Craig Anderton’s Open Channel: The Race Against Time: In Search of the Lost Chords

There’s no question that some magical recordings have been lost forever. After a tape has been incinerated, or has deteriorated beyond recognition, it’s game over.

Sometimes recordings are lost in other ways, like in someone’s attic, a storage unit or in a box of long-forgotten safety copies. Sometimes serendipity hits, and these pieces of history re-surface accidentally, but more often than not, reclaiming our musical heritage falls to those racing against time to recover tapes before they disappear completely.

I’ve experienced both scenarios. When a record company wanted to rerelease the first album by Mandrake Memorial, a band I was in during the ’60s, they hoped I had at least a safety copy of the original master. Nope. After following multiple leads that went nowhere, eventually the label concluded the best it could do was find an unplayed vinyl copy (which in itself wasn’t easy) and then clean it up.

More recently, Damon Lyon-Shaw (Status Quo, The Who, Golden Earring) found the stereo mix for an album project he engineered for us at Olympic Studios. The album was never released because some of the songs ended up being repurposed for Puzzle, the band’s final album. The tape sat in storage for decades. After Lyon-Shaw found it, the tape eventually worked its way to Richard Morton Jack of Flashback Records, who was familiar with the band. Almost a half-century later, the album that was presumed lost forever was mastered and released.

Craig Anderton’s Open Channel: Vanishing Voices

Usually, though, you don’t get lucky. In 1999 Steely Dan’s Becker and Fagen offered a $600 reward for the missing multitrack tapes of the songs “Aja” and “Black Cow.” They were never found.

With the growing awareness that history is slipping away, Master Tape Rescue (spearheaded by industry veterans Brian Kehew and Danny White) is doing something about it. They’ve identified an “information gap” between archives holding tapes and the people who would want them—if only they knew the tapes still existed. Master Tape Rescue’s goal is to connect labels, artists and producers seeking lost tapes with the archives holding them.

Looking through the archives listings on the MTR website reveals material by Elvis Costello, The Alarm, James Cotton, Greg Kihn, David Foster, Buddy Rich, Big Audio Dynamite, The Grateful Dead, The Blasters—and many more. However, finding tapes is only the beginning. Whether 10-inch reels, DAT, 2-inch multitracks, conventional masters or DA-88 cartridges, machines that can play back dinosaur formats are a vanishing breed. They must also be well-maintained, but the issues around maintenance recall vintage car fanatics who search through junk yards for a usable steering box.

Even then, having a machine that can play back tapes still isn’t enough. If dbx or Dolby noise reduction was used, you need to decode the audio. And then there’s the infamous sticky-shed syndrome. Over time, magnetic tapes collect moisture. This breaks down the tape binder. Not only does the tape itself become sticky, but during playback, it leaves a sticky layer of crud on the tape machine’s surfaces (Ampex 456 has a particularly bad reputation).

Although sticky tapes are essentially unplayable, there’s a potential solution: “baking” the tape in a hot-air oven or food dehydrator. This can’t be done quickly—the digitization specialists at Round and Wound estimate two to three days for a 2-inch reel—but after baking, you (hopefully) have a window that lasts from several days to a couple weeks when you can play back the tape and digitize it.

Baking is a “kids, don’t try this at home” operation. The temperature and timing has to be just right or you can damage the tape you’re trying to save. Furthermore, if there’s paper leader tape spliced between songs, it will likely have deteriorated so that it breaks during playback. What’s more, plastic splicing tape usually needs to be replaced. If a tape needs baking, it’s essential to seek out someone with a history of successful tape baking and transfers. You may get lucky and find a professional locally who’s done archiving work for a company like Sony or Universal so you don’t have to go through the anxiety of shipping tapes—but don’t bet on it.

Also, remember that not all tapes ended up in archives. Many tapes are owned by curiosity seekers, collectors and those who were in the right place at the right time. It’s rumored that after Virgin/EMI acquired Olympic Studios, boxes of tapes ended up in dumpsters behind the building, and artists were invited to dig through the trash to find what they could. Reportedly, collectors were tipped off about this, and someone walked away with unreleased Led Zeppelin material from the late ’60s. Others likely have tapes by the Stones and the Who.

Then there’s the story of how in the 1980s, CBS sawed off the metal reels that stored magnetic tape so they could sell the metal as scrap. Fortunately, employees managed to save some of the tapes. During a different CBS purge, masters and test pressings ended up in garbage cans. Anyone walking around midtown Manhattan who stumbled across them could take what they wanted. Where are those tapes now? Do they even exist? Did some garage band record over them?

Irreversible mistakes have been made in the past. Are we going to make the same mistakes in the future? Can we keep history from repeating itself? Check back for next month’s Open Channel.