A random record with ‘Sixteen Sides’

A follow-up a year later (counting on Mat being notified 😃). This was just posted by Record-ology: https://youtu.be/X94bqVnpV-A The very same concept, horse race and all, although it's done on a single 45 rpm record rather than several 33s. And it predates your game by two decades, or more, so I guess the game designer(s?) got the idea from RCA/Bluebird. Perhaps something to mention on the next Odd-cast?

I have a 12" Promo of The Sugarcubes 'Birthday' from 1988 which features a double-groove on Side A. Their cool idea was to have two mixes of the same song which were identical bar the addition of an extra guitar part courtesy of The Jesus & Mary Chain. The specific mix you'd landed on only became clear about a minute into the song. While I have the promo, there was also a regular 12" version, also with the double-groove, though I've not heard that one yet. https://www.discogs.com/The-Sugarcubes-Birthday-Christmas-Mix/release/1339557

That was loads of fun, Mat — I'd wager more fun than actually playing the game! (And yes, I bet on the wrong horse.)

I bought the M - Pop Muzik 12 inch 45 rpm single when it came out. I wondered how the engineer got both groves on the record without them bumping in to each other. If you listen to the shorter track you can just hear some cross talk from the other groove. A funny thing was when I first played it I got the M Factor track and thought they put the wrong song on.

I went for "Perfect Scouse", knowing that you are based near Liverpool, and was genuinely excited when it nearly won. But, as usual, lost my stakes... 😟

Nice. In about 1975 and me being 9 or so, I picked up one of my first copies of MAD magazine. It contained a flexi-disc named "It's a super-spectacular day" which had multiple endings (there was a pause at "until...." and then it would list all these terrible things that happened to the singer/narrator). I've long suspected that the vinyl album version of the Prince song "America" had maybe four of these grooves but I've never been able to prove it. It seemed to be travelling fast. Thanks for the great videos!

Great Interesting video. Never knew this was a thing. Now i gotta get my hands on a record that has something like this. Genius.

Awesome video, never knew you could even do that with a record! This might be because I'm more of a techie, but I originally thought you said "erase night." My first instinct was, did people get together or have a party and like, erase CD-RWs, tapes, minidiscs together and make a evening out of it? Was it something that hard core audiophiles did? XD

Great video mate. Our cricket club had a similar race night years ago, but using a randomised horse racing PC game. I recently organized something similar for our Calgary Stampede house party. I chose random youtube sporting races (horses, olympic 100m, yabbie races, shetland ponies etc), listed each competitor for each race, then people could bet on which one they thought would win. We played them all at the end of the night to all the drunken gamblers! Was great fun.

When I saw it I first assumed they might have forks in the track where it can go into either of 2 ways from some point, then again further down the track.

Thanks for explaining the whole "race night" thing - I'd never heard of this, and still trying to wrap my mind around it. So it's like bingo, except the numbers would be prerecorded onto a vinyl record and played back. So odd.

Definitely a novelty item for its time. Before this, I don’t think I’ve even heard of such an item

Also, in 1977 or 1978, Mad Magazine included a flexible disk in one of its special issues called “The great big beautiful wonderful incredible super spectacular day.” Each time you played the disk, you got one of (I think) five outcomes of how the day was spoiled.

I remember having a “Vegas” night fundraiser at my (Catholic) high school. As a member of the AV group (shocker) I was running the projector. Someone would pull a sealed film reel (yes, 16mm film reel) out of a box, hand it to me, I’d break the seal and thread it through the projector while bets were being made.

Jimmy O'Goblin has failed me for the last time. Off to the glue factory!

This was a take on a 78rpm record from the 30s known as a 'Magi-Trak disc'. In the second hand shop where I used to work we sold a horse racing one and a football pools one too. I've found a link to a demonstration of the horse racing one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4TPXl9jhxk

So smug I choose Deeside and won nothing.

Very much the same concept as Matt T said, like the Datsun talking unit "Bocking brake is on" and of course the see & say records. These of course have a system to play a SPECIFIC message, but many of the motorised toys of the era used a small record and worked much the same as this. The ALF plush I had as a youngster would say random phrases when the tummy was pushed. "I'm a people alien" "Be there or be square" etc etc. Trivia: Those talking toys used "Hill & Dale" like the Edison cylinders and diamond discs as they produce a good volume, if distorted with simplistic mechanicals. Most of them (well the 6 or so I pulled apart as a kid) used a double sided record, side B remaining unused unless disassembled. The laughing bag innards I had with the one continuous track for the laugh, had a creepy doll on side B with 6 random phrases as an example. IRRC, the brand was "OZEN"

This reminds me of the old car 'records' with voice messages, I wonder what the largest number of sound clips was for one of those. Despite the bad game I do really like this and I think "Going for that winning post like a homing pigeon with Rolls-Royce engines" is my favourite phrase of the month. I had my money on #5 by the way, I'm never much good with gambling...

I really enjoyed this video. Very clever use of technology back then. I never knew this stuff existed. Being from the Netherlands, horse racing wasn’t (or isn’t) a thing really. Thank you for sharing this. Very entertaining.

I did play one of these games with the films one evening in about 1972 or something. Boring to be honest. Never again. By the way, I genuinely did choose Deeside.; can I have my pretend £10 note please? :-)

The name of number 8 - Perfect Scouse - had me rolling with laughter!

Being able to make up your own odds seems slightly pointless when it's going to be 7:1 for every single horse in every race. If they could have packed in more than eight tracks on each side they could have made it more interesting with certain horses having more chance of winning. I may be over thinking how to actually make this game interesting.

They have DVDs in Japan with the same concept as the one you showed, but they had to put their own twist on it of course: https://youtu.be/LBzwqT6N1Wg

Nice one Matt. I chose the right horse. I'm off to the track.

OK, so now you have to do 8 different versions of this video, each with a segment for a different horse winning, and get YouTube to do a script that will play a random video so we can keep playing it and bet on which horse will win on that version! ;-)

Perfect divertissement for a Sunday. Thank you.

Pretty darn ingenious vinyl mastering, and new to me. Thanks, Matt.

The original plan was to give "Monty Python's Previous Record" (1972) three grooves on side two. It was abandoned at the cutting stage, though you can still hear its legacy as Graham Chapman announces "a massage from the Swedish Prime Minister" three times on the side, about eight minutes apart. Of course, the idea was perfected, as two grooves on the following year's Matching Tie And Handkerchief (that's the US cover you're showing, by the way!)

Thanks for this! I’ve always wanted see one of these after hearing about them may years ago. Whilst is a simple and elegant system to play, how would you cut a disc like this? I imagine that it would be very difficult to line up the lathe to cut all the concentric groves given the very fine tolerances.

I wonder how they managed to cut a master disc with all those concentric grooves. Looks like an engineering nightmare. Very interesting in any case.

I guessed "Deeside". I guess I have to spend my savings on the races now

Very interesting as always. I had never come across these multi-sided records until I got a 12" single of Kate Bush's Sensual World. Imagine my surprise when I put it on the turntable to find that it was a instrumental version, no voice, after I was sure she was singing before. Got me really head scratching until I figured it out.

I seem to recall from Michael Palin’s diary that they had all kinds of issues finding a pressing company that could make the Python album.

Unexpected. Unusual. Curios. Intelligent. Hope you get a lot of views.

So, basically like a long-playing See-and-Say...

This was a very good cheese 🥪.

The multi-track disc is actually as old as the record itself, as some of our earliest examples of it dates back to all the way back to 1899 (they usually called it the "Puzzle Plate" - the 1901 one mentioned in Wikipedia is actually the earliest AMERICAN multi-track disc). There were LOTS of multi-track records during the 78 era (a lot of them were racing game records like this one). My favorite multi-track record is the HMV Limerick Puzzle Record (HMV B3986) from 1931 where there were two separate bands containing 6 different limericks each; 36 random limericks you can generate from one side!

Enjoyed your presentation of this. I thought I'd heard about this before, and Steve Mould has a video with several of these fancy discs: https://youtu.be/yIoAYU_r0Uk?t=420

This is fascinating. Somehow I imagined a convoluted solution where there are “forks” and the needle has 50/50 chance of going left or right. But basically depending on where you put a needle on the outside, you have a 12.5% chance of it being “slotted” into one of the tracks from the very beginning, is that correct? I guess I still didn’t fully understand how does the needle get on a random track if you start the record from the outside.

Ok. Many years ago, I bought a Monty Python LP, and was surprised that side 2 was exactly the same as side 1. I assumed it was an error in pressing, but now I’m not sure. I still have it, so I guess I’ll have to get it out and give it a listen.

The horse racing DVD you showed is made by "Cheatwell Games"? 😃

Funny, yes, I know the principle, I got the Matching Tie and Handkerchief here (which has by the way also a sleeve with a very interesting effect) ;-). It's like a bit a complicated dice, nothing more, indeed, the game will get boring very soon I guess

Mine is on its way from Germany 😂, this was to great of a product not to get from eBay before the techmoan effect. Mat quick question In an oddcast you talked about a service that lets you look at old catalogs from electronic stores. Do you remember which episode? Otherwise I’ll have a look myself... not to bad to watch some old episodes.

Now i want to see how these records are made 😄. I’ve seen a recording studio and the machines in there and all but these records how did they do it? Cutting heads running parallel??

Why not make a Clue theater?

Maybe I'm wrong, but when you presented one of your automatic turntable (Sansui?) you said that it always stop record in the same position (label was in same orientation after each stopping). So when your run it again it should starts "exactly" the same place. Will it run same "side" of this record, or it will be random in this case too.

It is a neat idea, but even if you could understand the nuances of betting I expect the novelty of listening to the recordings would soon wear off and you might as well roll dice. I wonder how much that game cost when new? Back in the day, a triple album on vinyl wouldn't have been cheap. Well presented as always, Mat.

I'm really impressed at the audio fidelity of the whole thing. You'd think with so many different spirals packed together that there'd be some sort of crosstalk problem but nope, the voice comes through loud and clear, no distortion at all. Really phenomenal engineering from the part of whoever made this!

Could it be doubled if there were individual races on the left and right channel or maybe the record’s are mono?

This made me smile more than once. Especially when you “made it rain”. I could listen to that British announcer all day long. I have hundreds of records but I must be daft because until you explained how this is possible I couldn’t figure it out and now I feel like I should have. What an excellent video. Thank you for brightening my Sunday morning. I hope your stroll was as pleasant.

If we'd had this when I was a kid we would have just make up our own rules. 1 point for 3rd, 2 for 2nd, 3 for 1st place. Whoever has the most points when you get bored of it wins! Sort of like our 'timed Monopoly' nights - whoever's ahead after an hour or so wins

Such a great little fun vid! Thanks!

I hope you enjoyed your Sunday walk as I did this video. I never knew more than two sided records existed. Very interesting, as always. BTW My money was on Dragonfly: I know nothing.

An actual race night event with people watching filmed races sounds like it could be enjoyable. I agree that while the recording technique is clever, the game itself seems tedious. Also, whether asset or liability, Mr. Whitcomb's narration sounds like he's describing a couple engaged in sexual intercourse, gradually increasing in intensity until reaching climax at the end of the race.

Wow, what a great video. I'm a huge fan of weird records and never knew this existed. I can actually think of a bunch of cool uses for this (at least when it was released). Imagine being a kid and having a choose your adventure style album where you get different results and responses? Or even a concept album where its the same album each time but each time there is a different mix or style of the same song. For example, Death Cab For Cutie in earlier years had many different mixes of the same song that changed the tone. Spencer Krug of Sunset Rubdown/Wolf Parade/Swan Lake does this constantly. There is 3 or more versions of the song "I'll Believe In Anything". Mat, can you tell me how the Jack White handles this?

It's a novel idea Mat. I'm not sure I would even understand horse racing. The only thing I knew about it was working in a department store and it becoming empty on Saturday afternoons when racing was on at Newmarket or Thetford . The Monty Python record sounds fun. Should I buy a copy ? Before Ebayits comes in. Or the Techmoan effect.

Wow very clever indeed, thanks for putting this together! Loved this one.

I was completely unaware of this multisided record technology. Thanks for sharing! Great idea, I mean the walk. I will do the same.

I think that the hidden side of Monty Python record was supposed to be a joke, as both sides are signed „Side 2” so that if you you played the record again and didn’t get what you expected you would just think that you started the record from the wrong side.

Another thing didn't know existed. What a great idea, hope you had nice day out with mrs techmoan.

Never heard of this trick on a record, what a simple but great idea! Not sure how the odds work though on a bet when there's an equal chance of any one winning!

You made it rain! :D