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Billy Jean on WQPD

For many years I have had a box of old cassette tapes in my closet – or attic – or wherever was out of the way at the time… I finally went out and found a cassette deck at the thrift shop the other day and began transcribing them to digital.   Mainly because at some point the cassettes actually lose the information stored on them.  Audio cassettes, VHS tapes, 8 tracks – there is a reason they are not around anymore.

Each uses the same technology originally known as “Magnetophon” and invented by the Germans during the 1930’s. (more info)  The information is stored by passing a generated magnetic field to a ribbon of plastic tape impregnated with some form of ferrous material.  The little do-dad that generates the magnetic field is called a record head. The tape becomes magnetized in a certain pattern.   Then when passed in front of a similar do-dad called a playback head the magnetic field is transformed back once again into an audio signal.   In my mind this was a kind of magic– especially for the time.

Well the problem is that the magnetic tape is wound into a spool inside the cassette. Eventually the magnetism passes from where it is stored on the tape to the section it is wrapped around. At some point the magnetic field reaches a sort of equilibrium and the original sound or picture is not retrievable.  So the dozens of recordings I had stored away will actually fade away.

Not Ed Scales

I started running the tapes through my studio to get them in MP3 format and found some interesting stuff. Mostly old air checks of me in the early 80’s on the radio in Lakeland Florida. Routinely each radio announcer would record their show on a cassette deck that was wired to record only when the microphone was turned on.  In the jargon of the business it was sometimes called a “telescope” as it condensed an entire workday into a 30 or 40 minute recording. You can hear the song starting and then the tape jumps to the end of the song when the announcer next turns on the mike. The program director would then review your“telescope” to give you constructive critique – or in my case to tell me to stop talking so much.

The one below is pretty long – 45 minutes! It was a show I did on WQPD on a Monday night somewhere in March or April of 1983. I had to figure that out by some clues on the tape. A really talented high school kid named Ed Scales was my guest and we did several improvised “bits”.  Basically I got on the control room studio phone a pretended to talk to a character that Ed performed from the adjoining studio.  We did this live and without rehearsal. In fact in the one where I “interview” Maurice Gibb I had no idea what Ed was going to do. He came on the phone in a falsetto voice that totally cracked me up. Since Ed was in school I knew the recording was made before June. One of the last comments I make on the recording introduces the number one hit song of the day, Billy Jean by Michael Jackson. That was not released until February of 1983 – thus this recording had to be made in March or April.

The last eight minutes of the recording is the air check of the next announcer, Woody Boyer.

 

 WQPD Aircheck [45:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download