8-TRACKS...WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST AND WHAT YEAR?

[countryhog]

My first 8-track machine, around 1964, was a combo 4-track-8- track. Had a lever to pull that extended an idler to play a 4-track. First tape was a 4-track ?birds?. Sheesh, youns are young. Just sayin Carry on

 

[legdelimber]

I inherited one of those ubiquitous wooden box player with the slider controls, type 8-track players.
Front cover was loonng gone due to being left off in order to readily dig out the occasional puked tape.
Can't recall what commercial tape may have been in the pile.
I tended to use a friends turntable combo unit (that had a direct record radio or turntable to tape function ) to make mix tapes for the 8-track.
For a couple of years, the local FM station (mostly "album oriented rock" sort of format) had a thing for not talking over the intro of songs (awesome huh!)

I had learned the lead in noises of their vinyl and could call the song name by it, before the music started.
Used to be a funny trick for messing with my stoned friends heads when we were hanging out.
eh, but being tuned to and distracted by sounds such, has always been a kind of "glitch" thing with me.
A.D.D. they call it.

Radio stations weren't owned by one or two big corporations.
So a good DJ could open your mind to some deep cuts from the back sides of albums.
The 2nd side of "Golden Earring, Moontan" album
The long 7 min, unedited, version of "Stevie wonder, living for the city"
or "Frank Zappa, the muffin man"
Throw in some Kraftwerk.
The DJ who played the Golden Earring, also played
Country Joe and the Fish,"The 'Fish' Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag"
Yeah, he got a couple of weeks "off the air" for that one. lol

Ah..but those one-off demos and bootlegs that some of them had were priceless...and are long gone now.

Damn....
there really was this time when a great mixture of music just sorta fell out of the sky.
==
Sorry for my rambling drift guys. just really missing a few of the better parts of the era.
==

 

[Stump Shot]

One Christmas 1970 something, I was the lucky recipient of a Sony portable 8-track player. Sent away for a pile of tapes for a penny a piece. picked up some more here and there, the one's I miss the most were the Hudson and Landry comedy tapes. That was some good stuff. That machine sounded good until you heard this garbled mess and your ass had to be on a dead run the instant you heard it to pull the mess of tape out before it got too carried away. I ended up throwing the machine out and giving a big box of tapes to a hippie dude in 1987, he's probably still listening to that same old hifi I bet. lol

Here ya go @USMC615

 

[Stump Shot]

Come to think of it, I was given Savoy Brown Hellbound Train before I got my big box of stuff. So that would be the first.

 

[legdelimber]

Hellbound Train was one oldie that I sort of kept hoping to hear drift up in an episode of "The Blacklist"

 

[Maintenance Chief]

I had a 79' grand pix , Eagles greastest hits and Blizzard of Oz, Ozzy. Working 3rd shift I'd listen to Ozzy on the way in and Eagles on the way home.

 

[Larry B]

Inherited a stereo with the 8 track yfrom a older cousin. Boston, Molly Hatchet, Kiss,. He upgraded to a huge stereo system. He had a job in the Armco Steel mill in town. I thought he was the cats ass back then. New truck. Hot chicks . And a helluva gun collection

You talking about the mill in middletown ohio?

 

[41FanForLife]

You talking about the mill in middletown ohio?

Ambridge Pennsylvania. We had Armco, American Bridge Corp, and J&L right across the river.

 

[Yukon Stihl]

I had a fully chromed 8 track in my 59 Olds station wagon
i was 14 it was my second car,my first one the old man buried while i was at school one day,it was a Chevy 2.I was pissed i had just got it running,so he gave me the Olds.
Alice Copper Schools out for the summer
Blue Oyster Cult
AC DC
Supertramp
A star is born
and a bunch of others...
That was when i discovered smoking dope been partaking ever since.
The Olds had a removable cover in the center of the steering wheel which opened up a nice stash for the minuscule bits of weed i would get my hands on.
Good times

 

[birdmeter]

My first 8-track machine, around 1964, was a combo 4-track-8- track. Had a lever to pull that extended an idler to play a 4-track. First tape was a 4-track ?birds?. Sheesh, youns are young. Just sayin Carry on

glad i was not the first and only one to call the 4 track. but this is a 8 track post.

 

[Wilhelm]

No 8 tracks in my history either.

I grew up on vinyl records, tapes and CDs.
I still own some of each, don't use any of them though.

My music preferences changed throughout the years and included a wide variety of genres from pop, over disco, dance, techno, rave, to heavy metal.
For the past decade or two I settled on dark/gothic/symphonic metal, almost exclusively female fronted.

 

[Steve Taylor]

I was driving a 1969 dodge van in 1992-3? Found a few at a yard sale from uncle Ted N,
Dose that count?

 

[exSW]

Avoided them things like the plague. Having a Sansui reciever with a good turntable and speakers made 8 tracks sound chitty. But. I has a 1979 Datsun 210 my last years of College with one. Beach Boys greatest hits. Took it to Bonifay for a Rodeo. Got paid,got laid and made it home in one piece. Pretty good weekend.

 

[JimBear]

I would of thought something like this would of been playing in @USMC615 ’s 8 track player & probably still is.

 

[JimBear]

I believe the year was about 1987 & my 1976 Chrysler Cordoba, came with Eagles greatest hits Vol. 1, AC/DC Back in Black, Cheech & Chong Up in Smoke & Rupert Holmes . The first 8 tracks I remember were mothers: Kenny Rogers & Waylon Jennings.

 

[JimBear]

And this album is probably what set @Mastermind on his quest for a livestock venture, @Red97 is far to young for 8tracks but could probably appreciate the album art.

 

[Mastermind]

And this album is probably what set @Mastermind on his quest for a livestock venture, @Red97 is far to young for 8tracks but could probably appreciate the album art.


View attachment 251180

I remember that album.

Still don't rent no pigs.

 

[Hinerman]

I know there were more, but these are the ones I remember: Doobie Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, and The Marshall Tucker Band

 

[exSW]

And this album is probably what set @Mastermind on his quest for a livestock venture, @Red97 is far to young for 8tracks but could probably appreciate the album art.


View attachment 251180

Definitely remember that one on 8 track. Mary o speakers and sounded awful.

 

[FergusonTO35]

I rolled off the line in '78, 8 tracks were already old news when I was a kid. I made alot of mix tapes off the radio with my bookshelf stereo. "Nobody Wins" by Radney Foster segued into "Nothin' but a G Thing" by Dr. Dre and Snoop. My first car was an '87 Mustang with the standard AM/FM cassette player. I was too cheap to buy an actual CD player for my car, besides it would have just gotten stolen anyway. So, I used the cassette tape adapter for my Sony Discman.