ILX tape recorder project

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I just had an idea for a possibly interesting project. I had read the weird childhood thread and the new thread about things that fascinated you as a kid that aren't part of your adult life, and one that stuck out a lot was how as kids a lot of us would tape record skits or radio shows or whatever, and how that's something that we mostly don't do anymore. I propose a project where the participants carry a tape recorder around with them for a couple of days and record whatever they want: conversations, background noise, performances, narration, etc. Then after the tapes are done, we organize a trade, or possibly one person could collect them all and compile the "greatest hits" of the tapes and make CD-Rs and send them out. Is this something that other people might be interested in?

― n/a (Nick A.), Thursday, 26 May 2005 13:03 (twenty-one years ago)

and obviously we must all splice our tapes into everyone elses... word falling... image falling...

― Inspector J. Lee, Thursday, 26 May 2005 13:05 (twenty-one years ago)

William S. Burroughs cut-up techniques!

― Ian Riese-Moraine's Plateau Rouge! (Eastern Mantra), Thursday, 26 May 2005 13:09 (twenty-one years ago)

I bought an anonymous looking cassette at a summer fair, and it was just like this. Snippets of TOTP, various kids shouting stuff, and an episode of Magic roundabout, amongst other things.

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 26 May 2005 13:11 (twenty-one years ago)

i so want to take part......

if this takes off

e-mail me

:-)

― battlingspacemonkey (battlingspacemonkey), Thursday, 26 May 2005 13:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I was gonna say that this has great potential for a Brion Gysin cut-up experiment. Cut into the tapes and the ILX hive mind will leak out...

― Zebra, Alpha Go! (cprek), Thursday, 26 May 2005 13:21 (twenty-one years ago)

take it to walgreens hello yes goodybe

― The Subliminal Kid, Thursday, 26 May 2005 13:30 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't even have a tape recorder these days *sad face smiley*

― g-kit (g-kit), Thursday, 26 May 2005 13:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Hmm, I guess this isn't happening.

― n/a (Nick A.), Thursday, 26 May 2005 17:48 (twenty-one years ago)

tape recorders are hard to come by these days.

― Miss Misery (thatgirl), Thursday, 26 May 2005 17:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I have a tape recorder and am very interested. The one I have has the mini-cassettes like they used to have in answering machines before everything became digital.

― Zebra, Alpha Go! (cprek), Thursday, 26 May 2005 17:52 (twenty-one years ago)

it would be awesome if we could find the actual tapes we made as kids on our first little rock boxes. i would kill to locate some of mine. me and my brother (probably 8 and 4 resp.) trying to sing "zipadeedoodah" and him screwing it up and me making fun of him and forcing him to repeat. or how in 8th grade i wrote comedy skits ala the recorded m python stuff and recorded it complete with musical interludes and stuff. actually, this sounds completely boring as it wasn't funny at all. "dictionary reading for the blind" was one of my showstoppers! jesus.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Thursday, 26 May 2005 18:05 (twenty-one years ago)

I'll do it!

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 26 May 2005 18:10 (twenty-one years ago)

ooh that reminds me. i had a "sound art" project that involved stealing the microcassettes from all the answering machines donated to thrift shops and taking all the good bits. got a few but never really followed through properly. maybe cuz the messages were generally very tedious and dull.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Thursday, 26 May 2005 18:23 (twenty-one years ago)

How can you guys not have tape recorders? I have like six!

― n/a (Nick A.), Thursday, 26 May 2005 19:21 (twenty-one years ago)

I have a mini-tape recorder I bought on my 16th birthday. That's it, though.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 26 May 2005 19:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I guess I don't mean "mini" -- it takes regular cassettes, not microcassettes -- but a small handheld one.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 26 May 2005 19:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I did those radio shows as well as a kid, with my friends. At the age of 7 we had a continuing show called "The Adventures of Pee Man, Poo Man and Bat's Fart". We also did skits, like the one where a sports commentator gets so interested in eating his hamburger his commentary turns to mere mumble. Later on I think we did some ninja stories as well (this was late eighties, the Golden Age of Ninjas).

Anyway, I'd be very interested in this project, if I can just locate a tape recorder. I think my mum still might have one... Of course I'll have to do it in English, you probably wouldn't want to hear skits in Finnish.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 26 May 2005 19:42 (twenty-one years ago)

you probably wouldn't want to hear skits in Finnish

this is the biggest load of bullshit on ILX ever

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Thursday, 26 May 2005 19:45 (twenty-one years ago)

My tape recorder's busted. Meh.

― Ian Riese-Moraine's Plateau Rouge! (Eastern Mantra), Thursday, 26 May 2005 19:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I made tapes like these all the time, and we'd listen to them in the cart as my dad drove us to his house for the weekend.

I did my last one in 1987. It was a Dick Bartleyesque "Rock N' Roll Remembers" show about the year 1987, supposedly broadcast from the year 2007.

I have that tape in a desk drawer at home, and I'm very pleased that I've only got eighteen more months until I get to listen to it again!

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Thursday, 26 May 2005 19:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, if I did a skit I'd want you to get it, and not just admire my beautiful intonation. So I'd want to do it in English. Maybe I could add some Finnish singing though.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 26 May 2005 19:52 (twenty-one years ago)

pleasant plains, i hope that in 18 months time, if man is still alive, if woman can survive, we may find out what is on your 1987 tape.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Thursday, 26 May 2005 20:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Hmm. I'd like to do this, but I'll have to see about getting a cheap dictaphone or something first. I have a portable tape recorder, but it's enormous and weighs a ton with batteries in.

― Philip Alderman (Phil A), Thursday, 26 May 2005 20:37 (twenty-one years ago)

The only tape project that I have from my youth is my brother trying to get 18 month old me to say "motorcycle" and "ronald mcdonald" for like 5 minutes, then the tape cuts out and you hear my dad talking to some british dude. Turns out my parents had recycled an old tape that my dad had of an interview he had done with one of the guys from mott the hoople. So it quickly segues from my pre-toddler gurgling to stories of drug addled producers jumping out second story windows...

― ianinportland (ianinportland), Thursday, 26 May 2005 20:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I should ask my cousin if he still has the tapes of all of the stupid little skits and radio shows we used to make as kids. If so, I should put the part where I impersonate Oprah and interview Michael Jackson on the ilx tape project.

― Leon Federline (Ex Leon), Thursday, 26 May 2005 20:52 (twenty-one years ago)

pleasant plains, i hope that in 18 months time, if man is still alive, if woman can survive, we may find out what is on your 1987 tape.

Well, that all depends on how long Benedict XVI remains as pope, but I don't want to get into all of that here.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Thursday, 26 May 2005 21:18 (twenty-one years ago)

one month passes...

I have two days off and a cheap portable, so I'm going to give this a go.

― dog latin (dog latin), Monday, 27 June 2005 09:54 (twenty years ago)

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