Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Dead Media Tapes to release Steve Rosenbaum’s debut 8-track cassette

Inspired by The Banana Splits

Time warp — after posting old recordings on Facebook, Steve Rosenbaum, was contacted by Dead Media Tapes about producing an 8-track album.
Time warp — after posting old recordings on Facebook, Steve Rosenbaum, was contacted by Dead Media Tapes about producing an 8-track album.

Steve Rosenbaum can trace his journey as a musician back to two sources. The first was receiving a toy guitar and the second was The Banana Splits TV show. One fateful day, he was in the cereal aisle of his local grocery store when he noticed an ingeniously placed item designed for impulse purchase — The Banana Splits’ LP We’re The Banana Splits.

Sponsored
Sponsored

“I must have made my mom buy it for me,” Rosenbaum explained. “I actually still have it, and it’s a beautiful sounding record. I think around that time I probably said, ‘I want real guitar lessons.’ That was about it. I joined my first band when I think I was in 7th grade.”

Rosenbaum was playing in a jazz-fusion high school band when the Ramones came along and ignited his interest in bubblegum pop. When he arrived at the University of Michigan a few years later (fall of 1978) he found a group that offered a new opportunity — performing his own songs.

“I was like, ‘I can actually write a song, and they’ll play it,’” he explained. “I sat down and just did it. I wrote a song that had a verse, chorus, and a bridge. It was fully formed. It wasn’t like I wrote crap for two years and finally figured out this was a song. Those songs are pretty much what I still write. They loved them.”

This band gave Rosenbaum a taste of performing his material, but it was his next stint, three years in a cover band, that really turned him into a polished player. “Your chops get really good when you play four sets a night, three or four nights a week,” he said. “And my voice got a lot better, because I had to sing so much.”

The rampant performing set him up perfectly for his next landing spot — Los Angeles. He worked as an electrical engineer during the day and spent nights playing at local clubs. He had his closest brush with L.A. fame while playing bass in the cowpunk outfit The Lonely Bulls. Benmont Tench (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) produced a demo for the band, but it failed to land the coveted record deal. “We were drawing big crowds, but nothing really went anywhere,” Rosenbaum reminisced. “We just reached a point where we said, ‘What are we doing?”

Rosenbaum moved to Maryland in the early 90s, where he commenced a 20-year musical hiatus. A common thread with all the bands he played in through the late-80s was zero physical releases — but he did have plenty of his own demos. These were primarily produced on boomboxes and 4-track recorders. He started posting these songs in different Facebook groups, and then something that seems like it should have only been possible in the late-70s happened. Nathan Brown contacted him to see if he was interested in releasing some music on 8-track cassette.

Brown’s company, Dead Media Tapes, specializes in manufacturing 8-track and reel to reel tape, but it exists as a small record label as well. They will be releasing Rosenbaum’s first ever physical, musical artifact, the 23-song compilation Have A Cool Summer!, on June 20, 1977… I mean 2021. It will be available on both their popular 8-track cassette and reel-to-reel tape formats, and a purchase of either will also include a complimentary digital download (good luck tracking down a device that can play MP3s!)

The compilation covers 1979-1989, but Rosenbaum caught the gigging and songwriting bug once again circa 2010. He now lives in San Diego and performs around town with his trio, Mess Of Fun. The group formed so Rosenbaum would have a backing band for an International Pop Overthrow event about ten years ago, and it has stayed intact since.

“They’re my music buddies in San Diego now,” Rosenbaum said. “We still get together every couple of weeks through these horrible waiting-around-for-the-bars-to-open-again times just to pow-wow.”

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Navy solves San Diego homeless crisis by retiring four locally moored ships

Decommision Accomplished
Time warp — after posting old recordings on Facebook, Steve Rosenbaum, was contacted by Dead Media Tapes about producing an 8-track album.
Time warp — after posting old recordings on Facebook, Steve Rosenbaum, was contacted by Dead Media Tapes about producing an 8-track album.

Steve Rosenbaum can trace his journey as a musician back to two sources. The first was receiving a toy guitar and the second was The Banana Splits TV show. One fateful day, he was in the cereal aisle of his local grocery store when he noticed an ingeniously placed item designed for impulse purchase — The Banana Splits’ LP We’re The Banana Splits.

Sponsored
Sponsored

“I must have made my mom buy it for me,” Rosenbaum explained. “I actually still have it, and it’s a beautiful sounding record. I think around that time I probably said, ‘I want real guitar lessons.’ That was about it. I joined my first band when I think I was in 7th grade.”

Rosenbaum was playing in a jazz-fusion high school band when the Ramones came along and ignited his interest in bubblegum pop. When he arrived at the University of Michigan a few years later (fall of 1978) he found a group that offered a new opportunity — performing his own songs.

“I was like, ‘I can actually write a song, and they’ll play it,’” he explained. “I sat down and just did it. I wrote a song that had a verse, chorus, and a bridge. It was fully formed. It wasn’t like I wrote crap for two years and finally figured out this was a song. Those songs are pretty much what I still write. They loved them.”

This band gave Rosenbaum a taste of performing his material, but it was his next stint, three years in a cover band, that really turned him into a polished player. “Your chops get really good when you play four sets a night, three or four nights a week,” he said. “And my voice got a lot better, because I had to sing so much.”

The rampant performing set him up perfectly for his next landing spot — Los Angeles. He worked as an electrical engineer during the day and spent nights playing at local clubs. He had his closest brush with L.A. fame while playing bass in the cowpunk outfit The Lonely Bulls. Benmont Tench (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) produced a demo for the band, but it failed to land the coveted record deal. “We were drawing big crowds, but nothing really went anywhere,” Rosenbaum reminisced. “We just reached a point where we said, ‘What are we doing?”

Rosenbaum moved to Maryland in the early 90s, where he commenced a 20-year musical hiatus. A common thread with all the bands he played in through the late-80s was zero physical releases — but he did have plenty of his own demos. These were primarily produced on boomboxes and 4-track recorders. He started posting these songs in different Facebook groups, and then something that seems like it should have only been possible in the late-70s happened. Nathan Brown contacted him to see if he was interested in releasing some music on 8-track cassette.

Brown’s company, Dead Media Tapes, specializes in manufacturing 8-track and reel to reel tape, but it exists as a small record label as well. They will be releasing Rosenbaum’s first ever physical, musical artifact, the 23-song compilation Have A Cool Summer!, on June 20, 1977… I mean 2021. It will be available on both their popular 8-track cassette and reel-to-reel tape formats, and a purchase of either will also include a complimentary digital download (good luck tracking down a device that can play MP3s!)

The compilation covers 1979-1989, but Rosenbaum caught the gigging and songwriting bug once again circa 2010. He now lives in San Diego and performs around town with his trio, Mess Of Fun. The group formed so Rosenbaum would have a backing band for an International Pop Overthrow event about ten years ago, and it has stayed intact since.

“They’re my music buddies in San Diego now,” Rosenbaum said. “We still get together every couple of weeks through these horrible waiting-around-for-the-bars-to-open-again times just to pow-wow.”

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Reader Music Issue short takes

Obervatory's mosh pit, frenetic Rafael Payare, Lemonhead chaos, bleedforthescene, Coronado Tasting Room
Next Article

Seals hook up with Beaver

Salty’s Escape is a Mexican-Style cerveza brewed with corn and puffed Jasmine rice
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.