Congratulations on hitting the Substack 1 year mark! I too was a Columbia House member but in the time of CDs. In fact, I still get reminder emails about the “choice of the month.” 🤪 Most of my selections were 90s Alt/ Rock bands and country solo artists. I wasn’t clever enough to have more than one account. 🤦🏼♀️
Or smart enough not to have more than one account!;) It is surely a lot more difficult to game the system now, with credit card requirements and other digital protections. It’s amazing they still are around in this age of streaming.
I was a club member! I still have a giant box in the garage with a bunch of cassettes in it, including mix tapes I made when I was in junior high and high school.
Re REO Speedwagon, they were hit and miss with me. I love Roll with the Changes -- I tend to love any song that has a repeating phrase that I can internalize as a mantra, and I love the "keep on rollin'" aspect of this song.
But a BAD memory I have of REO Speedwagon was being given "I can't fight this feeling" to play on a keyboard and sing for my piano recital. I wasn't great at singing, and I wasn't great at playing contemporary music. Why on earth did I let this happen?? I felt so stupid, though I'm sure at the time I thought it would ROCK! This happened after 11 years of classical piano lessons and playing stuff like Bach and Chopin at my recitals. Maybe I thought this new piano teacher would be cooler?! Maybe I thought *I* would be cooler?! I have no idea. It was a disaster. LOL
The first record I ever bought with my own money (Kiss Destroyer, 4th grade, $2.00) was off a kid in my class who was hawking the 10 albums he got for a penny from CH.
Mi dos centavos: I was a Club member more than once in my life! I'm sure in the '70s (for LPs), and I think, sometime in the '80s for cassettes, and maybe eventually merging into CDs. As you know (and most other fellow music writers), I was festooned with promo albums, late '60s thru early '80s, thanks to Dad's radio gig, and then, mid-'70s on, my radio/retail record gigs.
But, even gifted with scads o' promos, I felt the lure of taping my penny to a 3x5 card, and then going to sleep each night dreaming of LPs-with-legs marching into my home a couple weeks hence.
As for REO, never a fan, but always appreciated their way with a hook, and their perpetual touring the country building their fan base (I wonder how many times they opened for, or were paired on a bill with Epic label-mates, Ted Nugent and/or Meat Loaf and/or Boston)! What REO was for the '70s, Def Leppard was for the '80s....waaaay pop-leaning guitar rock perfect for AM, but somehow avoiding alienating FM! Rawk on!🤘
I was counting on you to fill in the deets on the CHR&TC! What was the deal with the pink labelled cassettes? Yes, the penny taping -- I did remember that but didn't have time to rewrite with that lovely tidbit!
I did forget to share this: The "pink labelled cassettes" may have been a signal to CRC (more below about the pink). Regardless, the "CRC" designation is all they needed to let us know. That differentiated it from the authentic label-released versions. You'll notice CRC iterations didn't even share the same record label catalog number for each release.
BTW, CRC licensed product from the various record companies in order to legally sell them mail-order as they did. Speaking for CRC vinyl (I can't speak to quality control for tapes of any format), they DID press theirs, if not at different pressing plants as the majors, then same plants using far less superior PVC and other elements...standards the majors wanted to make sure to keep up to snuff to some degree.
So, vinyl product from CRC was decidedly inferior to store-bought, again, to keep their profits up to counter any little boys' attempts to wheedle unpaid-for items out of them!😁
You'll notice the KISS "Love Gun" CRC cassette catalog # is CAF5 7057, while the official Casablanca Records cassette catalog # was NBL5 7057. The "NB" stood for Casablanca founder/prez, Neil Bogart, while the 7057 number was kept by CRC so as to coincide with Casablanca's numbering system....."Love Gun" was forever "Love Gun" for both CRC and Casablanca, and that number stayed consistent for individual record title ID sake.
The "CA" in the CRC code simply signified "cassette." The pink label, as far as I know, was simply a double border, so that when the inlay card was placed inside the plastic shell case, those pink lines would align with the box edges.
And, now you know the rest of the story..........And, knowing's baff the hattle!👍
Great post. High Infidelity was one my my first favourite albums. As for the clubs ... at one pint I had five different accounts in five names at five PO Boxes (hall mates at college)! Bit of a balancing act, but a great way to flesh out my CD collection - and not too expensive as long as the ‘full price’ ones were the cheapest possible. One reason I’ve still got LOVE GUN!
It's comforting to read how so many of us took advantage of and found creative ways to exploit the CHR&TC to help build our music collections! It was how we were able to afford to buy music from the smaller record stores of the day!
It might be interesting to survey how many of us did this - and also, how many ripped as many tracks (only the finest ones, of course) from Napster before that got shut down.
I'm amazed that a version of it still exists considering the proliferation of streaming. And that it has lasted as a business model for almost 50 years!
Fun post on so many levels, Steve! As for the Club, the reason for its name change is due to, corporately speaking, CBS (owned by Japan's Sony) and RCA (owned by German parent, BMG) merged a couple decades ago.
That means that the Columbia Records (mother to subsidiary, Epic, upon whom REO recorded) of yesteryear merged with the RCA that had Elvis, David Cassidy, and Stephen Michael Schwartz on board in the mid-'70s! Back in THAT day, we couldn't imagine Columbia and RCA would (or COULD) ever merge!!!
But, of course, if the Club were to keep existing (as it apparently has), it would only ever exist as BMG, and not Sony/CBS...although, there had to be a meeting to decide which of the two merged major labels would get lead billing!!
Thanks for the history lesson. I am surprised you haven't written about this yet. Or maybe you have? I was gonna give you heads up but I literally came up with it the same day I wrote it! No preplanning from Mr. Steve.
When I tried a similar thing (at fifteen), Columbia House was all LPs. I kept thinking they would try to sue me. I'm glad you found an ad with 8-tracks on it - I think I owned four of those things, to listen to in my mom's car.
Maybe it was the power of the masses that kept us all from getting sued? Or the fact that most of us were under age? I think there were threats of legal action to many who did try the same thing but were essentially empty. And the ad even offered reel-to-reel! Which seems insane to me. Thanks for reading!
I had a response all cocked and ready to go, Kevin, for any suits who might bang on my '70s-era door: "Hey, I've taken in some music-loving squatters, what can I tell ya?"😱
Yeah, I sort of remember doing that too. But I also remember it not working more than once. I also have a perhaps false memory of using my grandparents address to try and get more tapes. I may or may not have gotten grounded for that one.
Congratulations on hitting the Substack 1 year mark! I too was a Columbia House member but in the time of CDs. In fact, I still get reminder emails about the “choice of the month.” 🤪 Most of my selections were 90s Alt/ Rock bands and country solo artists. I wasn’t clever enough to have more than one account. 🤦🏼♀️
Or smart enough not to have more than one account!;) It is surely a lot more difficult to game the system now, with credit card requirements and other digital protections. It’s amazing they still are around in this age of streaming.
I was a club member! I still have a giant box in the garage with a bunch of cassettes in it, including mix tapes I made when I was in junior high and high school.
Re REO Speedwagon, they were hit and miss with me. I love Roll with the Changes -- I tend to love any song that has a repeating phrase that I can internalize as a mantra, and I love the "keep on rollin'" aspect of this song.
But a BAD memory I have of REO Speedwagon was being given "I can't fight this feeling" to play on a keyboard and sing for my piano recital. I wasn't great at singing, and I wasn't great at playing contemporary music. Why on earth did I let this happen?? I felt so stupid, though I'm sure at the time I thought it would ROCK! This happened after 11 years of classical piano lessons and playing stuff like Bach and Chopin at my recitals. Maybe I thought this new piano teacher would be cooler?! Maybe I thought *I* would be cooler?! I have no idea. It was a disaster. LOL
This should be a story for one of your newsletter posts! A pause between Shrodinger Polyp posts….my positive thoughts are with you and Bryan.
The first record I ever bought with my own money (Kiss Destroyer, 4th grade, $2.00) was off a kid in my class who was hawking the 10 albums he got for a penny from CH.
Ha!
Mi dos centavos: I was a Club member more than once in my life! I'm sure in the '70s (for LPs), and I think, sometime in the '80s for cassettes, and maybe eventually merging into CDs. As you know (and most other fellow music writers), I was festooned with promo albums, late '60s thru early '80s, thanks to Dad's radio gig, and then, mid-'70s on, my radio/retail record gigs.
But, even gifted with scads o' promos, I felt the lure of taping my penny to a 3x5 card, and then going to sleep each night dreaming of LPs-with-legs marching into my home a couple weeks hence.
As for REO, never a fan, but always appreciated their way with a hook, and their perpetual touring the country building their fan base (I wonder how many times they opened for, or were paired on a bill with Epic label-mates, Ted Nugent and/or Meat Loaf and/or Boston)! What REO was for the '70s, Def Leppard was for the '80s....waaaay pop-leaning guitar rock perfect for AM, but somehow avoiding alienating FM! Rawk on!🤘
I was counting on you to fill in the deets on the CHR&TC! What was the deal with the pink labelled cassettes? Yes, the penny taping -- I did remember that but didn't have time to rewrite with that lovely tidbit!
I did forget to share this: The "pink labelled cassettes" may have been a signal to CRC (more below about the pink). Regardless, the "CRC" designation is all they needed to let us know. That differentiated it from the authentic label-released versions. You'll notice CRC iterations didn't even share the same record label catalog number for each release.
BTW, CRC licensed product from the various record companies in order to legally sell them mail-order as they did. Speaking for CRC vinyl (I can't speak to quality control for tapes of any format), they DID press theirs, if not at different pressing plants as the majors, then same plants using far less superior PVC and other elements...standards the majors wanted to make sure to keep up to snuff to some degree.
So, vinyl product from CRC was decidedly inferior to store-bought, again, to keep their profits up to counter any little boys' attempts to wheedle unpaid-for items out of them!😁
You'll notice the KISS "Love Gun" CRC cassette catalog # is CAF5 7057, while the official Casablanca Records cassette catalog # was NBL5 7057. The "NB" stood for Casablanca founder/prez, Neil Bogart, while the 7057 number was kept by CRC so as to coincide with Casablanca's numbering system....."Love Gun" was forever "Love Gun" for both CRC and Casablanca, and that number stayed consistent for individual record title ID sake.
The "CA" in the CRC code simply signified "cassette." The pink label, as far as I know, was simply a double border, so that when the inlay card was placed inside the plastic shell case, those pink lines would align with the box edges.
And, now you know the rest of the story..........And, knowing's baff the hattle!👍
Great post. High Infidelity was one my my first favourite albums. As for the clubs ... at one pint I had five different accounts in five names at five PO Boxes (hall mates at college)! Bit of a balancing act, but a great way to flesh out my CD collection - and not too expensive as long as the ‘full price’ ones were the cheapest possible. One reason I’ve still got LOVE GUN!
It's comforting to read how so many of us took advantage of and found creative ways to exploit the CHR&TC to help build our music collections! It was how we were able to afford to buy music from the smaller record stores of the day!
It might be interesting to survey how many of us did this - and also, how many ripped as many tracks (only the finest ones, of course) from Napster before that got shut down.
I did the Columbia club thing in my 20s. It still felt like a deal! REO has so many ear worms...they know how to write a hook.
Yes, REO had more hooks than a tackle box.
I'm amazed that a version of it still exists considering the proliferation of streaming. And that it has lasted as a business model for almost 50 years!
Fun post on so many levels, Steve! As for the Club, the reason for its name change is due to, corporately speaking, CBS (owned by Japan's Sony) and RCA (owned by German parent, BMG) merged a couple decades ago.
That means that the Columbia Records (mother to subsidiary, Epic, upon whom REO recorded) of yesteryear merged with the RCA that had Elvis, David Cassidy, and Stephen Michael Schwartz on board in the mid-'70s! Back in THAT day, we couldn't imagine Columbia and RCA would (or COULD) ever merge!!!
But, of course, if the Club were to keep existing (as it apparently has), it would only ever exist as BMG, and not Sony/CBS...although, there had to be a meeting to decide which of the two merged major labels would get lead billing!!
Thanks for the history lesson. I am surprised you haven't written about this yet. Or maybe you have? I was gonna give you heads up but I literally came up with it the same day I wrote it! No preplanning from Mr. Steve.
No, CRC is virgin territory, at least on FR&B! I'm glad you tackled it, because the topic deserves to breathe somewhere in our little corner!
When I tried a similar thing (at fifteen), Columbia House was all LPs. I kept thinking they would try to sue me. I'm glad you found an ad with 8-tracks on it - I think I owned four of those things, to listen to in my mom's car.
Maybe it was the power of the masses that kept us all from getting sued? Or the fact that most of us were under age? I think there were threats of legal action to many who did try the same thing but were essentially empty. And the ad even offered reel-to-reel! Which seems insane to me. Thanks for reading!
If you can take advantage of a situation in some way, it's your duty as an American to do it. ~ John-Swartzwelder
Fun article, Steve. PS: I liked REO Speedwagon🤘
Love that quote! Thanks, Paul. I feel better about my young actions now.
I may or may not have tried a similar scheme w/Columbia House. Mine involved using a new name at the same address. What could possibly go wrong?
I had a response all cocked and ready to go, Kevin, for any suits who might bang on my '70s-era door: "Hey, I've taken in some music-loving squatters, what can I tell ya?"😱
Yeah, I sort of remember doing that too. But I also remember it not working more than once. I also have a perhaps false memory of using my grandparents address to try and get more tapes. I may or may not have gotten grounded for that one.
“Allegedly,” of course.