Avocado Memories: Photos of long-forgotten blank cassettes

I have to thank you all - you folks are making me feel *so* much better about keeping two boxes worth of cassettes that I'd felt guilty about not chucking before I move later this year!

 

I used to love the TEAC tapes that looked like little reel to reel tapes:

 

Loved them, only had one, never saw another!

 

Hah, so many musical memories attached to these things.

Early on: my dad making tapes for the car when I was little. A friend of his dubbed the Beatles Blue Box onto a batch of TDK SA-90s. I found one a couple years ago, and it still sounded good.

My dad also made a car mix tape on one of those ritzy-looking Maxell "Epitaxial" 90-minute cassettes. The first side was what you'd call classic/album rock. "Strawberry Fields," "Somebody To Love," "Sunshine Of Your Love," etc. The second side was a bunch of his old soul and doo-wop 45s.
That sucker got played a LOT on road trips, and was pretty formative towards my love for music. He also had another one of those Maxell tapes with Little Feat "Waiting For Columbus" dubbed from his vinyl. Another great one to grow up hearing.

Fast forward (har har) to the mid and late '90s. My first band was recording on a Yamaha 4-track, and our parents would buy us TDK D-60s and 90s by the case. I also used them for mix tapes. I even used one to record a contest audition tape for a local orchestra on my 4-track (a junior engineer!) and it sounded stupendous. They won on the basis of that recording, too.

I also rememeber those day-glo Memorex tapes. They SUCKED. I remember one of the Sublime CDs actually made fun of them..."the kind your little sister would record the Grease soundtrack on."

Finally...up until about two years ago, I used to work for a transcription company. By the time I left, they had transitioned from using cassettes. When I left, they let me take box upon box of Maxell UR-90s. What I'm going to do with those, I've no idea. I'm weird enough to keep em though.

 

Ha! Yeah, the 'Avocado Memories' reference is a bit obscure...
Avocado Memories is a spectacular web site created by a guy, Wes Clark, who pays homage to all things 70s -- the era when he grew up, when everything seemed to be either avocado in color or burnt orange. So all the products and pop culture minutia of the 70s are immortalized there, including 8-Tracks and cassettes. If you grew up during that era, it's a real mind-trip. Check it out: http://wesclark.com/am/

 

I think the OP is referring to the standout color in a 1970s designer's color palette. Avocado was the perfect yellowish green to coordinate with the golds and oranges of the day. Moms wore avocado colored clothing. The furniture and especially the appliances in your stylish home were avocado. The list goes on and on, in warm tones of green.

EDIT: Better answer published while I typed. See above

 

A year or two back, a house in my town was up for sale and I stopped in during the open house. It was a perfectly preserved home last decorated in 1975: shag carpeting, avocado decor everywhere, kitchen appliances in that two-tone copper/bronze finish, orange accents... It was like stepping into a time machine. The Realtor was yakking about how badly it needed updating and all I could think was, "If I had the money, I'd buy this house and I wouldn't update ANYTHING!"

 

Very cool thread. Half of these photos bring back fond memories - the other half I've never seen before but they look cool.

I recently found a few unopened packages of these in the basement.

 

Were they Italy exclusive? Sony Chiara!

 

Great thread! Love looking at the pics. Those K-mart blanks are what we recorded many a family memory or radio show on using a portable Panasonic like the Realistic shown earlier in the thread. I remember listening to Casey Kasem's America's Top 40 with the portable recorder right under the speaker! Then I finally got one of them combo systems and I could record direct from LP or radio and it had dual cassette so I could dub tapes! Around this time I discovered the TDK SA-90s and that became my go to blank for a few years. I know I still have some unopened Maxell XL-II's in the house (along with some maxpoints!). I have those stored with the handful of blank DATs that I never got around to using either. Some day I'm sure they'll get some new friends in the closet named the blank CD-R/DVD-R.

 

I record onto High Bias tapes, so I'd be willing to buy some if you're ever interested in parting with a few.

 

Nice thread.

TDK D-90s were my standard tapes for a long time.
TDK SA-90s were for special occasions, those buggers were not cheap.
TDK SAX-90s were for when I was feeling particularly flush and only used for the most prestigious of recordings.

All my 4-track demos are on Ds, SAs an a few special SAXs, maybe 200 tapes, but apart from those I don't really have any old audio cassettes any more.

 

Ahhh-nobody has listed my fave: TDK AD-Xs. For my system(s), normal bias sounded soooo much better, so I always went for the AD series, and the extra X? For eXemplary sound.

 

I might still have one of those -- I'll let you know if I can find it. You can have it if I do.

 

Coincidentally, parts of "Young Adult" were filmed in Nanuet, New York (my hometown) and Minneapolis (my home of the last 17 years). I'm pretty sure I'm the only one on the whole planet who recognized both locations!

 

My favorite ever:

 

I'd be more than happy to cover your costs! I'd love to transfer some old 4-track tapes but bearing in mind that my Tascam hasn't been demagnetised in over a decade I'm not keen on passing some precious tapes through for fear that the head wipes the high frequencies clean off!

 

I can't bear to part with my 4-track cassettes... Even if the contents of a lot of my early ones are non-releasable noise to say the least! Thankfully, I did get better. Well, I think I did!

 

Amazing what an emotional pull these things have! I especially remember particular recordings I made off the radio on the blue Kmart cheapies from the first page.

It was TDK SA-90s for me for all the good stuff. The early radio shows ended up on SA-90s (I think). By the time I started CFTP in 1992, I'd moved on to recording on hi-fi VCR tape.

I used to make custom J-cards for the boxes, using a Royal manual typewriter. The line spacings and type widths worked out pretty conveniently.

Fantastic thread.

 

You can still buy these in Switzerland

 

Scary how many tapes I still have floating around. I need to transfer a Tull radio show of some of those horrid Certon's whilst I still can.

 

Does anyone know what font was used in the Compact Cassette Logo?

 

pretty cool

 

The UR90 packaging is much more attractive in Switzerland! It's unfortunate that these Type I, normal bias tapes seem to be the *only* blank tapes I can find in stores these days. Do they still even make high bias cassettes?