Bob & Al's mallet music

Wednesday, 27 February 2008

I really hate the fact that my beloved Tascam tape deck doesn’t play anymore. I don’t think it is some defect that can’t be fixed, but so far I have not found anybody in the neighbourhood that can do it for a reasonable price. Of course I have more than one tape deck, so now I am using my old Sansui again, which I once got from my father-in-law, when he bought his first CD-player.
Right now I listen to a tape called Bob & Al’s mallet music. I got the tape from Piet Schreuders, but I cannot remember the history behind it. Who are Bob & AL? And are these really all 78rpm records, as I think they are?
Sometimes it is nice that I don’t know what I am listening to. More than once I liked a record, but than heard or read something about it that made me like it a lot less. (For example, how can ever fully enjoy my Gary Glitter collection, now I know that Gary Glitter has been forcing little children to have sex with him?! And I really loved those records!)
I can imagine that Bob & Al are a gay couple, retired and wealthy, who enjoy collecting 78rpm records. They made this tape for the niece of Bob’s sister, who turned 18 and showed some interest in old music. Of course Bob and Al had some arguments over the music that should be on the cassette. Bob likes the more up tempo swing songs, while Al prefers the more easy listening mallet tunes. So they ended up with a compromise: they could each choose two songs after each other until the 60 minutes were filled.
When Bob noticed that Al picked much longer songs than Bob, he got angry and didn’t wanted to have anything more to do with the tape. So the second half of the B-side of the tape is mainly semi classical easy listening.
Here is from this beautiful tape Harry Breuer with Chicken Reel.

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