On Thu, 29 May 2008 00:55:27 GMT, "William W Western"
wrote:

I have not scanned eBay 8track stuff for awhile but it used to be that
one of the better sellers were Guess Who carts. Oddly enough they are not in
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Maybe not so odd given some of the
exclusions and inclusions that haunt the hall. Rumours of an east coast bias
(Manitoba, whatinell is a Manitoba?) with the hall physically in Ohio but
the machinery in New York may well be true. Some say The Guess Who were
strictly regional. Zuh? I lived all over the USA in the late 60s and 70s and
they were probably more popular there (especially the midwest and north
Pacific) than in Winnipeg. Sign the petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/tfh1/ snip

Done. The Guess Who (aka "Salisbury House"...no, wait, that came
later) was one of the top AM radio chart bands of that era in
California, and sold quite respectable album numbers as well. There
was a flurry of Canadian infusion into US pop back then, as well as CW
with Annie Murray and the others. The unsung heroes of that movement,
in Top 40 pop anyway, were The Box Tops...they never got no respect
for anything!

Odd, however, is that every time I think of Burton, I think of
Salisbury steaks with plenty of beef gravy now. It's a weird
contrivance of mine...sort of similar to the one of Charlie Nudo
rummaging around in a greasy dumpster with Alfredo sauce smeared all
over his shirt. Can't seem to shake that one, either. I think Rick
minted that one.

I had the whole gamut of TGW releases on carts, all Canadian
manufacture. They were of better quality than contemporary US
product, at least in terms of frequency response. It appeared that
the Canucks in the tape dupe plants up there were a little more
diligent about head cleaning, replacement and alignment than the slugs
down south. One of the "highest fi" carts I ever had was a copy of
Zappa's "Orchestral Favorites", in Dolby B, in the ubiquitous banana
yellow carts that defied opening without tab breakage. I garnered a
ton of Canadian Dolby releases on cart once I moved up to the
Wollensak 8075, and it did improve one of 8 track's bad features, low
signal-to-noise ratio. Why it never caught on in the US is cause for
speculation. It sure DID catch on with cassettes a few years later!