Monday, May 09, 2011

Flashback.

While running to pick up my carryout at the Brew Pub last night, the cassette adapter for my iPod blew a gasket. Yes, the Zed Drei is so old that the head unit doesn't sport an input jack...

After wrenching on (and snapping) the cord, I was forced to resort to digging around in the cassette slot with my Benchmade Stryker until it spat the remains of the adapter out so violently that they bounced off my arm and landed in the passenger seat.

I suddenly realized that I had no CDs in the changer...

Frantically, I opened the console and there were a few tapes I'd grabbed at random for a roadtrip years ago and never listened to. It's been fifteen years since I had a car with a cassette player I actually used.

This morning, on the way to the store, I grabbed one at random to see what was on it. It was a mix tape nearly two decades old, and I was serenaded with "Plainsong" by The Cure and "Is This Where You Live" by The Church, neither one of which I'd heard in at least ten years, as best I can remember...

The nostalgia was nearly overpowering.
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28 comments:

MonteG said...

I had a similar experience a few months back with the song "Holiday" by The Other Ones, which I'm pretty sure I hadn't heard since the '80s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1EH9vGJ2gI

9:02 PM, May 09, 2011
Keads said...

I have bouts of musical nostalgia. Nothing to fear! Last time I pushed a cassette into a car deck I was greeted with "Godzilla" followed with "Strawberry Letter #23". I must have been on some good stuff when I made that tape.

The '71 has a tape deck in it still, I have really not had time nor the inclination to update it.

9:09 PM, May 09, 2011
MonteG said...

Really digging "Is This Where You Live," by the way. Don't think I've heard it before.

9:30 PM, May 09, 2011
Unknown said...

I am sure I have at least one tape by the The Smiths in my glovebox somewhere....

9:47 PM, May 09, 2011
Joseph said...

For me, "Sweetness & Light" by lush
http://youtu.be/oPaB7C0ySN8

10:49 PM, May 09, 2011
Ed Foster said...

You're such a baby! When you punch in an oldie and get nostalgic over Killer Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody, Hotel California, or anything by Joe Cocker, Rod Stewart, Zep, The Who, or The Doobies, then you are officially old.

Child, you're barely out of your diapers.

11:35 PM, May 09, 2011
Tam said...

Ed,

I listened to most of those on 8-track in my '67 Coronet... ;)

11:40 PM, May 09, 2011
Rob K said...

You know, for emergencies like that, you could program the radio presets in your car. Indy has some tolerable radio stations. X103 isn't too bad, and 92.3 plays some good stuff. 94.7 for classic rock. One of those three is almost certain to have something you like, even if it's not what you're in the mood for. And if you're into Mexican music there's always 107.1.

11:46 PM, May 09, 2011
Tam said...

Actually, I've had the Zed Drei since 09/01 and, between the 6-disc CD changer and the subsequent iPod, I have yet to ever preset a radio channel in it.

11:52 PM, May 09, 2011
Ken said...

My school is older than I realized. I drive a '99 Malibu with a cassette deck (no CD player), and I have a small selection of classical tapes my wife's uncle (a retired parish music director) gave me. The most recent thing I have is Sibelius (Finlandia/Swan of Tuonela/Valse Triste/Tapiola, all by the best outfit in the world for Sibelius: the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by von Karajan.

11:59 PM, May 09, 2011
Wayne said...

I had a cassette adapter in my 82 Bronco for.......must have been a Discman? Don't recall it working all that well. Now I'm going to have look for the damn thing.

12:03 AM, May 10, 2011
NotClauswitz said...

The FM adapter for the iPod broke off in the rental car's cigarette lighter and I had to extract it amid sparks.
Never had a cassette adapter.

12:18 AM, May 10, 2011
perlhaqr said...

Last tape I can recall pushing into a car stereo was a dubbed copy of Plague Mass.

You can leave a lowrider full of South Valley cholos staring speechless at the light, if in your 1981 280zx with the skin peeled off, you sing along with Ms. Galas: "Yes! I confess! Yes! I confess! Give me sodomy, or give me death!" and then speed off when the light turns green.

1:14 AM, May 10, 2011
og said...

Dice and some other companies make an Ipod adapter that plugs into a Blau stereo's CD changer jack, and lets you change the songs from the head unit etc. if you have the CD changer, and you don't use it a lot, you might consider getting one. The tape is a lot cheaper, but not as durable.

2:22 AM, May 10, 2011
Anonymous said...

Tam, you had to go there...

A while back a friend heard that I was using my computer to convert LP's and Cassettes to CD's so I wouldn't lose the use of them. He asked if I'd convert some tapes for him, some old REO Speedwagon and Pink Floyd. Sure I said, so he brings over several boxes of...8 Tracks. You ever try to find a working 8 Track? Thank God for Goodwill and Salvation Army.

3:04 AM, May 10, 2011
Weer'd Beard said...

My Ranger is sans Cassette Deck, but also sans input jack. I use one of those radio transmitter thingies.

Works pretty good, tho you do have to tune it a few times on long trips as you wander into signal zones...

6:39 AM, May 10, 2011
fast richard said...

I used a cassette adapter for listening to audiobooks and podcasts in the eighteen wheeler, until the cassette player in the radio broke. I replaced the radio with one that has an aux input jack. I think I still have some cassette tapes that I recorded off the radio in the seventies, King Biscuit Flour Hour and such.

8:34 AM, May 10, 2011
Anonymous said...

Now that everybody's into collecting vinyl cassettes are cool again.

I don't now weather I'm behind or just way ahead of the curve. Either way I end up dumping all sorts of gear right before it comes back in vogue

9:16 AM, May 10, 2011
Ken said...

I'm thinking about just getting an AC inverter and running the laptop in the passenger seat, or the back seat, or whatevs.

10:35 AM, May 10, 2011
aczarnowski said...

They hadn't all turned into The Best of Queen?

/obscure Good Omens reference

10:43 AM, May 10, 2011
Drang said...

Geekish Nostalgia: Mrs. Drang's Obamamobile (puti!) has satellite radio. We mostly listen to "40s on 4" or "Siriusly Sinatra." We never lost the signal on the way to or from Klamath Falls, 8 hours one way, through the Oregon Cascades.

One thing I like about the 40s station is that, in addition to Big Band and Swing from the late 30s through early 50s, they run hourly newscasts, read by the announcer with minimal hindsight.

They also play the politically really incorrect hits from WWII you don't hear anymore. ("Hey, Joe, whaddaya know?" "Just got back from Tokyo...")

WV: frittips. But I want the whole apple fritter!

1:59 PM, May 10, 2011
Sigivald said...

It is, according to the internet, a standard single-DIN head unit.

Any shop can replace that for dirt.

With something that you can even directly plug the iPod into, which will both charge and play (and display track info on the head unit and let it control, if you like).

3:46 PM, May 10, 2011
Jeff said...

Crutchfeild.com

Get a new one with a USB jack on it for around a hundred bucks. They give you an adapter for it so its pretty much plug and play.

You'll thank yourself later.

6:46 PM, May 10, 2011
Stranger said...

I hope you are not plagued with the "print through" that is common in cassettes that have been stored for a long time. This is normally worst at the end of the tape, where the tape has been wound most tightly.

If you notice "monkey chatter" hit fast forward to the end and leave it that way. The residual magnetism from one layer of tape to the next will disappear, and you can enjoy it all.

Stranger

7:27 PM, May 10, 2011
On a Wing and a Whim said...

Oh, wow, that kicked me back to a warm summer night in Chicago, sitting on the El platform at Belmont and listening to the sold-out concert pouring out of the theater...

Wow, it's been a few years.

8:41 PM, May 10, 2011
NotClauswitz said...

The rental car has an Aux-in hidden down in the lower console, along with a USB next to a "cigarette lighter" (Power-Line?)- but it's a Microsoft car (Mercury Milan) so won't sync the iPod.
I ditched the FM-hootchie and used the Aux to play Iz.

11:08 PM, May 10, 2011
Ed Foster said...

ALLRIGHT, NOW YOU GUYS HAVE DONE IT! ALL OF YOU!

I picked up a '69 Chevy C-15 a while back, 58k on the odo, never seen salt, $1,200 (eat your hearts out), and I just went on E-Bay and blew a majestic $15.99 on an underdash 8 track player (plus another $9.50 for shipping).

Next week there'll be a box of 8 track cassettes behind the seat. "Paradise By The Dashboard Light", with pause mid-song for track change, right over there beyond the transfer case lever.

Do you think a gun rack and Confederate flag would be overkill?

11:53 PM, May 10, 2011
Tam said...

Ed,

Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell came out in '77, and Of Skins and Heart by The Church was released in '81.

Funny how, back in high school, one was "Classic Rock" and the other was "New Wave" but, looking back from 2011, '77 and '81 are practically the same year. ;)

7:57 AM, May 11, 2011

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