Description of the Album
This CD is full of break-in inteviews featuring the epic 30-minute interview
recorded entirely with analog cassette tapes in 1980, as well as two more in the late
80s, plus more since the digital era of recording began sometime in the late 90s.
Detailed Album Track List
Tracks 1-6. Rap With Howard (1980) - Mike Hayward conducts a 30 minute interview on his talk
show with somebody in the audience chosen at random. Once chosen, the person answers
Mike's questions with excerpts from hit records and other stuff, in the interview
style of Dickie Goodman. The subjects covered include dating, disco, television,
bullies, running, and others.
07. So-Great Debate of 2004 - A Dickie-Goodman style interview where questions are answered by excerpts of popular novelty songs heard on Dr. Demento.
08. So-Great Debate of '08 - This 8-minute presidental break-in interview is the latest and the best ever.
09. So-Great Debate of '88, The - Similar to the Debate 2004 track, but George W. Bush vs. Michael Dukakis is the center of the interview. Popular top 40 hits from 1998 are used.
10. Batman Interview (1989) - A tribute to the movie Batman scored by Prince. Answers from 1989 top 40 songs are used.
11. Rap With Howard: Disco Maurice - David Tanny as Mike Hayward (1979, 2004 remake) - a remake of a segment of the original 33 minute "Rap With Howard" break-in interview sketch.
12. Rap With Howard: Television Maurice - David Tanny as Mike Hayward (1979, 2005 remake) - a remake of a segment of the original 33 minute "Rap With Howard" break-in interview sketch. I plan to release a set of revised interviews as well as the original I did back in 1980.
Album Background
When I was young, I remember hearing many top 40 radio stations playing the break-in
comedy records by the now deceased Dickie Goodman, who created many gems such as
"Mr. Jaws", "Star Warts," "The Flying Saucer," "Energy Crisis '73", and other stuff.
What he never covered is conducting a break-in interview with an ordinary person, who
can give a few good answers from excerpts of other records and stuff as a main subject.
Back in 1979, I got the idea of making a 30-minute mock interview show where I play the host,
Mike Hayward, who asks the questions to a person chosen at random on his talk show.
The person being interviewed is portrayed as an ordinary person whose answers given
in the form of excerpts of songs is the star of the show.
Way back in 1979, before there was full multimedia computers, CDs, mp3s, and everything
of modern convieience today in 2007, there were cassettes, 8-tracks, LPs, AM and FM radio
(no satellite or Internet radio), mono-sound TV sets (no 5.1 surround sound HDTV sets),
cassette tape recorders (all analog), and cable systems with no more than 27 channels
instead of some 1,000 today. With those limitations given, because, well, that's all
there was, I began forming questions after listening to the lyrics of some of the songs
that were once played on Top 40 stations at the time like KCBQ, B100, 13K, and Magic 91.
I taped the songs off of the radio and onto my blank cassettes (mostly because I was 19
and couldn't afford $10 to buy albums). I made notes on where the answers were stored
on my cassettes so that when the host asked the question, the guest would answer with
an excerpt from a song or even a TV show.
Needless to say, we didn't have home computers that could do all this work way back in 1979.
Back then, there were just two options. You could either use tape splicers and scissors, which
could get sticky and messy, or you could purchase a second tape recorder so you could
record your interview and play them back on the first tape player, which also served
as the player for excerpts of songs that were stored in my cassette collection.
The collecting of the questions and answers took about two years' worth of time.
During the time, I collected many of the songs from the 1970s as well as TV theme songs
and other bits. The part where I had to record the whole 30-minute interview on my second tape recorder
took a month as I had to put in a tape of one part of my interview, play that, take the tape
out, put in the tape where the answer
was stored, fast forward or rewind to the piece,
play that, then take the tape out, put the interview cassette tape back in, play that,
and repeat over and over for about 100 times until the interview was finished.
The second tape recorder, meanwhile, had to be paused every time I had to change tapes and queue
it up. There was no such thing as computer music editors as we know it, so all we had
were splicers or more tape players to get the job done.
Also bear in mind that back then, cassettes are full of background noise, which is why
you often hear the low-frequency snow in the background. Cassettes weren't made for hi-fi
sounds like CDs were meant to do when they were first put on sale in 1983. Also, due to
tape alignment problems, which also caused the demise of the sale of pre-recorded music
tapes in favor of CDs, the sounds on the cassettes may be muffled because the heads
are not quite lined up with the tape that's passing under them. Every cassette player
has that problem. The read heads on one tape player may be aligned right, especially
if it's the one that recently recorded something on the cassette, but once it's played
on another cassette player, it's a crapshoot that the head would line up accurately
with the tape that was recorded on another cassette player. Well, needless to say,
CDs and digital recorders got rid of that kind of problem.
So with this break-in interview, we go back to the days when analog once ruled
the nation.
Enjoy the tape...on CD.
David Tanny
PO Box 19569
San Diego, CA 92159
Please visit davesfunstuff.com, davidtanny.com, ifunnyradio.com, sandiegoradionews.com, and
eightisenough.com for too much stuff to surf around in. Please purchase stuff from the
Amazon box on the site to help me pay my bills so I can make more of my CDs. Thank you.