's time for the German issues.. as opposed to the subtle coloring of the NZ tapes, above, there is absolutely NOTHING subtle about German issues..  Big over the top color schemes, Bright red and green juxtaposed where ever possible..

ahh the Beatles "Beat" .. in Germany.. "de Beat" was the thing.. all bands were "Beat" Bands

Ya!

The highly desirable "HorZu" issue of Magical Mystery Tour.. apparently the original cover was to subtle for the German record companies, so they designed a new cover full of clashing primary and secondary colors. Until MMT came out on CD, however, this was one of the two only albums to feature the whole of the album in true stereo (and it was since 1971), and it's thought to be the best sounding. The CD issue, was in fact, made from the master tapes from this version.

Next:

A Hard Day's Night was called something else in Germany

You guessed it.. "Yeah Yeah Yeah!"...

A couple of earlier German releases on the "Electrola" label.. In Germany there was Odeon, HorZu, and  Odeon/EMI/Electrola, all who at various times issued Beatles albums...

And , of course, there was also "Apple":

Apparently actually *drawing* an apple was too difficult (after an "acht stein beer garden")

so they just *wrote* the word "Apple" instead  ;-)

By the time these came out, ze hangover was over.. so both DO have apples

In a little while I'll post the corresponding tapes for these cassettes.. better get anti-glare sunglasses for them, though ;-)