James “Bucks” Burnett is a “collector.” He used to write the Mr. Ed Fan Club newsletter and he managed the one and only Tiny Tim. Now he wants to open an eight-track museum.

From the WSJ:

“There are only two choices. A world with an eight-track museum and a world without an eight-track museum,” he says. “I choose with.”

Shortly after the show, the planners of a music conference in Denton, a music-loving college town about 40 miles north of Dallas, made Mr. Burnett an offer. They would find him a vacant space and pay $4,000 to build a temporary museum for a one-month run beginning Friday.

Mr. Burnett accepted and is readying his collection for another display, this time in a former lingerie factory in Denton. He plans to showcase and play a few hundred tapes, including a baby-blue copy of The Who’s “Tommy,” a copy of the “Easy Rider” soundtrack with sun-bleached cover art signed by Peter Fonda and a rare copy of Lou Reed’s 1975 avant-garde homage to noise called “Metal Machine Music.”

Play It Again: Promoter Has One-Track Mind About Eight Tracks (WSJ)

[Pleased to say I own a copy of Metal Machine Music on 8-track. Displayed proudly on my book shelf. I think it might be the first or second oldest possession I have, dating to when I was probably ten years old. I think it cost a dollar, still sealed, at a white trash department store my mother shopped at in Wheeling, WV.]