Roadtrippin': The Eight Track Museum In Dallas

Photos By Craig Hlavaty

​Last week while this member Rocks Off was in Dallas for the 48th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination and our annual trek to Dealey Plaza, we stopped in to the Eight Track Museum in the Deep Ellum district of the city.

The opening rumblings of the small museum, located in the back of store front in Big D was heavily covered by our sister paper the Dallas Observer, with a line of blogs and ink was just beckoning us to swing on by. The Huffington Post also weighed in on the collection, with glowing praise.

We aren't really devotees of eight-tracks -- we only have a handful of Stones eights -- but music mania and collecting is our life, so it was a must. The crates and crates and numerous boxes of wax and compact discs in our house should start paying rent. Plus, a chance to see a trove of Rutles eight-tracks was worth the drive alone.

Bucks Burnett's baby is a one-of-kind journey back to a nearly-hidden chapter in music history, when cassette tapes were still a few years off, and portable recorded music was still in it's infancy. Of course, vinyl was always king, and even today as it continues it's reign over our bank accounts. But eight-tracks are something special and dear to Burnett.

We didn't get the full Burnett experience at the museum, which we know is the best part of the place - we did chat on the phone with him - but we did spend a few minutes "oohhing" and "ahhhing" at the collection, to the confusion of Rocks Off Girlfriend, who didn't see why a Stooges Fun House eight-track would make us coo like a baby.

Among the treasures we fawned over? Well, there was the complete Beatles and the Beatles solo collection along the main wall, a stack of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music on eight-track, the entire Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones catalog, and an array of funky stereos and players.

Here are a few pictures from our short visit.

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