Maxell

#1235: Revisiting Trillion Dollar Treats

RECORD STORE TALES #1235: Revisiting Trillion Dollar Treats

Three years ago, I wanted to replace my old Technics tape deck.  The belts were worn out and I don’t have the skill to replace them.  I headed over to Max the Axe’s Garage Sale, AKA “Trillion Dollar Treats” and bought a Kenwood.  That Kenwood lasted a couple years, but started to act up and crackle when playing tapes recently.  I decided to go back to  Trillion Dollar Treats and see what Maxie had for sale this time.  Max collects old tech, and he had three decks for me to look at.

Unfortunately, Max, our rock star superhero, is recovering from an augmentation.  His brand new titanium hip is causing him some pain, but we still managed to find a good tape deck in the collection.  Max also had some “not for sale” goodies that I just had to take pictures of, for the memories.

The new tape deck was the mission.  I own several things on tape that don’t exist on CD (though as reissues become more comprehensive, that list gets shorter every year).  I want to be able to play and archive my cassettes (and any new ones that I buy) without crackle.  As time goes on, there are fewer and fewer tracks that only exist on cassette, but I also seem to acquire more tapes as the years go on.  I still like the option to play them, and archive the tracks digitally.

Max had several decks, including a rack-mounted one, but I made my choice after only one quick demo.  I picked the Onkyo pictured below, and it does indeed sound great.  I am considering putting a Helix rarity that I own online, that has now been archived in better quality.  Of course, the issue there is, if I put it online, it’s no longer a rarity, is it?  Still, my Helix tape sounds better now than in the past 35 years of playing on other decks.

 

After purchasing my new deck, for which Max threw in two sealed Maxell blank tapes, I had a look around Trillion Dollar Treats to see what else Max had in his collection.  While not for sale, the below items tickled my fancy enough to share with you.

 

NEW!  As seen on TV!  Curl-A-Dog hot dog slicer.  Because who doesn’t need this?  Bonus 20 hot dog recipes, in case you’re cooking impaired.

 

Alterego Voice Decoder!  Three different vocal effects for you to use:  “Monster”, “Alien” and just an amplification.  Masks pictured but not included.

 

Light-Up Shoelaces!  For those who thought my Croclights were cool.

 

Electric Plane Launcher.  From Middlesex University!  I do wish I was better at folding paper airplanes.  Maybe that is a new hobby I should look into this summer.  This can launch them up to four meters!  But the warning states, this is NOT a toy.

 

Golf Selfie Clip.  I know Max does enjoy golfing, but now I expect selfies when his hip heals up.

 

Best of all… the Flying Bat.  Only takes 2 AA batteries.  I would like to see this baby take on my drone.

Even though all of these things are totally awesome and hilarious, Max did dig up one more thing that is not for sale… yet.

In storage, Max found an old reel to reel tape, a master recording of six songs.   It weathered the elements over the decades by remaining sealed in plastic.  The tape contains Max the Axe recordings, including versions of songs that we have never heard before, along with some familiar classics:  “Please Please”, “Magnum P.I.”, “6 Gun”, “Why Do You Talk” and “401”.

The tape appeared to be in good shape, but later that day, Max acquired a working reel to reel player, just to hear them and hopefully do a transfer.  Ultimately we hope these songs will be mastered for release.

It was a great morning spent with Max the Axe at Trillion Dollar Treats.  Stay tuned as there should be more music coming in the months ahead, from Max the Swingin’ Axe!  Stay tuned, for if we are lucky, more music is coming soon.

 

#1220: The Maxell Tapes and the Rules of Acquisition

RECORD STORE TALES #1220: The Maxell Tapes and the Rules of Acquisition

The year was 1997.  We carried blank tapes at the Beat Goes On, and had for some time.  I believe in 1997 we were carrying Maxell tapes of various grades.  After that, we switched to Sony.  We only carried two lengths, which were the most popular:  60 minutes, and 90 minutes.

We sold them as singles, and we also created “bricks” of three tapes, by using Scotch tape to package them together.  We would sell the “bricks” for a discount compared to single tapes.  Obviously with this being so long ago, I cannot remember the exact pricing, so let’s say it went like this:

  • Maxell UR60 – $1.59 each
  • Maxell UR90 – $1.99 each
  • 3 pack brick of Maxell UR60 – $3.99 each
  • 3 pack brick of Maxell UR90 – $4.99 each

We also sold the Maxell XL-II tapes which were more expensive, but let’s keep things simple for these purposes.  We’ll just talk about the UR tapes.

One afternoon, we were running low on tapes and waiting for a restock order.  I had sold out of the UR90 bricks, but still had some singles for sale.

A girl walked up to the counter and asked if she could get a deal if she bought three Maxell UR90 tapes.  I said sure, and grabbed my calculator so see what it would be.  I punched in some numbers, and didn’t check my math.  Having clumsy fingers, I have learned I need to punch in numbers twice when adding on a calculator, but back then I wasn’t in this habit.

“$5.99 for three tapes,” I told her.

“Sounds good,” she said.  We processed the transaction and she left happily with her three Maxell UR90 tapes.

Only then did I realize that I charged her more than the three tapes would have sold for originally.

“Damn!!” I said out loud.  I ripped her off.

We had a saying for when we ripped off a customer, either on purpose or by accident.  (An example of “on purpose” would include selling a “used” copy of a CD as “new”, which we sometimes did when a sufficiently mint “used/new” copy came in.)  The saying was this:

“Pure profit.”

Like a Ferengi reciting the rules of acquisition, I consoled myself with the knowledge that the bossman made an extra three cents that day on some Maxell blank tapes.

FERENGI RULES OF ACQUISITION (which the Beat Goes On usually followed where applicable):

 

Number Rule Episode
1 Once you have their money, you never give it back. DS9: “The Nagus“, “Heart of Stone“; PRO: “First Con-tact“
3 Never spend more for an acquisition than you have to. DS9: “The Maquis, Part II“
6 Never allow family to stand in the way of opportunity. DS9: “The Nagus“; ENT: “Acquisition“
7 Keep your ears open. DS9: “In the Hands of the Prophets“
8 Small print leads to large risk. LD: “Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place“
9 Opportunity plus instinct equals profit. DS9: “The Storyteller“; LD: “Hear All, Trust Nothing“
10 Greed is eternal. DS9: “Prophet Motive“; VOY: “False Profits“
16 A deal is a deal. DS9: “Melora“
17 A contract is a contract is a contract… but only between Ferengi. DS9: “Body Parts“
18 A Ferengi without profit is no Ferengi at all. DS9: “Heart of Stone“, “Ferengi Love Songs“
21 Never place friendship above profit. DS9: “Rules of Acquisition“; PRO: “First Con-tact“
22 A wise man can hear profit in the wind. DS9: “Rules of Acquisition“; VOY: “False Profits“
23 Nothing is more important than your health… except for your money. ENT: “Acquisition“
31 Never make fun of a Ferengi’s mother. DS9: “The Siege“
33 It never hurts to suck up to the boss. DS9: “Rules of Acquisition“, “The Dogs of War“
34 War is good for business. DS9: “Destiny“, “The Siege of AR-558“
35 Peace is good for business. TNG: “The Perfect Mate“; DS9: “Destiny“
45 Expand or die. ENT: “Acquisition“; VOY: “False Profits“
47 Don’t trust a man wearing a better suit than your own. DS9: “Rivals“
48 The bigger the smile, the sharper the knife. DS9: “Rules of Acquisition“
57 Good customers are as rare as latinum. Treasure them. DS9: “Armageddon Game“
59 Free advice is seldom cheap. DS9: “Rules of Acquisition“
62 The riskier the road, the greater the profit. DS9: “Rules of Acquisition“, “Little Green Men“, “Business as Usual“; LD: “Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place“
74 Knowledge equals profit. VOY: “Inside Man“
75 Home is where the heart is, but the stars are made of latinum. DS9: “Civil Defense“
76 Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies. DS9: “The Homecoming“
91 Your boss is only worth what he pays you. LD: “Old Friends, New Planets“
94 Females and finances don’t mix. DS9: “Ferengi Love Songs“, “Profit and Lace“
95 Expand or die. VOY: “False Profits“; ENT: “Acquisition“
98 Every man has his price. DS9: “In the Pale Moonlight“
102 Nature decays, but latinum lasts forever. DS9: “The Jem’Hadar“
103 Sleep can interfere with… DS9: “Rules of Acquisition“
109 Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack. DS9: “Rivals“
111 Treat people in your debt like family… exploit them. DS9: “Past Tense, Part I“, “The Darkness and the Light“
112 Never have sex with the boss’ sister. DS9: “Playing God“
125 You can’t make a deal if you’re dead. DS9: “The Siege of AR-558“
139 Wives serve, brothers inherit. DS9: “Necessary Evil“
168 Whisper your way to success. DS9: “Treachery, Faith and the Great River“
190 Hear all, trust nothing. DS9: “Call to Arms“
194 It’s always good business to know about new customers before they walk in your door. DS9: “Whispers“
203 New customers are like razor-toothed gree-worms. They can be succulent, but sometimes they bite back. DS9: “Little Green Men“
208 Sometimes the only thing more dangerous than a question is an answer. DS9: “Ferengi Love Songs“; PRO: “First Con-tact“
211 Employees are the rungs on the ladder of success. Don’t hesitate to step on them. DS9: “Bar Association“
214 Never begin a business negotiation on an empty stomach. DS9: “The Maquis, Part I“
217 You can’t free a fish from water. DS9: “Past Tense, Part I“
223 Unknown, but presumably concerned the relationship between “keeping busy” and “being successful”. DS9: “Profit and Loss“
229 Latinum lasts longer than lust. DS9: “Ferengi Love Songs“
239 Never be afraid to mislabel a product. DS9: “Body Parts“
263 Never allow doubt to tarnish your lust for latinum. DS9: “Bar Association“
285 No good deed ever goes unpunished. DS9: “The Collaborator“, “The Sound of Her Voice“
289? Shoot first, count profits later. LD: “Old Friends, New Planets“
Unknown A man is only worth the sum of his possessions. ENT: “Acquisition“

From the Star Trek Memory Alpha wiki

 

REVIEW: David Lee Roth – Big Trouble Comes to Toronto – Maple Leaf Gardens 10/31/86 (bootleg cassette)

DAVID LEE ROTH – Big Trouble Comes to Toronto – Maple Leaf Gardens 10/31/86 (bootleg cassette)

This cassette is a second generation, recorded from a buddy (with good equipment at least) in 1992.  My first bootleg.  It opens with a Van Halen-era interview with David Lee Roth about “precision rock”.  The crackle of original vinyl is audible.

A nice fade-in brings Steve Vai’s guitar to the fore, and then it’s wide open into “Shyboy”.  High octane, even though it’s just an audience recorded cassette with not enough volume on the guitar.  Without pause they rock into “Tobacco Road”. Gregg Bissonette’s toms a-thunderin’.  Vai certainly needs no help in hitting all the guitar hooks that he baked into the vinyl, just with more flair and energy.

Dave has never shied away from Van Halen hits or deep cuts.  “Unchained”, “Panama” and “Pretty Woman” are the first three.  The bass rumblings are unlike anything Michael Anthony played on the original.  The backing vocals are far more elaborate.  Like in Van Halen, “Unchained” is interrupted part way, but this time it’s so Dave can ask what you think of his new band!  Pretty hot.  After “Unchained” he stops to talk to a “pretty Canadian girl”.  “Panama” sounds a little odd with Brett Tuggle’s keyboards so prominent in the mix.  And it’s also way way way too long, with Dave trying to figure out who is reaching down between whose legs, but that’s Dave.  You don’t go to the show just to hear the music.  You go to see the whole schtick.  You put in the quarter, you gotta let the jukebox play the whole thing out.

“Pretty Woman” is zipped through fairly quickly (with one audience participation stop), going into Dave’s rabid “Elephant Gun” and the slick “Ladies’ Night in Buffalo?”  “Elephant Gun” features solos galore that would have been pretty awesome to see up close.  It sounds like there’s a vinyl side break before heading into “Buffalo”.  Vai’s guitar is the star here, in an extended solo backed only by Tuggle.  This turns into a dual bass/guitar call-and-answer.

When Bissonette starts on those tribal beats, you know it’s Van Halen’s “Everybody Wants Some!!”  This great version includes a drum solo.  Next it’s “On Fire” from the Van Halen debut.  Dave asks for the guitars to be turned up – we agree.  “On Fire” with keyboards and Vai noodling is a different animal.  After Dave’s original “Bump and Grind”, it’s time to flip the tape.

Side two opens with some of Dave’s acoustic strummin’, and a story called “Raymond’s Song”.  It’s just an excuse for him to say “Toronto” a whole lotsa times before introducing “Ice Cream Man”.  Which completely smokes.  Vai puts his own space-age spin on it, and Tuggle adds boogie piano, but this is one wicked version!

Dave’s solo track “Big Trouble” has plenty of atmosphere and fireworks for the Toronto crowd, but “Yankee Rose” is just nuts.  Nothing but the hits from here on in:  “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love”, “Goin’ Crazy!”, “Jump” and “California Girls”.  The heavy riff of “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” sounds great in Steve’s hands, who doesn’t go too crazy with it.  Of course there has to be another long break in the middle (too many breaks at this point now).  This time it’s so Dave can get Stevie to make his guitar say “Toronto kicks ass, because the chicks are so fine”.  The rest of the songs are somewhat fluffy, the pop stuff, and rendered a little sweet with the added shimmer of Brett Tuggle.  “Jump” misses the deeper tone of Eddie’s Oberheim OBXA.

It’s worth noting that Roth closes with “California Girls”, not “Jump”.  His solo career is the point, not Van Halen, he seems to be saying.  This is the cherry on top.  Roth hands it to his new band several times in the show — he knew they had to deliver, and they did.  And he wants people to know that he has a band that can compete with his old group.

The show is complete,  and apparently Dave didn’t play “Just a Gigolo” on this tour.  The opening act in Toronto was Cinderella, supporting Night Songs.

Sometimes you wish Dave would get on with it and play the next song, but that’s only because this is a cassette bootleg being played on a Technics RS-TR272.  If you were there in Toronto on the Eat ‘Em and Smile tour, you’d be eating up every word Dave laid down.  He is the master of the stage.  Sure, it doesn’t always translate to tape but that’s the nature of Dave’s live show, isn’t it?  It’s precision rock — visually and audibly combined.

4.5/5 stars (for what the show must have been in person)

 

REVIEW: Black Sabbath – The Best of MusikLaden Live at the Beat Club

BLACK SABBATH – The Best of MusikLaden – Live at the Beat Club (1970 television performance)

When Black Sabbath released their Black Box in 2004 featuring all the original lineup’s studio albums in remastered form, they also included a bonus four-song DVD.  This disc was the oft-released television broadcast of a German show called Beat Club (later MusikLaden).  Sabbath made two appearances in 1970, and the Black Box was the most official release of them.  Before upgrading to the Black Box, I owned an earlier, unofficial DVD release.  I taped that DVD to cassette, and that’s what I’m listening to right now.

“Black Sabbath” is torrential, as intense as the young band was able.  Ozzy sounds as if possessed, truly terrified and warning us that something foreboding and terrible is coming.  “Paranoid” is strangely echoey and distant, but still as incendiary as 1970 Black Sabbath should be.  Interestingly, in this version it really does sound as if Ozzy is singing “end your life” instead of “enjoy life”.  A sparse “Iron Man” announces its arrival with evil Gibson guitar sonic bends.  This version of “Iron Man” is a little stiffer than others, but not for long.  Towards the end, Geezer Butler unleashes the hordes and the song stampedes to a close.

Finally and most notoriously is “Blue Suede Shoes”, a performance pretty much everybody has since disowned.  It’s not terrible, although it’s certainly uncharacteristic.  It’s as if Black Sabbath were suddenly encroaching upon ZZ Top’s territory.  Tony’s speedy solo is interesting if not typical, and the band really stepped it up.  I get why some would mock it; it’s kind of goofy and definitely not as impressive as the Sabbath originals.  But it’s…fun?  Is Sabbath allowed to be…fun?

3.5/5 stars

#519: Mistakes I Made Fixing Broken Tapes

GETTING MORE TALE #519: Mistakes I Made Fixing Broken Tapes

I used to play cassette tapes almost exclusively. Even when I had started growing a CD collection, my cassettes dominated. Why? They were portable. I could record a CD or LP on them, put them in my Walkman, or play them in the car. I didn’t have a good way of doing that with CDs. Plus, you could record a CD to a good quality blank tape, and make a better copy than if you bought it on a pre-recorded manufactured release.

But tapes break. They wear. They get old. There were ways of fixing them, which I sometimes screwed up gloriously. What mistakes did I make?

MISTAKE #1: Dirty hands

You shouldn’t even try to fix a tape with dirty hands. Any time I opened one up to splice or carefully wind the tape on the spools, I was touching them with my unclean, ungloved hands. This deposited dirt and oil on the tape, deteriorating the sound and then transferring that dirt and oil to my tape heads.

MISTAKE #2: Magnetized screwdriver

Here’s another no-brainer that I missed. I had a cool little screwdriver that was magnetized. It was hard to lose those little screws with one of those, since they stuck to the screwdriver. Brilliant way to keep all those little screws from disappearing, but not good for tapes!

I wondered why a lot of my tapes had drop-outs in the sound. Many could have been caused by my favourite screwdriver while trying to fix them. This is common sense but I didn’t think my little screwdriver could possibly do any harm!

MISTAKE #3: Incorrect reassembly

Putting the tape back together is sometimes harder than it looks. Small parts pop out and sometimes it’s tricky to get them back in correctly. The slip sheet – a little piece of plastic inside the tape shell – helps reduce friction and squeal, but only if you put it back in with the slippery side facing the tape spool. When hastily reassembling tapes, I sometimes put the sheet in the wrong way causing slowdowns and noise.

Another critical part is the pressure pad. This applies light pressure on the tape to keep it against the player’s tape head. These pieces were tiny and sometimes popped out of place. There were some tapes I put back together with this piece improperly inserted. The lack of pressure on the tape reduced the sound quality greatly.

push-pad

MISTAKE #4: Splicing with Scotch tape

I spliced successfully with Scotch tape…but only in the short term. As the Scotch tape ages, the stickiness reduces and becomes slimy. This means in time and with a few plays, a careful splice would break. You don’t want to get any of that stinky gunk in your tape deck, so use proper splicing tape. They used to sell it commonly at places like Radio Shack, but I came from a cheap family that used whatever was available. Hence my tapes were spliced with Scotch.

MISTAKE #5: Butter fingers

It’s tricky getting all the tape wound around the right spools and ready to screw back together. Sometimes – quite often actually – I would struggle with this and inevitably crunch the tape between parts of the shell. Once you crunch or crease the magnetic tape, you’re going to hear an audio problem.

I didn’t wreck every tape that I tried to fix, but I did make these mistakes periodically. No wonder my tapes sounded like crap.

#423: The Tyranny of Cassette in the ’80s

RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#423: The Tyranny of Cassette in the ’80s

Anyone who grew up in the mid to late 1980s probably enjoyed their music on the most popular format at the time:  cassette.  Vinyl LPs were still around, and still popular, but not nearly as much as cassettes.  CDs were new and only a few of us had CD players yet.  Cassette tapes had the portability factor going for them.  Everybody had a Walkman, and those who didn’t probably had one on their Christmas list in 1985.

Vinyl was a dying breed in our highschool halls.  There were still some older kids who boasted of the superior sound quality, but none of my friends had equipment good enough to enjoy that sound quality.  I certainly didn’t.  All I had was a turntable hooked directly into a Sanyo cassette deck for amplification.  The sound was harsh and tinny.  The scratches inherent with the format were also more distracting than the tape hiss of cassette.

So, it was all about cassette!  Buy ‘em, trade ‘em, swap ‘em and re-record over them when you decide you don’t like the music anymore.  I have a cassette copy of Michael Jackson’s Thriller that had long ago been erased and taped over with other stuff.  When you couldn’t find a fresh blank tape to record on, you could just erase something else.  Everybody did it.  My friend Bob had a cassette of In Through the Out Door that he recorded over with us talking and goofing around!

For teenage highschool kids, cassettes were enough for our musical fixes.  A decent quality name brand tape could hold up to 110 minutes without stretching.   We used them to tape anything and everything.  (I have a tape with the sound of a friend’s dad taking a massive shit — no, I did not record it, they did!)  Since cassettes were re-recordable, that meant that every kid could even record their own music and become a rock star in his or her own basement.  You couldn’t do that with your fancy schmancy LPs, we all thought!  Don’t like your song?  Just rewind and record it again!  Those who didn’t play music could have their own fun, DJ’ing and and writing skits.  And let’s not forget about taping your friends’ albums.  Recording tape to tape would always result in excessive tape hiss, but kids didn’t seem to mind in the 1980’s.  We ignored the hiss.  It was something we considered part of the music, because we really never heard any music without hiss!

Although the flaws of cassettes are patently obvious today, in the 80’s we were just discovering these troubling issues for ourselves.  We overlooked the tape hiss, but it was harder to ignore speed issues.  The biggest problem that I had with cassettes was inconsistent speed.  Some tapes, especially those made by Polygram and EMI in Canada, seemed to have a lot of internal friction.   Grab a small screwdriver and open up an old cassette tape some time.  Inside you will find rollers, spindles, and bits and pieces all designed for the cassette tape to roll smoothly.  Whether they worked right always seemed to be a matter of random luck.  When friction inside caused the tape to run slow, it was immediately obvious.  The pitch would be noticeably lower, and often the tape would warble as your player tried to play it at normal speed, but fought against the friction.

On the other hand, sometimes the problems came down to your player.  Your tape deck had even more spindles and doo-dads to turn that tape around and around.  Those got dirty and worn out, too.  Sure, you could buy tape head cleaners and demagnetizers, but did they ever really have a noticeable effect on your listening experience?  Probably not.  I used to diligently clean the insides of my tape decks with lint-free cloths and isopropyl alcohol.  Although I could see black filth coming off the rollers when I cleaned them, the sound and speed never really improved.  It was always very frustrating when a tape would play fine on a friend’s deck, but went slow as molasses on your own.  My Sanyo went in for service and professional cleaning more than once, but that didn’t help either.

Although cassettes sounded like shit, and only got worse the longer you kept them, they did have a big advantage over CD for me, and that was portability.  I preferred cassettes in the car, up until fairly recently.  The reason for this was, working in the used CD store, I saw so many CDs that were just utterly destroyed by car CD players.  You don’t get that problem so much anymore, but in the 90’s and 2000’s, there were a lot of discs just annihilated by a lot of car decks. It didn’t seem to matter if the car player was a high-end stereo or a piece of crap.  People would bring their used CDs in to me, and ask me how they looked.  I’d usually ask, “Did you play this in a car deck?”  I could always tell.  Customers would ask me, “How did you know?”  Because the CD would be completely scratched, but always in perfect circles.  Some dirt clearly got into the car deck, and scratched up the discs as they were spinning.  Or, the disc was just scraping up against the internal workings of the car player as it spun.  Either way, the result was usually a CD that looks like a kid’s Spirograph drawing.

At least when playing a cassette in the car, those things could take a beating.  I only ever had one or two that were “eaten” by the player.  Compare that to the thousands of CDs that I saw destroyed by car decks over the years.

If life is a musical journey, then cassettes were my travelling companions for over a decade.  We had a necessary parting of ways, and now I am happy to stick to CD and flash drives when on the road!

Part 173: Gene Simmons’ Asylum Demos

RECORD STORE TALES Part 173:  Gene Simmons’ Asylum Demos

Back in 1994-95, when I was working at our original store, I would always proudly fly the Kiss flag.  This was before the mega reunion, and on the heels of the Revenge album, which I was really into.

I had a small online presence back then, I had created our very first online ads in 1994.  I was talking about music on every single BBS (Bulletin Board System) in the area, and on one board, called Wanderer’s Rest, I had a forum for my reviews.  I was going by the online name “Geddy” (hah!) back then, and I was extremely prolific.  Very little has changed since!

One guy, name long forgotten, messaged me.  “Hey, I’m a customer at your store.  I have some rare Kiss demos.  Do you want to do a tape swap?”  Of course I did.  For him, I made a copy of the March 25 1974 show in Washington at the Bayou club.  It was a cool show because they played an unreleased song called “You’re Much Too Young”.

For me, he made a tape of Gene’s Asylum demos, on one of our Maxell UR60’s that we sold in our store.  Gene is a very prolific songwriter.  Not everything he comes up with is gold (clearly!) but he usually submitted a dozen tunes or more for consideration on each album.  Judging by this cassette, Asylum was no exception, even though he was very distracted by Hollywood at that time.

The tape, which unfortunately did not survive the years very well at all, contains 13 of Gene’s demos, 3 being instrumental ideas, and a bonus track.  A couple songs made the final album.  I tried to listen to the tape, to see if I recognized any ideas.  Unfortunately, this tape now sounds terrible and is unlistenable.  I ripped only one song, which was “Russian Roulette”, to see if it resembled the version that later ended up on 2009’s Sonic Boom album.  From what I can tell, only the title survived to Sonic Boom.

Musically however, the song was recycled on the Monster album, as “Eat Your Heart Out”!  It’s the same riff.  Although you can’t make out the lyrics on the demo version at all, you can tell they are completely different.

See the pictures below for the tape made for me by the Mystery Kiss Fan back in ’94-95.   If you know any of these Gene songs, please comment below!  We can hope that good quality versions will come out on Gene’s “Monster” box set, if it ever comes out!