Ra may have been (…) a self-made myth, but the contours of the myth were shaped by a kind of symbiotic dialogue, an inter-textual relationship, with the main narrative threads of African American history. This myth was not the work of a madman or a con man, but one of the most brilliant and comprehensive acts of self-representation in black culture.” – Graham Lock (in Blutopia)

Sun Ra, the uncontested leader of The Solar Myth Arkestra, was born Herman Poole Blount. The space jazz pioneer was 38 when he changed his name and fully embraced the possibilities of political self-affirmation. Using music, Sun Ra dedicated a lifetime to promoting his grand project of betterment for humanity.

Le Sony’r Ra (Sun Ra’s legal name) was born in Birmingham, Alabama. He relocated to Chicago in the 1940s where he acquired notoriety as a capable and prolific musician. The time Sun Ra spent performing in Illinois’ largest city had a profound impact on his art and political vision.

Throughout the 1950s, he radicalized his approach to music and performance. Sun Ra and his Arkestra traveled to Montreal in the summer of 1961 but unforeseen circumstances forced the ensemble to return south of the border earlier than anticipated. Sun Ra and his musicians eventually settled in New York City. It is there that The Magic City and the ensemble’s liberating jazz fully came to life.

The Magic City was first released on vinyl in 1966 by Sun Ra’s own Saturn label. The album was then reissued in two formats – LP and Stereo 8 – by Impulse records. The album’s title track was recorded during rehearsals that took place late in 1965. It has been suggested that the sessions were edited to fit on one side of an LP. It is worth noting that “The Magic City” occupies the greater part of three of an 8-track cartridge’s four programs.

The album’s title is a direct reference to Sun Ra’s birthplace in Alabama but it also serves as a means or appropriating and repositioning the past within a vision of the future. The Magic City is a metaphor for the transformations made possible by the redrawing of boundaries and the removal of identity constraints. It forms parts of Sun Ra’s grand project. John Szwed, in The Wire Primers, insists that “there had been other great attempts at collective improvisation (…) but none had the seamless quality of The Magic City; nor its secret formalism.

The excerpt below was converted from 8-track tape to digital audio. The version of “The Magic City” available here is enriched by occasional audio-bleed (adjacent tracks can be heard on the left hand side – this is known as double-tracking).

…challenging, but not necessarily unpleasant for the ear.

“the magic city”

Stereo 8 (Impulse Records A 8027-9243) – Track Listing:
Program A: The Magic City (part 1)
Program B: The Magic City (part 2)
Program C: The Magic City (part 3) – The Shadow World (part 1)
Program D: The Shadow World (part 2) – Abstract Eye – Abstract “I”

LP – Track Listing:
Side A: The Magic City
Side B: The Shadow World – Abstract Eye – Abstract “I”

DEDICATED TO THAT GREAT COSMIC UNSEEN  (World Galaxy liner notes)

On January 12, 2007, Alice Coltrane was reunited in death with her late husband John Coltrane. The two had been married for less than two years when he passed away in 1967. During the four decades that followed, Alice released a stream of stunning albums, many of which paid tribute to the visionary spirit of the jazz saxophonist.

Alice played piano for the Terry Gibbs quartet when she met John in 1963. She quit performing for a couple of years and eventually secured a place for herself within John Coltrane’s group. The band was then undergoing a musical transformation. John’s playing had become infused with spiritual urgency. This was a time of experimentation and it is within that context that Alice began to explore the sonic possibilities of the harp.

Alice’s first solo effort was released in 1968. The album was meant as a tribute to her late husband. But it is with World Galaxy – recorded in autumn of 1971 – that she most eloquently celebrated the richness of his legacy. The session produced five songs: three original compositions and new interpretations of John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” and “A Love Supreme.”

World Galaxy opens with a poignant rendition of “My Favorite Things.” The band’s performance is augmented with a string section which helps elevate this John Coltrane signature piece to new heights. The fragile arrangements hold together superbly well. This is music from beyond this world.

Alice’s music often served as a vehicle for spiritual pursuits. She believed that her husband’s music served similar purposes.

A higher principle is involved here. Some of his (Coltrane’s) latest work aren’t musical compositions. I mean they weren’t based entirely on music. A lot if it has to do with mathematics, some on rhythmic structure and the power of repetition, some of elementals. He always felt that sound was the first manifestation in creation before music. I would like to play music according to ideals set forth by John and continue to let a cosmic principle, or the aspect of spirituality, be the underlying reality behind the music as he did (Quoted in Bill Cole’s John Coltrane).

Alice’s sixth solo effort closes with “A Love Supreme.” This last song is based on the landmark four-part suite John Coltrane released in 1965. On this album, the saxophonist performed a devotional poem (using his saxophone instead of words). On World Galaxy, Alice substitutes a poem of her own which is read out by her spiritual leader Swami Satchidananda.

Let that Love Supreme reign over the universe
Om shanti
Shanti
Shanti
Hariom

No discontinuations allowed on this Stereo 8 version of World Galaxy. This is profoundly beautiful music and it is meant to flow with a graceful intensity.

World Galaxy is but one of many splendid albums Alice Coltrane left behind before departing for another world. It is music for the great cosmic unseen.

“Program A: My Favorite Things / Galaxy Around Oludumare”

Stereo 8 (Impulse Records V 8027-9218) – Track Listing:
Program A: My Favorite Things – Galaxy Around Oludumare
Program B: Galaxy Around Satchidananda
Program C: Galaxy in Turiya
Program D: A Love Supreme

LP – Track Listing:
Side A: My Favorite Things – Galaxy Around Oludumare – Galaxy in Turiya
Side B: Galaxy Around Satchidananda – A Love Supreme

Ornette Coleman

Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart) secured for himself a seat in the pantheon of modern music with the release of Trout Mask Replica in the summer of 1969. Few people, however, understood what he and his Magic Band were up to at the turn of that decade. This did not stop Lester Bangs from claiming that Captain Beefheart was “one of the giants of 20th century music.” Bangs was an ardent supporter of Don Van Vliet and – like many others – he perpetuated certain myths about the man and his musical output.

Many books and articles have been published recently in an effort to describe more accurately the processes behind the making of Captain Beefheart’s albums. A recent noteworthy book is Kevin Courrier’s Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica. This short yet highly engaging and informative 33 1/3 publication is the perfect companion for Don Van Vliet’s seminal album. Steve Froy, “Beefheartologist” and core member of The Captain Beefheart Radar Station, agrees with me – he recommends the book to both “long-time fans” and “Trout Mask virgins.”

Trout Mask Replica is a bizarre amalgamation of various sounds ranging from delta blues and free jazz to psychedelic rock and experimental music. Courrier enthusiastically describes the album as “a scrapbook collection of songs and poems, impishly acted out with Dadaist abandon and jack-in-the-box hijinks, performed with jagged rhythms and sharp conflicting atonal melodies.”

Courrier discovered Trout Mask Replica in the early 1970s. At first, he felt intimidated by the album cover. He was already familiar with Zappa’s strange artwork but this Straight Records release was something else. “The front cover of Trout Mask Replica didn’t seem funny at all,” writes Courrier in his book. “It was earnest rather than satirical. It exuded a quiet comfort about its own weirdness which just added to my discomfort looking at it.”

I sent Courrier a scan of the Stereo 8 version of Trout Mask Replica and asked him if he would have reacted differently to the music had he discovered the album on 8-track instead of vinyl. He looked at the cartridge and noted that the format made the trout mask look like a minnow’s head. “Hardly overwhelming,” he added.

As was usually the case with 8-track tapes, songs had to be reorganized to fit into four programs. Record labels generally shuffled the material around in order to minimize song discontinuation. Reprise Records got it right with this one – the label was able to maintain the integrity of each song.

But still, how serious of an offense was it to change the song sequence of Trout Mask Replica?

“Although the changes aren’t dramatically jarring, it does change the integrity of the record,” replied Courrier. “Both Beefheart and Zappa had reasons for putting the songs in the order they appear on the album. In this manner, the 8-track alters the album’s concept and listening experience in a way that doesn’t reflect the true intentions of the artists.”

In the end, most people probably failed to notice the changes considering that cartridges usually ended up being fed into defective or unreliable car 8-track players. “It’s hard to imagine anyone back then playing this album in their car while driving on the highway,” Courrier wrote in one of our email exchanges. But is it really?

Lester Bangs once acquired a copy of Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music on 8-track so he could play it while on the road. He must have had a copy of Trout Mask Replica stashed somewhere in the glove compartment or under the front seat of his car.

I should also add that I own two versions of the album on 8-track.

28 songs played in a continuous loop – that’s enough to take anyone anywhere.

PROGRAM B (see track listing below)

Stereo 8 (Reprise Records 8RJ-2027) – Track Listing:
Program A: Frownland – The Dust Blows Forward ‘N The Dust Blows Back – Dachau Blues – Ella Guru – Hair Pie: Bake 1 – Moonlight in Vermont – Sweet Sweet Bulbs
Program B: Pachuco Cadaver – Bills Corpse – Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish – China Pig – My Human Gets Me The Blues – Dali’s Car – Sugar ‘N Spikes
Program C: Hair Pie: Bake 2 – Pena – Well – Ant Man Bee – Orange Claw Hammer – Wild Life – The Blimb (mousetrapreplica)
Program D: When Big Joan Sets Up – Fallin’ Ditch – She’s Too Much for My Mirror – Hobo Chang Ba – Steal Softly Thru Snow – Old fart at Play – Veteran’s Day Poppy

LP – Track Listing:
Side A: Frownland – The Dust Blows Forward ‘N The Dust Blows Back – Dachau Blues – Ella Guru – Hair Pie: Bake 1 – Moonlight in Vermont
Side B: Pachuco Cadaver – Bills Corpse – Sweet Sweet Bulbs– Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish – China Pig – My Human Gets Me The Blues – Dali’s Car
Side C: Hair Pie: Bake 2 – Pena – Well – When Big Joan Sets Up – Fallin’ Ditch – Sugar ‘N Spikes – Ant Man Bee
Side D: Orange Claw Hammer – Wild Life – She’s Too Much for My Mirror – Hobo Chang Ba – The Blimb (mousetrapreplica) – Steal Softly Thru Snow – Old fart at Play – Veteran’s Day Poppy

Kraftwerk launched its machine music revolution in 1974.

Autobahn, the band’s fourth album, offered the means of penetrating and transforming the rigid English and US markets. However, it should be noted that Kraftwerk’s initial success was made possible by truncating Autobahn’s title track – a 23-minute opus – to make it fit on a 7”. The single charted in many countries and served to establish Kraftwerk as the precursor to a new wave of popular electronic dance music.

It has since become commonplace to associate the birth of tanzmusik (dance music) with Kraftwerk’s fourth studio effort – that is despite the fact that the band’s first “Tanzmusik” appeared a year earlier on an album which has yet to be officially re-issued.

Kraftwerk’s third effort, Ralf und Florian, was recorded during the summer of 1973. The album has often been overlooked due to its position between the more experimental Kraftwerk 2 and the more commercially successful Autobahn. It also did not help that Kraftwerk’s founding members, Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider, generally avoided promoting and discussing the band’s early recordings. A certain silence has, therefore, been maintained concerning the 1970-1973 period.

There was, however, no room for silence on the Stereo 8 version of Ralf und Florian. Vertigo Records divided and reorganized the six songs to make them fit into four programs of 9 minutes and 51 seconds each. As was usually the case with 8-tracks, a number of songs had to be cut into two parts. It would have been possible to change the song order to limit discontinuation to “Ananas Symphonie” but not without leaving moments of silence at the end of two of the four programs (this was usually avoided since most early 8-track players did not have fast forward buttons).

Considering that song discontinuation was inevitable, it is surprising that Vertigo chose to reorganize the material instead of leaving the song sequence as is. On the vinyl version, the sequence alternates between synth/beatbox-driven songs and more abstract pieces. The 8-track cartridge, on the other hand, pairs some of those songs (see track listing below) creating a somewhat more fluid and coherent feel.

The Stereo 8 version of Ralf und Florian opens with “Elektrisches Roulette” (a disorienting song characterized by a circling succession of motifs that multiply and never really seem to resolve). This opening piece enwraps the listener and sets the mood for the album’s four programs. Ralf und Florian is definitely a transitional album in the way it artfully combines drum machines, various synthesizers, guitars, percussion instruments, flutes and a prototype vocoder to create anachronistic sonic collages. Vertigo’s cartridge concludes with an ethereal piece of machine music (“Tanzmusik”) and an ambient-like postscript (“Tongebirge”) which prefigure the sound of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn.

This is the first true tanzmusik and you can find it on vinyl or tape (or compact disc if you don’t mind unauthorized reissues).

Listen to program D: “Tanzmusik” & “Tongebirge”
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Stereo 8 (Vertigo VC8 – 2006) – Track Listing:
Program A: “Elektrisches Roulette” / “Kristallo” (beg.)
Program B: “Kristallo” (conclu.) / “Heimatklange” / “Ananas Symphonie” (beg.)
Program C: “Ananas Symphonie” (conclu.)
Program D: “Tanzmusik” / “Tongebirge”

LP – Track Listing:
Side 1: ““Elektrisches Roulette” / “Tongebirge” / “Kristallo” / “Heimatklange”
Side 2: “Tanzmusik” / “Ananas Symphonie”

English titles: “Electric Roulette” / “Mountain of Sound” / “Crystals” / The Bells of Home” / “Dance Music” / “Pineapple Symphony”

Does the rise of electronic music foreshadow the end of the era of interpreters? Are performing musicians to be condemned in the future to go on playing only old instrumental music for some “collegium musicum” concerts and in tape-recordings for music museums?

It is a fact that in the evolution of instrumental music the performing musician has been condemned more and more to converting increasingly complicated scores into tones. Musicians became a sort of machine substitute, and finally there no longer remained any room for “free decision,” for interpretation in the best sense of the word. It was an entirely natural development that the realization of sounds was finally transferred to electronic apparatuses and machines. These apparatuses produce the desired results exactly according to technical data; and besides, one does not have to persuade them for hours on end in discussions about the meaning of new music before they will produce a single note.

- Karlheinz Stockhausen (1958)

The above quote suggests that Karlheinz Stockhausen, in the late 1950s, had reservations about working on new music with large ensembles. It might, therefore, seem ironic that in 1958 Stockhausen decided to premiere “Gruppen”, a large-scale orchestral work necessitating 109 musicians and three conductors.

Stockhausen composed “Gruppen” during the summer of 1955. It was then scored in 1957 in anticipation of the March 24, 1958, performance which had been commissioned by the Cologne Radio WDR.

“Gruppen” was an avant-garde work of massive proportion. It was meant to be performed by three groups of musicians (36-37-36) spatially positioned in a horseshow shape. The same instruments were represented in each of the three groups. “Gruppen” necessarily depended on the presence of three conductors.

On the night of the premiere, Stockhausen directed the orchestra with the help of Bruno Maderna (Orchestra II – middle) and Pierre Boulez (Orchestra III – right). The version available here was recorded in 1965 on the eve of a tour that brought “Gruppen” to the rest of Europe. Boulez did not participate in the tour and so Michael Gielen was brought in to direct Orchestra III.

On a theoretical and logistical level, “Gruppen” is a work with few, if any, precedents. But most importantly, it is a music that occupies space in ways that are both enthralling and intoxicating.

Andrew Clements, writing for The Guardian, best describes “Gruppen” when he notes that the piece “became an exploration of mass – of music that turns and twists in space, that superimposes massive accelerations, decelerations and dynamic contrasts, that delights in all the possibilities of three independent groups playing together.”

“Gruppen” is undoubtedly best experienced in a live setting. The stereo version released on the Deutsche Grammophon label was adapted from a three-channel recording. A quadraphonic version of the performance (front, left, right, back) would have been a reasonable compromise but few labels, in the 1970s, showed a willingness to embrace quadraphonic technology.

Like all stereo formats, Stereo 8 offers an imperfect audio document of the 1965 performance. But in the absence of alternatives, we will have to content ourselves with the 8 track cartridges, LPs and compact discs available here and there in record shops and online.

Listen to programs A and B below.

GRUPPEN – FOR THREE ORCHESTRAS (part one and two)

Stereo 8 (Deutsche Grammophon DC8 – M 87002) – Track Listing:
Programme A: “Gruppen” for Three Orchestras (part one)
Programme B: “Gruppen” for Three Orchestras (part two) / “Carré” for Four Orchestras and Four Choirs (part one)
Programme C: “Carré” for Four Orchestras and Four Choirs (part two)
Programme D: “Carré” for Four Orchestras and Four Choirs (part three)

LP – Track Listing:
Side 1: “Gruppen” for Three Orchestras
Side 2: “Carré” for Four Orchestras and Four Choirs

—————————————————————————————

1998 City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra performance below:

Conductors -
Orchestra Red: Simon Rattle
Orchestra Blue: John Carewe
Orchestra Green: Daniel Harding

Anyone familiar with CAN would be terribly upset to put on Monster Movie and not hear a nervous hi-hat and the rhythmic throbbing associated with the opening segment of “Father Cannot Yell”. Stereo 8 enthusiasts, however, have learned that CAN’s debut album is nothing but a collection of mind-blowing compositions and improvisations. The song sequence, in this specific case, perhaps does not matter all that much.

CAN formed in 1968 and it is somehow pertinent to mention that some of the band members spent time studying with Karlheinz Stockhausen before they discovered the potency of rock ‘n’ roll music. Holger Czukay and Irmin Schmidt joined Michael Karoli, David Johnson and free jazz drummer Jaki Liebezeit in the summer of 1968 with the hope of making music that would be both singular and forward-looking. They succeeded – but not before they lost Johnson and found vocalist Malcolm Mooney, an African-American visual-arts artist who helped CAN reach the apex of krautrock excellence.

“Unlike the Kosmische music of most of the other great German bands, Can had stylised themselves from the beginning as raw and expressionist, with clearly defined boundaries,” Julian Cope notes in Krautrocksampler.

Monster Movie is the band’s first full-length effort and the only legitimate album featuring Mooney on vocals (if we exclude compilations and the reunion album). CAN’s 1969 release is an exercise in control and restraint – four songs borne out of a desire to maintain simple, yet highly-dynamic, linear sound sculptures. Monster Movie is insistent rock ‘n’ roll music that would have been impossible without the combined efforts of the band’s four instrumentalists. Yet Cope and Eric Deshayes are both correct to insist that, in the late 1960s, CAN came together thanks to Mooney’s driving energy and personality.

The Stereo 8 version of Monster Movie begins with “Yoo Doo Right” instead of “Father Cannot Yell”. The decision to alter the song sequence makes some chronological sense since the twenty-minute “Yoo Doo Right”. was recorded before the band entered the studio to lay down tracks for the album. The song also positions Mooney at the very center of the band’s improvisation.

“Avec les vingt minutes de ‘Yoo Doo Right’ la synthèse est faite,” says Deshayes. The author of Au-Delà du Rock pertinently argues that the song represents a pivotal moment in the band’s early history. It allowed the band to gel together and provided clear indications that CAN were destined to pioneer new paths in the realms of what would later be called post-rock and post-jazz.

The 8 track cartridge is not the most adaptable format. Dividing an album in four equal programs is not always possible (“Yoo Doo Right” is split between programs 1 and 2). It is also not unusual to end up with more tape than necessary which means that a song needs to be repeated if a long silence is to be avoided.

In this specific case, Liberty Records had the great idea to add an extra song (“Soul Desert”) in order to use up the excess tape. Audiophiles who purchased Monster Movie on 8-track were, therefore, rewarded with bonus material.

“Soul Desert” was written by CAN for the film Mädchen… nur mit Gewalt. The song also appears on the 1970 Soundtracks album.

Listen to Program 4:

PROGRAM 4 – FATHER CANNOT YELL / SOUL DESERT

Stereo 8 (Liberty 8 9148) – Track Listing:
Program 1: You Doo Right (part 1)
Program 2: You Doo Right (part 2)
Program 3: Mary, Mary, So Contrary / Outside My Door
Program 4: Father Cannot Yell / Soul Desert

LP – Track Listing:
Side A: Father Cannot Yell / Mary, Mary, So Contrary / Outside My Door
Side B: You Doo Right

My week beats your year. – Lou Reed

Metal Machine Music is certainly an unusual musical statement for an established rock artist – even for someone like Lou Reed with credentials in the avant-garde and the deep underground of New York’s art scene. Was Reed fulfilling contractual obligations? Was the album meant as an art manifesto? Was it an attempt to reconnect with the drone-based sound of John Cale and The Dream Syndicate? Or maybe Metal Machine Music is both a giant fuck you to the industry and a testament to Reed’s sophisticated and refined “pince-sans-rire” humor.

In 1975, Lester Bangs proposed six theories concerning Metal Machine Music. The list appeared in the September issue of Creem Magazine under the title “Monolith or Monotone?”

1. The new Lou Reed album is “some kind of ultimate antisocial act.”
2. It is the logical and inevitable culmination of aggressive tendencies that find their roots in early Velvet Underground albums and the Stooges’ Fun House.
3. It is the sound of anxiety. (“You know when you get so tense and anxiety-ridden that all the nerves at the back of your neck snarl up into one burning ball? Well, if that gland could make music, it would sound like this album.”)
4. Metal Machine Music is Reed’s circulatory system amplified.
5. The album is a corporate death wish in the form of a commercial suicide.
6. or “anybody who doesn’t jack off at least three times a day is a queer.”

A few months later, Bangs thought it necessary to add:

“When you wake up in the morning with the worst hangover of your life, Metal Machine Music is the best medicine. Because when you first arise you’re probably so fucked (i.e., still drunk) that is doesn’t even really hurt yet (not like it’s going to), so you should put this album on immediately, not only to clear all the crap out of your head, but to prepare you for what’s in store the rest of the day.”

Ultimately, both Reed and RCA Records thought the material was solid enough to release the album in multiple formats (double LP and 8-track). It seemed like a good idea at the time.  Bangs himself admitted to having acquired an additional copy of Metal Machine Music so he could listen to the album in his car.

The belief in the sonic possibilities of Reed’s 1975 effort was such that RCA records decided to make quadraphonic versions of Metal Machine Music available (it was either a bold move or an act of despair from company executives).

Quadraphonic audio formats were introduced early in 1970 and within a few years hundreds of releases became available in both stereo and four-channel surround sound. Unfortunately, Quad technology disappeared before the decade ended but not before Metal Machine Music, the holy grail of 8 track cartridges, hit the market.

——————————————————————–

It would be futile to try to reproduce Quad audio here. You are instead getting an excerpt from the Quad-8 cartridge played through a stereo player.

Half of the music – and a new perspective on Metal Machine Music.
METAL MACHINE MUSIC – A1

Or you can listen to the complete stereo version.
METAL MACHINE MUSIC – PART 1

——————————————————————–

Q8 Stereo 8 (RCA Records CPT2-1101) – Track Listing:
Programme A: Metal Machine Music A-1
Programme B: Metal Machine Music A-2
Programme C: Metal Machine Music A-3
Programme D: Metal Machine Music A-4

LP – Track Listing:
Side 1: Metal Machine Music Part 1
Side 2: Metal Machine Music Part 2
Side 3: Metal Machine Music Part 3
Side 4: Metal Machine Music Part 4

——————————————————————–

I can think of many ways to answer that question but the reality is that the impulse to return to the topic of 8 track tapes came after I received a very intriguing present: a cassette adapter for 8 track players.

You might think of Stereo 8 tapes as being completely obsolete, yet somehow they are not nearly as irrelevant as cassettes. The former belong to a period for which we have developed a certain nostalgic attachment. 8 track tapes are associated with the tail end of post-war modern design in home furnishing and stereo equipment. Most importantly, they represent the first real possibility of transportability. In 1965, Ford Motor Company equipped a number of new vehicles with 8 track players, thereby liberating a generation of drivers from the airwaves. Portable players soon followed.

Records labels were quick to adopt the format. By the mid-1970s, building an extensive music library of 8 track cartridges seemed realistic. Audiophiles could even add quadraphonic tapes to their collection – from Sun Ra to Kraftwerk and to Lou Reed to name but a few.

Audio cassettes suffered a different fate. Although they first appeared in the mid-1960s, cassettes had to wait until the late 1970s to stand alongside vinyl records as a legitimate format. But it was already too late. The cassette lacked the appeal of novelty and simply served as a substitute for the 8 track cartridge. It is true that the audio cassette offered substantial improvements on its predecessor but its demise was apparent from the very beginning. Today, portable music is synonymous with MP3 players, not the walkmans that fill bins at flea markets and the Salvation Army.

The idea of a cassette adapter for 8 track players may, therefore, seem bewildering. I would like to describe the gift I received as doublement désuet.

But not everyone is willing to see 8 track tapes and cassettes as relics from the past. Both formats can count on a substantial number of supporters who continue to believe in what seems like the failed promises of easy-to-carry magnetic tapes. The independent film So Wrong They’re Right is a perfect example. So are tape revivalist labels such as Tape Tektoniks and Montreal’s Pasalymany Tapes.

I am not certain that I can gather enough enthusiasm to start piling more tapes on the already cluttered rear seat of my 1973 Dodge Dart. Adding carrying cases filled with cassettes is not an option, nor is reverting to an iPod player – poor AM radio reception does not allow for synchronization and I don’t see myself playing an iPod through a connecting pack hooked up to a cassette adapter that I would need to jam into my 8 track player.

Ultimately, I am not concerned with enlarging the music library I currently store on the rear seat and in the glove compartment. I have grown content with the uncertain sound of wobbling tapes coming from the back of the car. I like to think that is the way some music was meant to be heard. Yet I will hold on to the cassette adapter because of what it really offers: a means to remember what it felt like when you knew things were moving forward without really knowing how fast they were moving.

———————————————————————————

So Wrong They’re Right is an ode to a peculiar group of individuals whose fascination for the obsolete Stereo 8 format resulted in their exclusion from the mainstream of modern popular culture. The film is filled with anecdotes and oddities that are sure to entertain. But its greatest achievement resides in the fact that it is the only ethnographic-like study of the 8-track underground.

So Wrong They’re Right is the brainchild of fanzine-editor-turned filmmaker Russ Forster. The documentary is in many ways a 16 mm version of 8-Track Mind, a Chicago-based fanzine Forster published with friends and various collaborators throughout the 1990s. “Trackers” from all over the US contributed to the fanzine and it is those people that Forster decided to interview for the film.

In 1994, Forster and Dan Sutherland, a fellow Stereo 8 enthusiast, set out on a 30-day road trip to meet “trackers.” They covered 10 000 miles and the adventure ultimately earned them Best Documentary award at the Chicago Underground Film Festival.

So Wrong They’re Right begins with Forster reminding us that this “is not just a chronicling of an underground network of 8-track eccentrics. This is a statement of active outrage and rebellion from a group of people who have opted-out of a disposable consumer culture that has been laid out for them to embrace in the spirit of growth or progress.”

“Trackers” do not form a homogeneous group but the film makes it clear that, despite their differences, 8-track enthusiasts all belong to the “cartridge family.” It is in that spirit that the individuals interviewed share, mostly without inhibition, their own experiences and obsessions for the obsolete format.

“Every time you play an 8-track, the tape gets a little bit hazier and a little fuzzier, you never really know … is this the last time I am going to hear this … there is this process … this transfer going on between the 8-track and your memory,” Jeff Economy tells the camera.

The unreliability of the format explains why Forster and Sutherland stopped in Seattle, Washington, for a quick tutorial on how to fix broken cartridges. Other “trackers” interviewed include, among others, store owners who lament the disappearance of Stereo 8 tapes, an 8-track librarian turned 8-track superstar, a man whose entrepreneurial spirit allowed him to develop a highly profitable business out of reselling rare tapes, and an Illinois resident who stood up (unsuccessfully) to Columbia House Record Club to keep Stereo 8 alive.

There are also the incredible San Diego “Eye Dance” performers who remind us that all of it is a combination of fun and mild insanity. Together, the above individuals form part of an underground network that sits on the margin of consumer culture trapped somewhere between pop nostalgia and dissent.

So Wrong They’re Right is very much like the format it celebrates. The film’s narrative is presented in fragments and the thoughts presented are often interrupted. The film is a raw collage of interviews and footage with abrupt and rapid jumps that prevent the ideas presented and introduced to flow smoothly. There are also moments when the voice is not in sync with the image which suggest that Forster and Sutherland might have experienced post-production problems. It is also possible that they intended it that way.

The insertion, in So Wrong They’re Right, of a short-film titled My Vision of America plays with our perception of what is intentional or not (although it is quite obvious here). The short film follows a Stereo 8 tape delivery boy throughout New Orleans. The music that accompanies the short film slows down and warbles just like the music coming out of an old 8-track player, whereas the image is reminiscent of an old classic in need of restoration.

So Wrong They’re Right is not a classic but it is a healthy mix of humor and passion. It is a film which speaks loudly about consumerism and mainstream culture without taking itself too seriously. It is also very much about compulsive behaviors although that is not made so obvious. The portrait it paints of the “cartridge family” is an honest and enjoyable one. Just like the 8-track tape, So Wrong They’re Right is far from perfect but it is worth playing to see where it will take you.