Skating Master
This evening, I digitized the three hours of the "TRS On Location At Skatetown" original unedited master cassettes from Saturday, October 30, 1982. It's three hours of a distorted, incoherent, unorganized mess of a recording made later the same day as the original recording session for the first "Randy Haney Comedy Hour", which I digitized in its complete form a few nights ago.
When I took the small portable monophonic Craig branded cassette recorder to Skatetown that Halloween Eve, I really had no idea what I was going to do or what purpose the recording would serve. During the recording, I mention to some of the other voices, like Randy Haney, who worked at Skatetown at the time behind the counter, handing out skates to the patrons, that the background noises I was recording would probably be used as sound effects to be dubbed in if we ever made an in-studio recording taking place at a skating rink.
Instead, since there were a few interesting voice segments scattered throughout the three hours I recorded, I decided to do some editing, concentrate on those segments, and turn it into a Tape and Record Show Enterprises "special presentation", and premiered it as a 90-minute distorted, incoherent, unorganized mess of a special on New Year's Eve of 1982. What was digitized tonight was everything as originally recorded. I digitized the edited special "broadcast" version a couple years back. Only so much could be done with the sound, as in the edited version. The Craig branded monophonic cassette recorder wasn't exactly "premium quality", neither were the tapes used, two 90-minute "Swire Intermagnetics" branded cassettes. The music played over the Skatetown sound system was very loud, so if anyone spoke into the microphone, they had to speak loud, thus increasing distortion. There was no recording level on the cassette recorder.
Voices heard were myself, Randy Haney, Don Owens, Michelle Haney, Lori Boyd (identifying as 'Aldo Nova', and referring to Randy as 'Weasel'), Judy Melton, and a few unidentified people, including an older guy, who looked and sounded like an Andy Devine clone. Even his laugh sounded like Andy Devine. Thinking back, maybe it was just a VERY good Halloween costume. Didn't get a photo of the guy, but took a few photos of some of the other participants that evening with my old Kodak Instamatic 110 camera. There were a few offensive "politically incorrect" remarks made by some unidentified young kid into the microphone.
Random observation: Both original 90-minute cassettes had sound degradation on the second side of the tapes compared to the first side. I'm thinking it might have been a distortion / tape head issue on the cassette recorder at the time. The original "masters" were stored in a closet for nearly 41 years after the original 90-minute "broadcast" edit was made in late 1982. Any copies made since then were made from the "broadcast" version.
When I took the small portable monophonic Craig branded cassette recorder to Skatetown that Halloween Eve, I really had no idea what I was going to do or what purpose the recording would serve. During the recording, I mention to some of the other voices, like Randy Haney, who worked at Skatetown at the time behind the counter, handing out skates to the patrons, that the background noises I was recording would probably be used as sound effects to be dubbed in if we ever made an in-studio recording taking place at a skating rink.
Instead, since there were a few interesting voice segments scattered throughout the three hours I recorded, I decided to do some editing, concentrate on those segments, and turn it into a Tape and Record Show Enterprises "special presentation", and premiered it as a 90-minute distorted, incoherent, unorganized mess of a special on New Year's Eve of 1982. What was digitized tonight was everything as originally recorded. I digitized the edited special "broadcast" version a couple years back. Only so much could be done with the sound, as in the edited version. The Craig branded monophonic cassette recorder wasn't exactly "premium quality", neither were the tapes used, two 90-minute "Swire Intermagnetics" branded cassettes. The music played over the Skatetown sound system was very loud, so if anyone spoke into the microphone, they had to speak loud, thus increasing distortion. There was no recording level on the cassette recorder.
Voices heard were myself, Randy Haney, Don Owens, Michelle Haney, Lori Boyd (identifying as 'Aldo Nova', and referring to Randy as 'Weasel'), Judy Melton, and a few unidentified people, including an older guy, who looked and sounded like an Andy Devine clone. Even his laugh sounded like Andy Devine. Thinking back, maybe it was just a VERY good Halloween costume. Didn't get a photo of the guy, but took a few photos of some of the other participants that evening with my old Kodak Instamatic 110 camera. There were a few offensive "politically incorrect" remarks made by some unidentified young kid into the microphone.
Random observation: Both original 90-minute cassettes had sound degradation on the second side of the tapes compared to the first side. I'm thinking it might have been a distortion / tape head issue on the cassette recorder at the time. The original "masters" were stored in a closet for nearly 41 years after the original 90-minute "broadcast" edit was made in late 1982. Any copies made since then were made from the "broadcast" version.