The Jonzbox, acquired Christmas 1983, last used…2004?

So I’m listening to KSCU online this morning, and one of the deejays is playing stuff that’s catching my interest.  I have a few titles written down for further research and possible downloading.

And I’m thinking…back in the day, I used to have a blank tape at the ready inside that mini boombox you see above there, Record and Play already down, the Pause button ready to be hit as soon as a cool song comes on.  I have a good handful of tapes full of stuff I’ve taped off of college radio shows from the 1988-1989 semesters.  One or two of those tapes are almost complete shows.

So after that show finishes, I’m thinking…it’s all fine and dandy that I can write down the songs that I like and download them, but what if I want more than that?  What if I want to retain that bit of college radio atmosphere, some deejay patter, and so on?  How would I go about doing that?  I mean, aside from downloading questionable software that may or many not even work?

So it occurs to me: I could set up a tape deck, just like the old days…plug some wires into the Audio In jack in the back, plug the other end into the speaker jack or the headphone jack of the PC. I think I still have a few blank tapes kicking around, and I know I can still find new blanks if take the time to look for them.  And then I can use my audio software to convert the tapes to mp3 later on.

An extremely Rube Goldbergian setup to be sure, but I would actually go that far if I really wanted to.  Because I’m that much of a music nerd to go THAT old school to tape stuff off the radio.

[As an aside, there’s one show on KSCU, The 80s Underground, where the deejay records his entire show, patter and all, and puts it up as a podcast later in the day.  He’s got excellent taste, knows his obscurities, and it’s well worth checking out.]