No. 162: His Master's Voices

"His Master's Voices" by Tom Wills, July 2012.

"I'm just sittin' here watching the wheels go round and round.

I really love to watch them roll." -- John Lennon

My boy is 21.5'' x 25'' in an antique frame.

Click on all photos to enlarge.

I don't know if my dogs and cats actually like my music, but they love to watch the wheels go round on my vintage reel-to-reel tape recorders. Corleone, above, took it to the extreme several times by putting his long snout into the reel holes or pawing at the spools -- both thankfully causing instant stop.

Eventually he will fall asleep.

It became a common enough occurrence that I had to put the Teac X-10R, illustrated, and others up high on shelves. The cats can still reach them, but they're smart enough to keep their noses out. One did once unroll an entire reel overnight, miles of tape everywhere. Now I cover the machines.

No. 162 is likely the last to be completed on my small drawing table, which my daughter is taking to college. I'm getting my dad's 1950s-era drafting table. More space!

Sometimes I draw what I like. This drawing, from a photo, is my favorite picture of Corly and perhaps my best effort at capturing his bemused expression. The frame is, of course, an antique pulled from a junk pile.  It probably has as much wood putty, caulk and polyurethane in it as wood.
Here's another frame.

He's all ears.

I'm pulled almost daily by a magnetic field to the basement. I can't get loose from its grip.
There are thousands of audio tapes down here. archived from A to Z. Endless hours of my life have been spent since about 1976 in building this library, from records, broadcasts, CDs and, yes, other tapes.

One of two Pioneer units, reachable only by cats.

It really is magnetic: Iron oxide tape. Same color as my hair. Little reddish-brown particles baked onto long strips of Mylar, polyester or another compound. They smell like rust. They feel like silk.

"Hard volume, please!"

The magnetic field generated by my tapes has the military concerned. Watches don't work properly, the actual reading on the electric meter is always a little off.
The cats guard the library but are acting very strange.

Great care went into the hair.

The tapes keep my heroes close and, in many cases, bring them back to life: Jimi, Miles. Mick. Pete. Ella, Frank, Stan Kenton, Jimmy Page, Todd Rundgren, The Beatles and thousands more. Rock, blues, jazz, soul, country, classical.

Teac A-2340

Gotta keep the tapes boxed in a dry, temperature controlled environment.  Age and humidity are their enemy.

A few of the wheels to watch.

Dinosaur technology is required to make then strum and sing. These immense machines are made of brass, wood and steel. Each weighs about 60 pounds, and each has three fist-sized motors -- necessary for turning heavy aluminum reels with 3,600 feet of tape. Heavy metal, truly.

The tape machine takes shape.

There are eight of these four-track beasts and they were the best: Teac, Sony and Pioneer. The oldest is from the 1960s and I have restored each of them, sometimes more than twice.
Their meters will light up a dark room as they bounce from zero to 10.

Two of three Teac A-6300s

Their motors will heat a room. There are FANS inside of them. One is full of tubes.
They remain beautiful machines. The engineering is amazing. They were built to last for decades.
They are silent running.

Building Corly's face. If the eyes are wrong, nothing is right.

Best of all, the heroes from all those years ago come out and tune up when I hit the play button. It sounds as if they are right here, in the basement.
Miles Davis was never a talker. "Just play," he says.

Sony TC-755 and the third Teac A-6300. These are as old as that family photo.