As a tot, which indeed I was in the early 70s, watching the test card was about as exciting as TV got.
Well, no, that's not quite true.
There was Bod, Mister Benn, Jackanory and a shedload of BBC kids TV. Television which the Beeb at the time thought very important, so lavished millions of pounds at making pretty decent. However, on those luxurious days where you were either sick/pretending to be or for when friends weren't around, you could sit, preferably huddle, under a duvet - and watch, or rather listen to - the Test Card. This was a thing which I doubt exists anywhere in the world today. There is no need. Tellies are too reliable for their own dang good.
Also known as "trade test transmissions" these were pretty un-entertaining, in that they featured a series of coloured vertiicle lines, dots, grey squares and a coloured picture of a girl and her clown doll, playing noughts and crosses. I believe their intended purpose was to assist TV service engineers adjust colour, tint, line-roll fiddle-di-doodahs or whatever engineers did with old valve monostrosities made of finest ticky tacky wood effect. In fact, here is one:
What I most remember about test cards though was the accoompanying music. This ranged from elevator classical to orchestrated film sound tracks to the synth-tastic sound tracks by Harry Breuer, Mort Garson and other mainly unknown, unsung heroes of the synthesizer.
I can't tell you how pleased I was then I my auntie Pat (known by me since as as "Gundigatt" from the days where I could genuinely not speak, resulting from age rather than level of drunkenness) came back from a trip to Woolies with a strawberry Mivvi and this little gem. A very, very fine album it is. The thrid track, Coconut, was one of those test card tunes! Joy - I recognised it and knew, in my smug five year old brain that NO ONE ELSE had this record, or would know from whence the track came!
I can't tell you much about this album's heritage. Even the website I managed to track a copy down from has the artist as 'unknown'. According to this site, I now know it was made in in Italy in 1973, and was on the Contour record label at least in the UK, a very cheap imprint if I recall. Most of the tracks were duds and made with a simple raison d'etre: "Moogs are in and cool, let's make some contemporary rock tracks with a MOOG in them ". Simple thought process, and mainly duff songs, though no less charming for their duffness On this album was a half decent version of "Son of My Father" and a version of Popcorn which in my opinion is better in atmosphere than the Hot Butter original but whose drumming is beyond bad. Where Wendy Carlos is regarded by some as a bit of a novelty artist (but isn't) this music is also regarded as a bit of novelty (and is). But how cartoonishly glorious it is too.
Other superb synthesizer remaindered and charity shop specials can be found at this website:
http://www.basichipdigitalgold.com/moog/moog.htm
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