8-Track Tapes

[mjzee]

DALLAS—Last fall, more than 200 people crammed into one of this city's premier contemporary art galleries for a three-day show. The white walls, accustomed to paintings that sell for thousands of dollars, were home to less rarified fare.

The show? Eight Track Tapes: The Bucks Burnett Collection. "It was packed," says gallery owner Barry Whistler.

Presiding over the affair was James "Bucks" Burnett, a portly fellow with long gray hair and a white beard. He wore a tailored brown suit covered with images from the album cover of Led Zeppelin's 1973 Houses of the Holy. Strangers showed up offering boxes of eight tracks, which Mr. Burnett happily pawed through, plucking out dusty rarities and putting them on display.

The positive response "led me to think maybe I'm not insane," says Mr. Burnett. But it also helped him realize that a brief gallery show simply can't contain his vision for the hard plastic tapes, one of the clunkiest and most short-lived music formats of all time.He wants to open an eight-track museum. "There are only two choices. A world with an eight-track museum and a world without an eight-track museum," he says. "I choose with."

More here:

WSJ

[Joe]

In the 90's (or heyday of indie record shops), Bucks owned and operated 14 RECORDS here in Dallas, just off Lower Greenville and at the end of my block. I used to walk up there often and ogle the many rarities -- 8-track and otherwise -- he would routinely bring into the store... I remember the day he finally procured NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS, HERE'S THE SEX PISTOLS in that format.

Bucks is also a huge fan of Tiny Tim's, and organized what he called "Tinypalooza" not long after the performer's death. Oh, and he was also partly responsible for the famed / infamous [?] Brave Combo - Tiny Tim collaboration...

Their version of "stairway to Heaven" has to be heard to be believed. And I mean that it beggars belief in a good way, i.e., you may think you know what Tiny Tim's all about, but...

good to know Bucks is still out there guarding the fringe.