Category: recording

the cassette took over. in the early 1970s, my new Boy Scout friend Eddie and i made a few comedic break-in tapes on his 3.5″ reel to reel — my first memory of “I Can See For Miles” by The Who — but by 1973, home recording had lurched away from creative exploration to obsessive piracy.

hunched over The Beatles A-Z broadcast on WNEW-FM, pausing to trim as much DJ blather and commercial content as humanly possible, i acquired the Fab’s entire catalog at no cost.

i have no memory of my first cassette player. it may have been similar to the barebones desktop unit i used many years later as a journalist to record interviews. at some point, i must have had a boom box, but again, i cannot describe it to you honestly.

what can i say? i was high all the time.

vinyl albums were of course still very important and revered, but cassettes — mixtapes — were the soundtrack to life outside.

the little white GE 3.5″ portable tape recorder vanished and was, as in a dream, replaced by a bulky, suitcase-sized 1950s Webcor 7″. it was a gorgeous machine, its tweed speaker grills framed in burgundy-enameled steel, with a hefty, diamond-shaped microphone at the end of a long, braided cord, and a level meter that glowed a radioactive green.

my grade-school friends and i had a blast with this thing, recording fake radio programs and being goofballs.

i recorded Alvin and The Chipmunks off the TV, slowed down the tape and discovered to my horror and delight that Dave and Alvin were the same person.

during thunderstorms, i dangled the mic out my bedroom window; my interest in field recording started early.

and then, as with the little white GE, the Webcor, and every recording made with it, disappeared from my life. i’ve no memory of its disappearance. it’s a recurring theme!