This is a site showcasing the various recordings I've collected. Most of these are reel-to-reel tapes purchased at estate sales or thrift stores. I present them as items of cultural interest for people interested in the culture of people who recorded things that interested them.

I've done some editing and eq'ing here and there in order to make them easier to hear. Enjoy, marvel, decipher. - Curtis Settino

Letter Home from Vietnam - side 1
July 15, 1964 (maybe 1970)
2.5" reel, mono. Recorded on a Sanyo Pocket Corder model MC-2
Found at an estate sale in NW Portland, OR

Barbara, a nurse (maybe a doctor or a doctor's wife) relates the goings on of life during the Vietnam War to her mother back in the U.S. Topics include gun fire in the distance, pho soup, obnoxious children and the everpresent noise. Her voice pitches up near the end probably due to the batteries getting weak in the recorder.

1964 (maybe 1970)

Barbara and her translator, Lilly, talk about boyfriends vs. friends and the protocols of Vietnamese letter writing. Lilly reads a letter she wrote to her boyfriend in Saigon.

September 3, 1974
2.5" reel, mono. Recorded on a Sony Sony-o-matic Tapecorder TC-900
Found at Cart'm Thrift Store in Manzanita, OR

John J. Angelas, from Nehalem Bay, OR, calls a Portland, OR repair shop, owned by Dick Thompson, to discuss the brake work they did on his 1968 Cougar that has failed. Apparently John thought there might be a need to have evidence of this conversation.

September 19, 1974

John J. Angelas calls back. His car is still not right.