This will be the sole Christmas-themed post on Normal Bias this year.

This tape is one that I grew up listening to every year at Christmas. My parents never purchased much music, so this recording they made from the radio (WWSH-FM in Philadelphia — couldn’t find any information about it online (was looking under the wrong call letters)… anyone in the audience know what frequency they broadcast on?) in 1974 was what got rotation every year in our house. In fact, it still does. Even though the music is generally pretty basic background orchestral Christmas music, there’s still something about it I love. The memories it evokes, I guess.

My favorite part, for sure, comes on side 2 at 10 minutes in. There’s a radio ad for Disney on Parade ’74 at the Spectrum (tickets available at all Ticketron locations!) followed by a news broadcast by DJ Ted Sawyer (the same guy listed here?). The news items are kind of interesting, particularly the first one about domestic spying.

The radio broadcast ends on side 3 at about the 10 minute marker. At 10:48 begins a recording of a school holiday concert. This could have been mine or my sister’s from either elementary or middle school, which would place it somewhere between 1985 and 1993. I’d bet somewhere in the late 80s/early 90s during my middle school years (the playing sounds too advanced to be elementary school). Will anyone listen this far? Probably not. But I’m posting it anyway.

The radio recording is a normal bias dub from an original normal bias cassette, but it still sounds halfway decent since there’s no static.

Back later in the week with a few more hip-hop posts.

(edited to correct the call letters – see comments)