Oddity Archive: Episode 141: Ben’s Random Audiocassette Haul #2

[@chrisienni8798]

Hi everyone! yes, i'm the one responsible for the infamous "KALLISTI" cassette - a hilarious embarrassment from my distant past, i can't believe it turned up again! a for-friends-only "chaos tape" that is quite a mess, but at least it's an honest mess. i've uploaded it to my bandcamp if anyone wishes to subject themselves to the full ordeal.

[@EgoChip]

You know if this woman was alive now, or the internet as we know it now existed 30 years ago, she'd have a blog or vlog for certain. She was doing the 80's equivalent.

[@SagaSagaVGM]

Your Japanese tape is the 27th Kohaku Uta Gassen, basically a big end of year music show/competition You can watch the opening minutes of it here, watch?v=fxF3zYJaBWM

[@OddityArchive]

Thank you! I've been wanting to see this!

[@negirno]

Also, the music at the end is sung by Momoe Yamaguchi, I think.

[@netsurferx1]

I think that the "disembodied voice" could be some kind of sponsorship announcement/plug. It sounded suspiciously like one, at any rate.

[@citrusella-nomorecraptions]

What are they saying in the disemodied voice? I think I picked up the name of the show, "cheer", and maybe "dance" and/or "woman". 0_o (I am nowhere near fluent in Japanese. XP)

[@harrychestwigg]

more info - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dhaku_Uta_Gassen

[@mr3urious]

Audrey's story about the crippled chick sure was fascinating. Shame that he got eaten.

[@MitchellHang]

Songs heard on Bubu (Japanese/NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen) cassette tape: 10:18 - Naomi Sagara (佐良直美) - "Hitori Tabi" (ひとり旅) Originally from the album Hitori Tabi (ひとり旅), ©1976 Victor Musical Industries, Inc. 12:35 - Junko Sakurada (桜田淳子) - "Natsu ni go Yōjin" (夏にご用心) Originally released as a single, ©1976 Victor Musical Industries, Inc. 37:53 - Momoe Yamaguchi (山口百恵) - "Yokosuka Story" (横須賀ストーリー) Originally from the album Yokosuka Story (横須賀ストーリー), ©1976 CBS/Sony Inc.

[@devinsmith4790]

12:34

[@tehaoboon923]

Hey there, the NHK tape is NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen, a music show that airs on New Year's Eve :)

[@tehaoboon923]

27th kouhaku: kzbin.info/aero/PL-QlVxNklLH1wXMkdOkIc3YW3igpy6KTH

[@FernieCanto]

All I can say about that tape is that it would make some sick Vaporwave.

[@brandonjustis]

Fernie Canto 1. I'm so glad someone else watches Oddity Archive and also listens to vaporwave. 2. Imo, the last homemade album has a lot of vaporwave potential.

[@pastey207]

I tried mimicking the persons Handwriting in google translate on my phone using the handwriting on the touchscreen feature, and it gave me "1976 Red Sun Song Battle".

[@morelenmir]

It would be fascinating if you could find the family of the old lady who made the cassette recording about her childhood during the American depression. I am sure they would be very happy to be able to hear their Granny or great-auntie or whomsoever again. Chances are they didn't even know what was on the tape when they gave it to the charity shop. It is such a shame when people lose track of genuine heirlooms like that. In my opinion such items of _genuine_ living history are worth far more to future generations than all the embroidery samplers or other more conventional pass-me-downs put together. I hope through some weird stroke of luck one of her relations happens to watch this video at some point. So far as the tape itself goes, I bought an identical single cassette from a local no-brand 'HiFi' shop in northern England in late March 1990. I don't know if it is relevant or not, but they were a 'Technics' authorized dealer--the only one I ever came across in my local area. That is the single time I have ever seen that particular brand of tape before or since.

[@daftoptimist]

I definitely should give them the benefit of the doubt that they didn’t know what was on the tape. If I had a spoken memoir from any of my late grandparents, I would be overjoyed and I would hang on to it. Also, justice for Dawdle. 😢

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

Man i had something similar like this once when i got a Sony Microcassette voicerecorder at a fleamarket once. It still had a tape inside and what it had on was spine chilling... An middle aged woman confessing her problems and love to someone... Had to seriously stop because i kinda felt really uneasy listening to it.

[@RubberChickenFilms]

Most home recordings, tapes, videos, etc. are boring as all get out, but that first one with Audrey was actually somewhat interesting. Reminds me of the stories my grandparents told me about their childhoods.

[@thaddeusmcgrath]

You need to upload the whole Audrey tape buddy, I got a kick out of it!

[@NEScRETRO]

I do too. it's interesting. though she may be long gone, she's now forever immortalized in this video. thousands of us have now heard her story that she probably only ever thought family would listen to, or maybe even no one. I definitely think ben should upload the entire tape. There was something rather enjoyable about her story. It reminds me of a story you'd hear from a relative you rarely see at a Thanksgiving dinner or something. i totally dig it.

[@Fluteboy]

12:51 - Now there's a relic I had forgotten about - the "pffff-POP!" when you stop the recording. Some decks rendered louder pops than others.

[@otaking3582]

The Japanese seem to have this weird fascination with country and western. There's a square-dance school run by actual Texans, Iron King had cowboys as the protagonists, and there was even the movie Sukiyaki Western Django (with cameo appearance by Quentin Tarantino!)

[@LowQualityCheese]

I want that Kallisti album on CD! There's no youtube uploads of it. Wow, that's rare. The inclusion of MST3K really peaked my interest. It was actually an interesting collage of sounds, music and audio clips.

[@chrisienni8798]

i've uploaded it to my site for everyone's "enjoyment"?: ienni.net

[@sawbonesquad4876]

Been waiting for another one of these eps. They're so candid and encompassing of what I love most about this channel: offbeat glimpses into the past through A/V lenses.

[@imrustyokay]

I had a lot of rural relatives, growing up right on the edge of Suburbia, and having one side of the family growing up in Missouri. So, yeah, I'm considered Politically Correct, but I understand the rural life. I guess.

[@Musicradio77Network]

I've never seen these cassettes before. I remember on the first one is a Tonemaster cassette. I used to have one of these Tonemaster cassettes since I was a kid, and it was okay, but I remember the Tonemaster brand, but this cassette was sold by Walgreen's back in the 1980's. The second was an oddball cassette from Japan called Bubu. Never saw this one before. It was named after a character from "Yogi Bear" named "Boo Boo", as in "Hey Boo-Boo!" The cassette itself is a Columbia, not the Columbia as a record label or Columbia Magnetics which was an obscure name outside of the record label. There were two kinds of blank tapes that are put out by two record companies back in the 1970's, it was Capitol and Columbia. Both made blank tapes, but it lasted until the end of the 1970's when both Capitol and Columbia doesn't make blank tapes anymore. They decided to go back to do some music. The third was the BASF cassette. I have a couple of these, but I've never seen this one before. The last one was the "Phonies" tapes which was put out by Rich Little where he did impressions of celebrities doing their greetings. This is similar to the Radio Shack answering machine message tapes from the 1980's where they put out 10 celebrities doing their answering messages. I remember there was one with Burns & Allen, and another one with Alfred Hitchcock.

[@johncollie337]

Ben should upload the whole tape at 26:43 on some account and have Bandstand dissect the samples. XD Love your audiocassette hauls, Ben. Make another sometime. 👍

[@brandonjustis]

John Iowa I second this.

[@chrisienni8798]

i've uploaded it to my site for everyone's "enjoyment"?: ienni.net as for the samples, that's a whole other Audio Archaeology Thesis i could go on about! ;)

[@jamesslick4790]

The "hippie" tape makes The Beatles' "Revolution #9" sound like Beethoven.

[@stephenemmett9753]

Rock and roll's in danger of growing stale... I'm takin' it to strange new places.

[@ericariley1696]

On the BASF tape, I didn't know people from Boston had Canadian accents lol.

[@MinoTheShow]

I kind of like the hippie tape, and Joel popping in made me laugh

[@RavenDrakearud]

Let's how there's KZbin in the afterlife so Audrey can find this.

[@MitchellHang]

Conspiracy theory: Ben has only eyes on his face and someone else is speaking for him in his videos. That's why he has the big box in front of him.

[@emolovetree]

a group of paid off engineers confirm the mics polar pattern would pic up his voice. The man claiming to be voice actor was found dead mysteriously with cassette tapes and minidiscs found stuck in his throat, police claim he tripped and fell with his mouth open on to a pile of old audio formats. They've ruled it as an accident

[@copperhamster]

I can't remember where I saw it, and I don't have time to google around, but there was some site that just collected 'old folks audio' things like interviews, stories, etc of anonymous ppl. If you can find them with your google fu I bet they'd like a rip of Audrey's memories.

[@HPad2]

I have a few interesting audio cassettes laying around I got awhile back. Even have a Funeral from long ago recorded on a cassette.

[@RobertCHoffman]

I saw Rich Little at the old MGM Grand in Las Vegas when I was 10 years old, the opening act was Sister Sledge. Little did a TON of Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon jokes. I am still scarred.

[@danmount9462]

Sees notification and title. Come on Hired Stud Volume 2

[@wacotablet1055]

The part of the hippie tape starting at 26:45 really sounds like a vaporwave album you'd find at bandcamp.com

[@brandonjustis]

i wouldn't be surprised if Kallisti is in the vaporwave scene as like nmesh or wosx or someone else.

[@chrisienni8798]

i've uploaded it to my site for everyone's "enjoyment"?: ienni.net

[@peepas2633]

Thank you so much for your dedication to this channel. Your specificity and completeness is astounding and inspiring. This in now my favorite channel. I wish you the very best.

[@imrustyokay]

28:39 In this case 0 out of 3 is actually very good cause the people prevented something bad from happening. 33:26 That was a Howard Cosell impression, who was accused of wearing a Toupee in his later years.

[@daveb5041]

I always imagine someone making one of those answering machine tapes then someone calling to leave a message to say their entire family died in a car accident. Hilarious!!! Or someone has to get a hold of them but the message is really long and they die before the goofy message is over.

[@musikba]

@14:41 Was thinking of early Genesis even before you mentioned Steve Hackett.

[@iansalsbuck4174]

Did some digging and I'm fairly certain this is Christian Ienni's bandcamp: ienni.bandcamp.com Edit: His domain ienni.net links directly to this mp3: ienni.net/mp3s/metamorphic_rocks_(1997).mp3 It's at least very similar to the excerpts from the cassette included in this video.

[@chrisienni8798]

yep, that's me! since i found this video i've uploaded kallisti to my site for everyone's "enjoyment"; the "metamorphic rocks" track is still there too, an old Tangerine Dream cover i did 20 years ago.

[@brandonjustis]

24:45 - 29:53 can i get a copy of that cassette pls?

[@IllPropaganda]

Agree, a rip of this would be grand!

[@shkeni]

Yes! Same!

[@silasbonneau3672]

Yeah, that's my kind of stuff!

[@johnathin0061892]

Gotta love all those sounds "borrowed" from Star Trek TOS on the Kaaaioti tape

[@FernieCanto]

That Kallisti tape sounds like an excessively trippy attempt to emulate The Legendary Pink Dots. Except it came more than 10 years late. Also, you pronounced Oxygène wrong! You're still cool for having mentioned it, though. (also, you should totally upload the full tape to the Annex or something, if it wouldn't give you much trouble)

[@OddityArchive]

Like I mentioned in the episode, there's a lot of excerpts (from major movies and TV shows) on the Kalisti tape that easily go on long enough to trigger the Content ID--and are major enough that it'd probably get blocked in at least a few countries.

[@EnigPartyhaus]

You can always upload a direct rip to a site like Mediafire and link it either in the comments or on the archive's webpage, since this seems like the kind of thing that flies under radar so low there's not even a template page on Discogs.

[@cooliofoolio]

EnigPartyhaus Or Mega, never use MediaFire! It's not my kind of music but I still would like to see it ripped, just because it will make other people happy.

[@chrisienni8798]

i've uploaded it to my site for everyone's "enjoyment"?: ienni.net

[@cooliofoolio]

I'll be the guy to click on it to make sure it's not a screamer EDIT: it is not one! It links to Bandcamp and Facebook

[@musikba]

Gotta love that 70s production music.

[@nils-olofohman1079]

I think the lady saying "Hello from Hawaii" or whatever on the Kohaku Utagassen tape was Sandii (at the time billed as Sandy O'Neil, or just Sandy), who was Japanese-Hawaiian, and had a hit at the time with the Yamaha Festival winning tune "Goodbye Morning." She had some albums released in the West later on in the New Wave era with her band, Sandii & the Sunsetz.

[@gspendlove]

I am jealous af seeing this video, because I haunt thrift stores looking for people's personal cassette collections too. I have found buried treasure in buying old cassette tapes that have no labels, old audio books, music cassettes recorded from '60s, '70s and '80s radio stations, etc. I have a cassette-to-CD collection that I listen to all the time.

[@HaroldDuggart]

The Kallisti tape sounds kind of cool. I'm interested in weird sound collage type stuff. It almost sounds like something I would make if I actually knew what I was doing. And if I did a shit load of drugs.

[@chrisienni8798]

i've uploaded it to my site for everyone's "enjoyment"?: ienni.net

[@STOG01]

I found this fascinating.

[@djtrishm]

A girl eating her pet chicken and Japanese country! I remember taping my fave shows on cassettes before VHS!

[@mycollectibles]

The trippy album sounds like something out of a cross between a horror/sci-fi movie I could blast that on Halloween in an alien mask 🤣 yeah I'm late to the party.

[@mekman4]

These are true gems.

[@jonathanlemieux6570]

wow! that japanese audiocassette is nice! at 12:36 you can hear Sakurada Junko singing Natsu ni go Yōjin! she was very popular idol at the time. sorry for my english.

[@weasel2htm]

I swear, I did NOT bite any of the baby chicks!

[@danmount9462]

It’s bullshit. I did not. I did Not. Oh hai Mark.

[@netsurferx1]

Also, nice score on that JVC deck! Hopefully, it didn't set you back too many greenbacks. Ya gotta love the sight of bouncy VU meters!

[@daveb5041]

**Why the fuck am I not only listening to this but pausing it when I get up so I don't miss focus group action!!**

[@RickinBaltimore]

That phone number for Phonies goes to a listed person in New Jersey now

[@neilforbes416]

The best version of "Wind Beneath My Wings" was done by Colleen Hewitt for the Australian arm of Warner Brothers Records in 1981.

[@ThatWeirdoWhoMakesVideos]

You should do this with vhs tapes I always love looking at old vhs recordings when I come across them at thrift stores

[@OddityArchive]

I (sort of) already have. kzbin.info/www/bejne/r37MkpR7rKt4qNE

[@visaman]

I would have sworn that Rod Steiger was a really bad Arnold Schwarzenegger. The toupee joke was Howard Cossell.

[@joejarvis2497]

I think Zoratti means Vibrato in Italian. I am probably wrong.

[@OddityArchive]

It would sure make sense though.

[@hiredgun7186]

or it means terrible meter

[@5roundsrapid263]

Vibrato is Italian...

[@StevenSmyth]

I got all the men right except for Richard Pryor. You’re right, it sounded to me like either Redd Foxx or Whitman Mayo (Fred and Grady respectively on Sanford and Son). Jane Fonda? I thought it was Barbara Streisand. Rich Little had about 10 to 12 good impressions in him. Julie Dees was great when you could see her do the mannerisms of the person she was mimicking. Little probably did the best Johnny Carson ever, but it was better when you could watch him AS Carson. He told Johnny he’d carefully watched him on tape and counted about thirty mannerisms which Little performed flawlessly. It was when he put on a bandana with pigtails attached to do Willy Nelson on a Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon that I knew he’d jumped the proverbial shark.

[@thejdhe7681]

Is there any way to get the downloads fro the hippie album? just a 15 year old asking for a friend

[@EvertGuzman]

Caden McCormack No it doesn't work with weed

[@chrisienni8798]

i've uploaded it to my site for everyone's "enjoyment"?: ienni.net

[@dunes8817]

I'm pretty sure the "stalker" one was supposed to be Woody Allen.

[@Devoguy]

KALLISTI is "To the Fairest One", it was written on the side of a golden apple by the goddess of discord Eris, and placed in a feast on Mount Olympus. The goddesses Aphrodite, Athena and Hera each thought it was for them, so they went to Paris (the person) and asked them to decide who was the fairest, offering him a reward for each choice. He chose Aphrodite, and she gave him the love of Helen of Troy, which, in turn, started the Trojan War. Eris is also the central figure of the modern "joke" religion of Discordianism. The music sounds like something a Discordian or Subgenius would make, and I think there's some audio from the Hour of Slack in there...

[@akaihys]

the catchy japanese song you have over the credits is yokosuka story by momoe yamaguchi :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/oHS0nIeoj9WAd7s she's a legend imo, and she has a very interesting story! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momoe_Yamaguchi

[@marktubeie07]

I always call it _'BASF!'_ as well!

[@betaman7988]

I’ve always spelt it out because that’s how they say it in the commercials: kzbin.info/www/bejne/navVZmh4q9enY8k

[@rickm.2956]

Rich Little. Ick. At least when he (always) announced beforehand who he was supposedly imitating you could sort of hear what he was going for. All his imitations sound more like him mashed up with Johnny Carson and the celebrity in question.

[@iron1349]

the story about DOttle is adorable

[@trekaddict]

These hippies had a lot of Trek fans among them. Ignoring the stolen TOS sound effects, I can clearly discern the scene from Search for Spock when Kirk blows up the Enterprise.

[@trinitron384]

Zoratti sounds awfully a lot like a church choir singer and is probably a church guitarist, hence why he is doing completely wack chord progressions. Makes sense but still kind of odd.

[@drewbrown7181]

Ron Zoratti, Jr. : facebook.com/ron.zoratti

[@TheWoundedFoot]

The instrumentals on Zoratti's tape sound like Flying Saucer Attack without the noise/reverb/delay.

[@cryptozoo22]

Those TONEMASTER brand tapes were available at least as far back as 1981 - I was a budding kid audiophile, lived in a flyspeck of a town, and these were the only blank cassette tapes available at the local 5 and dime. They were horrible, even apart from the terrible sound quality, as the tape inside often snapped after just a few plays. I am surprised the cassette you found was still in working order after all these decades.

[@thingsifoundinmybasement6202]

PLEASE put the Audrey tape on the Annex!

[@5roundsrapid263]

15:58 The tape is fine, he’s doing the wow and flutter manually!

[@st-entertainment]

18:00 sounds very scary in his voice

[@Generic_Man]

RE: that Kallisti tape... that sort of ambient, freeform electronica was not unpopular in the early- to mid-1990s. (Take LSD or mushrooms and) see Future Sound of London or The Orb for more successful examples of the genre.

[@karolkozik5918]

25:27 As of my knowledge, I can deny the fact that it's a Polish name, or at least one commonly used today and not too long ago, because of my Polish nationality. Based on what the results of reading into some Google links of "kamieti meaning" search prove, the word is only a misspell of the word kamieni, which is a genitive form of the word kamienie, which means rocks. You're welcome.

[@chrisienni8798]

it's "kallisti" in capital Greek letters

[@RocketboyX]

Zoratti's album is 100% Deep Hurting.

[@stephenemmett9753]

14:27 Kind of perfect for a Led Zeppelin parody.

[@erocktv]

was that a little MST3K snippet I heard in there? Sounded like Joel Robinson.. ;-)

[@andyshelton4889]

Kallisti might be the band called Episode.😀❤️

[@daftoptimist]

Nothing would get me to leave a voicemail like a bad celebrity impression passive-aggressively berating me for not leaving one the last time I called.

[@mrgarceapolitistunew]

Kallisti sounds like Random 35 Tracks Tape

[@TheMoogleMaster]

I thought that Kallisti tape was going to be one of those Goa Trance albums.

[@JMein13074]

The only thing missing from that hippie tape were Shaye Saint John voice samples.

[@babby4450]

BUT IT'S NOT REALLY SAFE N' SANE AT ALL !!!!!

[@bethdibartolomeo2042]

How long was David Letterman on the air by August 1982? I know it started that year.

[@panicBoydotcom]

That tape with the Greek writing on it has serious Negativland vibes.

[@rushomancy]

ahhh, listen, the thing about the kallisti tape is that you kind of had to be there. i must have heard dozens of tapes like that during the '90s, some of them ones i still wish i had. you know, you have the lo-res fractal cover because chaos theory was a huge underground thing back then and a title referring to discordian mythology because, again, that was the thing. i was more on the subgenius end of things and listened to stuff like out of band experience and wet dandelion fetus, but you know, same difference. i bet this got played on the hour of slack at least once. anyway chris ienni is in discogs! this release isn't but he appeared on "kakophonia #1 - a post-music compilation", which also had a track by the big city orchestra, and apparently recorded an oxbow concert in 2004? ok, good to know i guess.

[@TheMoogleMaster]

Oh so he was one those those kind of artists. Makes sense.

[@chrisienni8798]

yeah i've seen my entry, pretty hilarious! "kakophonia" was a noise music comp with PBK & others. the concert recording was just a favor. kallisti was just for-friends-only, totally homespun. i've uploaded it to my site for everyone's "enjoyment"?: ienni.net

[@Biloxata]

would you sell the Audrey tape?

[@robjackson4050]

my grandpa apparently liked wind beneath my wings he had it played at his funeral

[@imrustyokay]

I swear, I've heard that trippy album on every third "Educational Video Essay" I've seen. No wonder KZbin's demonetizing those people.

[@DrewberTravels]

28:00 MST3k!? That was Joel!!

[@yesticles]

i have a few unlabeled cassettes my buddy gave to me that he found in the attic of a house he was renting a couple years back. I have no idea what's on them as neither of us have a working tape deck. Would you have any use for these if I sent them in? Do you have a PO box I could mail them to? I'm really curious as to what these tapes contain

[@yesticles]

Will do!

[@Fluteboy]

14:54 - Ask this guy to cover it, and then stand well back: kzbin.info/www/bejne/b3XFhoOgesd8rKM

[@mikemoos]

That mid-western woman's chicken story sounds almost exactly what happened with my mom and her physically disabled lamb.

[@hifijohn]

wow talk about recording at a very low level,the meters arent moving at all on that first one.

[@wendyokoopa7048]

Mew(#151) and I wait all week for an oddity

[@Takimeko]

Am i the only one who really digs that acoustic album?

[@ChaunceyGardener]

28:15 The original Crazy Bus Also, nice Steve Hackett reference! If you are into progressive, you may know Gentle Giant. After they disbanded, their genius keyboardist, Kerry Minnear, joined and produced a group called The Reapers who released boring christian cassetes like this sad Ronald guy. There are a few tracks of these cassetes on KZbin: v=7JgCxu1XdPM v=pxWwhPMCCa4

[@adrienfourniercom]

Shoji Tabuchi's 1st country show?

[@knd1379]

The last tape reminded me of Brighter Death Now or Atrax Morgue...I jest

[@TheMoogleMaster]

Lol, that was a good one.

[@Dannypuck]

Hot Focus Group Action

[@dorourke105]

I think I only got 4 of those impressions right, my score is a little high than yours but that's not saying much

[@generalskunk6876]

AW YEEEAAAAHHHHH

[@TMS5100]

@26:08 the word you're looking for is "pretentious"

[@daveb5041]

Who is steve hackette? Your math teacher?

[@TheCocoAnarchy93]

Dave B Steve Hackett (The guitarist for Genesis) from 1971 to 1977.

[@benwhackley]

Ooh boy