Goodwill store 60's gold-Clear Light-The Frost-Cold Blood-Michael Parks-Wes Montgomery-Strawberry Statement-Zabriskie Point-Marmalade-Blues Project-AWESOME FIND

sometime last summer I stopped by the local Goodwill and bought out
their 8-track supply, as usual. Just can't risk them tossing the
little buggers out for lack of a sale- so for 25 cent each I take the
whole box- and sort through them when time allows

well time allowed this weekend- they sat in storage for nearly 4 months

until I got to them- in this one bunch was about 10 early Ampex and
Electra carts, all with the usual gummy roller- but these soft rollers
still retained their shape, not all cracked apart- hmmmm...these tapes
had an easy life. All have decent labels- titles being:

Clear Light S/T
The Frost-Frost Music
Antonioni's Zabriskie Point-Original Soundtrack
Marmalade-Reflections of my Life
Flanders, Kalb, Katz, Kooper, Kulberg, Blumenfield of the Blues Project
The Strawberry Statement Soundtrack
Michael Parks-Closing the Gap
Wes Montgomery- California Dreaming
Cold Blood S/T

I didn't recognize any of the titles, except the Wes Montgomery and
Marmalade- those 2 seemed vaguely familiar in a household name type of
way...after robbing
replacment rollers from Christmas and Country Readers Digest sets, I
got these
Ampex carts rolling and started sampling the contents

my first impression was perhaps the rollers were better off left in the

Digest carts ! The Wes Montgomery music came off like elevator to me,
and Clear Light sounded plain weird, like a cheap version of Pink Floyd

that never cut it. Michael Parks sounded like a wannabe country star.

Cold Blood raised my eyebrow- sounded a lot like Janis Joplin.
Strawberry Statement soundtrack had a lot of CSNY and Neil Young on it.

The icing was Antonioni's Zabriskie Point Soundtrack-featuring Pink
Floyd, Grateful Dead, and Jerry Garcia solo. hmmm...wow, where were
these tapes all my life ?

I looked through the remainder of the tapes in that box- and up popped
Marmalade Reflections of my Life

along with Flanders-Kalb-Katz-Kooper-Kulberg-Blumenfield of the Blues
Project

then it struck me- I happened across a complete vintage 1960's Viet Nam

era tape collection- but whoever this guy was, he preferred more
obscure progressive music to the mainstreams Beatles-Stones-Led
Zeppelin stuff. By what I can glean, practically all these tapes were
released in the 1966-70 period.

as if the guy was buying new carts like crazy when the format first
came out, then in 1970, he just stopped buying 8-tracks cold turkey.

interesting collection, interesting find. My curiousity lit, did some
net searches on these bands- the Michael Parks search turned up "Then
Came Bronson" TV series history- and a big following actually- I'm not
a fan but turns out this guy is a fairly successful and popular actor
in movies and TV. They all have colorful histories- Cold Blood being
one of the first R&B acts signed in San Francisco by Bill Graham- and
Wes Montgomery being a JAZZ LEGEND.

yet another fine 8-track moment that could never have been experienced
for $2.25 total cost, if I had given up on analog and went CD digital-
try to find these titles at your local Walmart or Sound Gallery.

back to Cold Blood rocking the house via Telex-Akai tube amp- life is
good !