Thursday, December 06, 2007

Cassette Culture

Just signed up for my second year of Tape Club, the Plastic Crimewave effort that puts a mix tape of psychedelic sixties unknowns in your mailbox every two months. I've written about this before but I wanted to plug it again because I'm a huge fan of Steve Krakow's stuff. His Galactic Zoo Dossier zine is totally awesome (here's an interview with the man).

I listen to my cassettes on a $25 boombox. This is the optimal playback mechanism for tapes. The Tape Club tapes sound great on a boombox. Most 60's music was recorded in mono, meant to be heard through the single speaker of a handheld transistor radio or a crappy AM car radio.

The Tape Club tapes got me to go back through my old tapes. I've heard a few where some drunken finger pressed "record" instead of "play", creating a few seconds of what is today called a "field recording". And even if you punch out those two little tabs, tapes degrade. So the tape you hear today won't sound the same years from now. Degeneration baby! It's cool.

6 comments:

parabells said...

Wow.. so I am not the only one aware of the cassette revival! Yes those tapes from the 80's are touchy but with a good deck my Madison relics still "rock" out. I remember Peder and I thinking these great Los Monos tapes would comfort us in our old age..guess what they do!
Gunnar
PS check out my new post SONG CYCLE!!!

parabells said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
parabells said...

Wow.. so I am not the only one aware of the cassette revival! Yes those tapes from the 80's are touchy but with a good deck my Madison relics still "rock" out. I remember Peder and I thinking these great Los Monos tapes would comfort us in our old age..guess what they do!
Gunnar
PS check out my new post SONG CYCLE!!!

parabells said...

Wow.. so I am not the only one aware of the cassette revival! Yes those tapes from the 80's are touchy but with a good deck my Madison relics still "rock" out. I remember Peder and I thinking these great Los Monos tapes would comfort us in our old age..guess what they do!
Gunnar
PS check out my new post SONG CYCLE!!!

craig. said...

hey man...i left this same comment on your other post, so sorry for the double, but is there any chance you can transcribe that manifesto? and is there a link where i can sign up for the tape club? thanks!

c.

Iburiedpaul said...

Guess I should have mentioned that you can sign up for Tape Club by Pay Pal $35 to plasticcw@hotmail.com