First of all, I would be an epic fail of a blogger if I didn’t point you to the brilliant videos someone (unofficially) made. Kudos to the creators!
k0matose:
In my case, it was March 26, 1994. I had just picked up the mysterious Stereopathetic Soulmanure at the local record shop in Durham, NC and I was listening to it for the first time in my buddy’s 1976 Camaro that probably still has that same flat gray primer paint job today. My friend Chip had carefully rigged up a Sony Discman using velcro and electrical tape, with my lap providing the anti-skip technology for tunes on the move.
When we got to “8.6.82,” we were both suddenly shocked because we were very familiar with the sped up sounds and the sudden starts and stops. We both owned these microcassette recorders and frequently recorded people saying stupid shit into the mic, and we’d speed them up and slow them down, eventually rerecording onto a normal cassette for distribution to our friends. Beck’s impromptu recordings may very well have been the thing that really got me interested in him… he was goofing around doing the same thing my buddies and I did.
Of course, the hi-tech microcassette was what Beck had used on these date songs, and it was the same thing sitting in my pocket on that day. Chip was the only person I knew that had a car, so I convinced him to drive us to Durham to see Beck. I had brought my microcassette recorder to tape the show at the Duke Coffeehouse that night. Too bad the tape recorder was a piece of junk, as it seized up after a few songs, but not before capturing a few of Beck’s early improv moments along with a snippet of my voice and a frenzied audience. I didn’t find the bootleg on the intarweb until a few years ago… I was shocked and amazed to see that the crappy microcassette recordings were still making the rounds.
I wonder if Beck feels the same about “8.6.82,” “11.6.45,” and “8.4.82.”
“8.4.82”:
AlmostAGhost:
Not to go overboard on this, but I really don’t think Stereopathetic would be as awesome as it is without these clips. They really set the atmosphere of absurd lo-fi-ness which defines the album. I was stunned to learn that voice is Beck’s. I always picture some crazy lady, dressed in tatters, on the side of the road, probably homeless, certainly drunk.
“11.6.45”:
Vitamin.Deb:
These just make me think that if I’d gone to junior high with Beck, I’d probably have professed to hate him while secretly crushing hard.
“8.6.82”
Beck:
I had a microcassette recorder and I was fooling around one day and I started talking into it making up stories and then hit stop by mistake and had to start again but it sounded great the way it just cut off, the way the kid was talking and then it had a high-speed mode and I sort of just discovered this character and I just started telling stories into it like it was a diary. So I started using it [during] my shows, I’d talk about this kid and I’d found this tape and this was his diary, and use little snippets between songs. A couple of them made it onto that record, I had a whole cassette full and I played it at a show in Seattle around that time and someone jumped up on stage after I’d left the stage and grabbed the tape recorder. All those stories are lost, but a couple of them survived on that record.
If you were that kid who stole the tape recorder, we’d like to get in touch with you.
A rare live track, “99,” is up next!