Track listing

1. Prologue
2. Forever
3. 아침 고은 햇살
4. Don’t go baby
5. 어둠 그리고 그림자
6. 방황
7. 널 보낸 지금
8. Main The Piano Solo
9. Forever (Bonus Track

I don’t know how it ended up at a thrift store, but it’s mine now. Here’s a Youtube playlist if you’d like to listen and enjoy drum machines.

Not a mixtape this time, instead this cassette is a clandestine recording of an unknown couple recorded on an unknown date. Geographic area is assumed to be the greater DC/VA/MD area.

Recording begins with the couple discussing how to use a tape recorder, unaware that the tape is still recording. The man leaves the room to find some envelopes of old photographs, the woman types on a computer for nearly 10 minutes. The man returns at the 15 minute mark with what he’s found including family photos and the woman’s old baby book. The woman then calls her credit union to try and unlock her account, after which the both of them look through the photos and discuss their subjects.

This recording managed to pick up this woman’s full first and last name, her maiden name, her birth date, and the last 4 digits of her social security number. It also includes a number of family names and personal history.

I got a little excited when I spotted this one. In the late 80s up to the mid 90s you could pay to record a song on cassette or VHS in a recording studio. I don’t know how widespread these businesses were, and I never wanted to record myself, but a lot of them were geared towards birthday parties, corporate get-togethers, or family outings at amusement parks. Here’s a write-up for one in an article from the August 23, 1992 issue of the Daily Gazette for Schenectady, NY.

Shopping, entertainment are Hampton diversions

“First, you, as a single or as part of a group, can make a “lip-sync” video to one of hundreds of popular songs – rock, contemporary, classics, show tunes, country and western music, gospel songs, even rap. This costs $19.95 for one, $2 extra for each additional person. Extra video tapes may be purchased for $9.95 each.

“Or you could make an audio tape, similar to karaoke singing (words and background music are provided), and then lip-sync to your own tape for the video. The charge for this is $24.95 with additional tapes costing $5 each.

“Audio recordings at SuperStar Studios, open seven days a week, are $10.95 for one vocalist; $7.95 each for two; $6.95 for three; and $5.95 for four or more. Each participant gets a copy of the tape.”

A later Washington Post article from 1996 only mentions the music video service offered, so there may have been a shift in business model as cassette tapes fell out of favor. A few webpages and forum threads have members reminiscing about the music cassette side of the business hanging on in amusement parks for longer. – with the mortifying detail that everyone in the area could see and hear your performance as it was being recorded.

The tape itself isn’t very interesting. About what you’d expect, honestly, and I don’t really want to put some random person on blast by uploading a recording of it. It’s a contemporary Christian song by Amy Grant titled “Jehovah” and it was released as a single back in 1984, so that’s no help in dating the tape itself. You can find the song on youtube if you really want.

WBMX
In 1974, the station’s call sign was changed to WBMX, standing for “Black Music EXperience”, and the station adopted an urban contemporary format.[2][19][20] The station continued airing an urban contemporary format into the late 1980s.[21][20]
During this era the station helped give rise to a new generation of DJs whose formats brought dance music to Chicago’s airwaves. The Hot Mix 5 went on to help define what became known as Chicago House music.

I live on the east coast, so who knows how the tape made its way here. A mix of some good funk songs! Nothing newer than about 1981.

SIDE A

Golden Touch – Rose Royce
Yearning For Your Love – The Gap Band
Freaky Dancin’ – Cameo
Give It To Me Baby – Rick James
Heaven Of My Life – Change
Love on a Two Way Street – Stacy Lattisaw (cuts off midway through the song)
Brief snippet of someone singing.

SIDE B

The back half of Love on a Two Way Street
Double Dutch Bus – Frankie Smith
Searching to Find the One – Unlimited Touch
Endless Love – Diana Ross
I Heard it Through the Grapevine – Roger Troutman
Controversy – Prince

I’m really not versed in music history so these were new to me. This version of Grapevine is amazing.

Troutman frequently used the talk box, a device that is connected to an instrument (frequently a keyboard, but most commonly a guitar) to create different vocal effects. Roger used a custom-made talkbox—the Electro Harmonix “Golden Throat”—through a Moog Minimoog and later in his career a Yamaha DX100 FM synthesizer.

As both band leader of Zapp and in his subsequent solo releases, he scored a bevy of funk and R&B hits throughout the 1980s and regularly collaborated with hip hop artists in the 1990s.

The youtube playlist is here.

This tape was in the cheap cassette player I bought and is a motivating factor on why I bought it in the first place. Honestly, I got excited by the September 2001 date on one side, but I’m confident this is a misprint and it should be 2000 on both sides. Side A references the Kursk submarine disaster which would have been fresh news in 2000 and neither has anything to say about 9/11.

So! Near as I can figure, Key of David Publications no longer exists, but up until at least the mid 2000s they sold books, cassettes, and video tapes on their website. Internet Archive sadly did not keep a copy of their catalog to peruse, I can’t find this specific tape listed on the church’s own list. The page only lists up to volume 50 and this tape is 226/227. Tapes were $8 each or you could get a deal on 30 of them for $135.

The Church is still present at the address listed, a Catholic Church in Pennsylvania. Monsignor Vincent M Walsh’s name does not appear on their current site or anywhere in the Archdiocese’s website. He resigned in 2005 due to a grand jury report in Pennsylvania finding him to be responsible in a long coverup of another priest’s abuses of young boys in the 60s and 70s. (The details of the case are Bad).

“Charismatic” specifically refers to a Christian belief system centered around the gifts or charisms you receive from being baptized: including speaking in tongues, faith healing, prophecy, evangelizing that kind of stuff. Fringe in the 1800s it became more accepted in the mainstream in the 60s as part of a Revival movement. Not traditionally seen in the Catholic Church, it seems Monsignor Walsh was swayed by a Pentecostal demonstration in the 60s and became an adherent.

SIDE A

• A reading from Isaiah 35:4.
• A hymn.
• A reading from Mark 7:31-37
• Abridged history of Pope John Paul’s childhood.
• Various anecdotes about how Communist Russia tried to break the Christian faith.
• Talking about how Russia is a mess today (in 2000), including a mention of the Kursk submarine disaster.
• Anecdotes about bringing Jesus into communities and how prosperous they turn people.
• A group prayer to Jesus and a closing anecdote about Mickey Rooney becoming born-again.

SIDE B

• An excerpt from the book of John.
• A section of chanting / speaking in tongues?
• Sermon about John and the creation of the Church and Jesus’s influence on the world.
• Anecdote about meeting Holy Hubert, a campus preacher, at a Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship Meeting. Holy Hubert Lindsey was quite a character and didn’t seem to garner much good will at Berkley in the 70s. Most sources online are praising his actions and all repeating the same (third, fourth, fifth hand, whatever) overblown anecdotes.

I found this online in a message board discussion about campus characters. 70s, maybe? That’s Holy Hubert there.

Final sermon about Jesus, standard stuff.

So, the audio is more or less what you’d expect. A little rote and dry, honestly. I had more fun looking into the context around the tape and not the content of the sermons themselves.

I recorded these and uploaded them to an Internet Archive page. The audio quality is not great! The tape player I found is an end-of-life mono output device, but for a spoken word album it’s fine.

I can’t quite read the second word here (a surname, I guess) but I don’t think it’s relevant at all to the tape itself. The case and tape are two different brands.

It’s a mixtape! None of the songs are newer than 1989 or so. Nice selection of romance songs.

SIDE A

Take My Breath Away – Berlin

In Too Deep – Genesis

Holding Back the Years – Simply Red

It’s Over – Level 42

I Will Be With You – T’Pau

Secret Lovers – Atlantic Starr

Valentine – T’Pau

SIDE B

Roses Are Red – Mac Band

Saturday Love – Cherrelle

Any Love – Luther Vandross

Come into My Life – Joyce Sims

Just the Way You Like It – The S.O.S. Band

Ain’t No Sunshine – Bill Withers

Can’t Stay Away From You – Gloria Estefan

Rock Me Tonight (For Old Times Sake) – Freddie Jackson

Here is a youtube playlist to recreate the vibes.