Good times being freeze dried

Good times being freeze dried - Aug 5 2010

Good times being freeze dried

Current mood:animated

Guess I am really behind the power curve these days. I was digging thru a cabinet and found my old Sony D6C cassette recorder. Which means nothing to anyone anymore, and in light of modern technology has quickly went the way of the 45. But. There is always a but.

Thats the tape deck I toured with when I went to Grateful Dead shows. I taped many a show, and when the tour veered off from my ability to travel, I passsed it offf to friends, who taped other shows on the tours for me. They copied the tapes and mailed the stuff back to me.

I had thought it was dead. No pun intended. The last time I tried it, it did not work. Turns out it was old batteries that I had left in there. Ahem, I have to clean up some minor battery acid leakage, but the last couple of days I have been in a time warp, listening to 25 plus year old Dead tapes. Some I made. Some by others. Some copies of copies - such is the nature of tape trading in its day.

Surprized that the tapes have held up. I guess I need to get them transfered to audio file before it is too late. I completely missed the then come and now gone DAT revolution. On my meager Fireman's salery, at that time, a DAT recorder, and the tapes, were way out of my I can afford this range. So, I bought what was in its day, the best portable tape recorder available. About the size of a small hardback book, it made, and still might make excellent recordings.

Doubt I can find fresh tape anyway. So,. todays, its JFK stadium in the heat of the day. Listening to a show I did not attend. reliving simplier times in my life.

My Captain and chief at the station thought I was nuts. I would be on the phoine, waiting for a whif of tour dates. I would start putting in carpet bombing runs of leave slips, trying to hit the days of the tour.

Went to Hampton, of course, many times. Greensboro, Pittsbuirg, Atlanta, Washington, and other places I have forgotten. My kit (*deck, cables, boxes of tapes, batteries, cables of everykind, and Rocky and Bullwinkle traveled the length and bredth of the country.

I was easy to find in a sea of mic towers. I ran a camera tripod up with an extension pole about 15 feet into the air. Cross beam and mic holders. A bouiquet of roses and Rocky and Bullwinkle on top. I always told my friends, that if they were looking for me, look for Rocky and Bullwinkle, as they were my way of making my set up findable in a crowd of toght people all trying to get that perfect place, and perfect tape.

So, for the forseeable future, this kid will be sitting and reliving good times. Eyes closed. Dancing as only one can dance at a Dead show.

Iko Iko!!