vintage the face ad of the day

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Vintage Ad #862: Choices from the Boots Tape Centre

Ferric, chrome or metal: which style of tape will you pick up from the chemist shop?

Except for the Boots tape, I used all of these brands during my mix-tape/Nightlines-recording days. I learned the quirks of which brands my recorders liked and which were problematic—certain styles of Memorex tapes were to be avoided, unless I enjoyed excessive squealing or shifting speeds. Some brands carry associations—Scotch was tapped for school presentations, Acme or Mastercraft for childhood experimental improvisations, BASF for the mass quantities Dad bought to record half of CBC Stereo/Radio 2's lineup. While I left nearly all of my pre-recorded cassettes by the curb before my last move, most of the mix tapes I made in high school and early university still exist, though it's been eons since I've listened to any of them. Though now that I'm about to undertake heavy-duty housecleaning...

Flipping through an unfinished attempt to index the mix tapes, here's a good example of a radio-derived masterwork from around 1993. Based on the set list, the primary sources included 89X in Windsor and Nightlines...a guilty pleasure weekend on Nightlines is evident at the end of side one and start of side two.

SIDE ONE
Real Cool World - David Bowie
Canadian Railway Trilogy - Gordon Lightfoot
The Weight - The Band
Rise - Public Image Ltd.
London Calling - Clash
Making It Work - Doug & The Slugs
Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep - Mac & Katie Kissoon
I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman - Whistling Jack Smith*
Little Arrows - Leapy Lee
Both Sides Now - Leonard Nimoy
That's Amore - Dean Martin

SIDE TWO
Boobs A Lot - The Fugs
Desiderata - Les Crane**
Nova Scotia Farewell - Ian & Sylvia
Yakety Sax - Boots Randolph
Wichita Lineman - Glen Campbell
I Was Made To Love Her - Stevie Wonder
She's A Beauty - The Tubes
Burning Down The House - Talking Heads
Would - Alice in Chains
Psychedelic Shack - The Temptations
She Loved Me - Rising Storm
So Long Sucker - Mr. T. Experience

* I mainly recorded this song for its use by a Toledo car dealer for years ("be a Kistler Whistler").

** The notes indicate this was a clip...I imagine I couldn't make it through the whole song.

Source: The Face #15, January 1981 - JB

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