A thread for cassettes

tapes suck just play cds, they dont get eaten and wont skip if your cat jumps on the table like vinyl

They do get scratched and aren't in analog.

tapes don't skip ever

It takes a lot less damage to make a CD unplayable compared to vinyl.

tapes suck just play cds, they dont get eaten and wont skip if your cat jumps on the table like vinyl.

the complete idiocy of this statement is almost overwhelming.

and yet it's mostly factually accurate

I love tapes. You can touch them.

electric sound, It takes a lot less damage to make a CD unplayable compared to vinyl.

sorry but that's actually right.

i mean, i have records that have scratches all over them and don't skip, don't pop (that much) and sound perfectly fine. i used to have CDs (i gave up on them about two years ago) that wouldn't play if they had a teeny scratch on them. CD players and CDs are fucking stupid, outmoded ways of listening to music, and it will be a fine fine day when they are abolished completely.

Ha: this is, to me, for all intents and purposes, the cover of every Smiths record apart from Strangeways:

http://orby.trideja.com/GeneratedItems/cassette/maxell_xl_2_90_a%5B1%5D.jpg

i don't believe i was commenting on that quote

also 'unplayable' is clearly subjective here

My car only plays tapes, so i still make mixTAPES all the time! Surely I'm not the only one????

i make tapes for friends all the time!
and i buy new tapes, from time to time.

I was quite pleased to find a place still stocking Type II cassettes for 4 track, field recording etc. Nice metal ones are still v. hard to come by.

Next time someone's about to bin their old tapes, please send to me instead.

did i already give you the tapes i had? i think i may have given them to sharr0n when i sold her the 4-track

i was happy when my car only played tapes, i rocked old shit and used the tape adapter for my ipod. then the tape deck broke, and i got a cd player that never doesn't skip. ;_; the direct in for the ipod is sweet, though.

Never put me in your box if your shit eats tapes.

snoball, thanks for the awesome link. Haven't seen some of those in 20 years.
This is my personal favorite. My dad had the Talking Heads on one of these in the mid 80s and we used to drive around town listening to it:

http://nickdouglas.googlepages.com/maxell_xl_2_90_c1.jpg

"Epitaxial"

I have a bunch of cassettes of albums/songs I've taped off vinyl and CD along with some store bought cassettes I want to get rid of. Should I make a list here and see if anyone wants it all (I'd sent it to anyone for free) or should I just dump it all at the nearest thrift store?

night-people.org
pretty much everything on there is amazingeriffic.

also, http://www.notnotfun.com/presents/present.html

I will send all of the cassettes below for free to the first person on this thread who says s/he wants them. Preferably someone who lives in North America (I'm in the US).

So just say "I want them"

Original (store bought) -

Best of Macola - Volume One
David Bowie: Lodger
James Brown: I'm Real (NKOTB sleeve)
The Clean: Vehicle
Dennis Criteser/Jim Peterson: The Meaning O' Life
Terence Trent D'Arby - Introducing The Hardline...
Diesel Cats and The Jazz Explorers: In Search of Blue Treasure
Eleventh Dream Day: Lived to Tell
Freedom Fire - The Indestructible Beat of Soweto Vol. 3
Dora Hall - six cassettes from the Solo paper cup heiress (no sleeves)
Jason and the Scorchers: Fervor
Kool Moe Dee: How Ya Like Me Now
Les Rita Mitsouko: Présentent The No Comprendo
Craig Mack: "Flava In Ya Ear - Remix"
M/A/R/R/S: "Pump Up The Volume"/"Anitina"
Paul McCartney: "Figure of Eight"/"Ou Est Le Soleil?"
Mekons: Fun '90
Milli Vanilli: Girl You Know It's True
Monty Python Sings
Overweight Pooch: Female Preacher
Screaming Blue Messiahs: Bikini Red (no sleeve)
Spoonie Gee: The Godfather of Rap
Talking Heads: Naked
10,000 Maniacs: The Wishing Chair
10,000 Maniacs: Blind Man's Zoo
20 Greatest Hits 1967
Wire: Chairs Missing

Advance Cassettes -

The Amps: Pacer
Golden Throats 4: Celebrities Butcher The Beatles
Imperial Teen: What Is Not To Love
Modest Mouse: This Is A Long Drive...
Titanic: music as heard on the fateful voyage Ian Whitcomb & The White Star Orchestra
Victoria Williams: Loose

Taped Off Vinyl or CD -

LiLiPUT/Cult Hero

The Hits of House Are Here/Jackie Wilson

Various Pebbles tracks

hits from 1989-90

Weather Girls/Labelle/Ralphi Rosario/Outhere Brothers/20 Fingers/Hope: "Tree Frog"/Machine/

Tribe Called Quest/Michelle Shocked/Blondie/sly Fox

Shaggs/Pebbles Vol. 3/Throbbing Gristle/Yoko Ono/Butthole Surfers/Big Black/Pussy Galore/Mudhoney/Costes/X-Ray Spex/Jandek/me pretending to be Jandek

ABBA album tracks/acid house/C+C Music Factory/tracks from My Bloody Valentine: Loveless

Throbbing Gristle/Skinny Puppy/Severed heads/Test Dept./Bauhaus/Eno/David Byrne

Tracks from Rhino's Disco Years

Paula Abdul/1980s girl rap

Risqué Rhythm: Nasty 50's R&B

Techno/new beat

Lords of Acid: Lust/some songs from Oklahoma!(!)

Josef K

The Best of American Pop - An Audio History (as chosen by me)

Plexi: Cheer Up and some EPs

Nuggets II tracks

ABBA hits

Naughty by Nature, Housemartins, Jordy, PM Dawn, Big Star

A: Laid Back, "Dirty Cash," MC Luscious, Army of Lovers, Loleatta Holloway, Aztec Camera, Slick Rick
B: Lonnie Gordon, The Weather Girls, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Yazz, Yello, Ofra Haza, Bon Jovi, Tiffany, Men Without Hats

A: Candy Flip, Wee Papa Girls, Beat Masters, Beats Intl., Thrill Kill Kult, PE, Coldcut feat. Mark E. Smith, AWB, Egyptian Lover
B: Waitresses, Frankie Smith, Soft Cell, The Arrows, XTC, T.S. Monk: "Bon Bon Vie," Jackie WIlson

A: James Brown
B: Halo of Flies; Husker Du; Repulse Kava; Stooges; Barbarians; Butthole Surfers

A: Blondie: Parallel Lines
B: disco

A: Atmosphere: Lucy Ford
B; Womack & Womack: Conscience (incomplete)

A: Dionne Warwick: Anthology
B: Sinead O'Connor: The Lion and The Cobra/some long song I can't place

A: New Pornographers: Mass Romantic (with bits of Manfred Mann's Earth Band)
B: Roky Erickson; Mae West doing "Light My Fire" and "Twist and Shout;" The Left Banke; Can

A: Parliament: Osmium
B: Snap, Bow Wow Wow, techno, etc.

A: Stooges: Fun House
B: PiL; Bolshoi

A: Pussy Galore: Right Now!
B: PiL: Second Edition

A: Some Russian stuff (I think)
B: City High

A: Guitar Paradise of East Africa
B: Big Star: Third

A: Phil Spector
B: MC Lyte

a bunch of SAW (or SAW-esque) productions

ABBA

DFX2: Emotion

Dusty Springfield: 24 Hours From Tulsa

DIMTHINGS: DIS-CI-PLINED 2 A SPONTANEOUS WAY OF LIFE

Dance Stuff - Erasure, Loleatta, Army of Lovers, etc.

Donna Summer, Ram Jam, Emotions, Freda Payne, Commodoes, etc.

Prince: Small Club Second Show That Night

Michelle Shocked: Short Sharp Shocked

Deep Heat (Telstar 1989)

Kym Sims: Too Blind To See It

Tons of 1970s shit - Andrea True, Taste of Honey, Marvin Gaye, Jimmy Buffett, David Geddes, Hot Chocolate, etc.

A really good New Beat comp (if you ever figure out which one, lemme know)

A tape I called Good Songs Someone Can Do Better - Frente/Cher/sounds like Ozzy/some pop punk tune/Satchel/fast, squishy techno track beginning with a female vice saying something abut "time stands still"

Victor Lundberg/bubblegum/Hot Chocolate

Some good mid-1990s house stuff (De'Lacy, remixes of Madonna, Air, Falco, etc.) mixed poorly by me

Horrifyingly mixed Sylvester/New Order/Wild Orchid/etc.

Beck/Carly Simon

Grease 1994 London Cast with Debbie Gibson as Sandy and we'll go from there.

If I don't hear from anyone by Monday, Salvation Army gets them.

That should be:

So just say "I want them" and we'll go from there.

If I don't hear from anyone by Monday, Salvation Army gets them.

um i'll take em?

LOL. Are you being serious?

totally dude i rock tapes like nobody's biz

send me emalez to ju5t1n5mith1✧✧✧@gm✧✧✧.c✧✧

ungoogleproofed of course

unless you meant like "pick a handful"

in which case i'd be glad to do that too

i always hated thinking that i was wrecking the player, while fast-forwarding in vain to find the track i wanted to hear

No they're all yours, Hoos. Emailing you now. Coming from AOL so check your spam (for some reason, my emails have been going to spam lately).

my tape deck just gave up on me, started eating tapes. one of those things doesnt spin anymore either. i really dont wanna lose this deck, got lotsa features, sturdy, this once was a very very pricey tape deck

so how do i fix that wheel that doesnt spin anymore?

My crappy Sony dictaphone/Walkman hybrid packed in the other week, so I borrowed some other model from this dude I work with. I swear the quality was better than my new Sony mp3 player. It had some ULTRA-BASS switch and graphic equalizer sliders. Where the fuck are the graphic equalizer slides on an mp3 player?? And of course with a cassette walkman, you're not endlessly seeking to the next track. Although I'm usually listening to a laboriously constructed mix tape of my own creation, which I've spent a week or two re-editing and re-editing until it's perfect. Thenyou can listen to it over and over and over for weeks.

Hated having to wait during fast-foward/rewind, and then not knowing for sure where you're skipping to (unless you go all the way to the end or beginning of the side, obv).

Except when you become one with your walkman, and you can rewind to the EXACT beginning of a track. Immense satisfaction.

Or you got a fancy-dan walkman which FFed to the start of the next track by itself - awesome.

That's assuming at least two seconds of silence between songs, though, so it didn't always work.

Cassettes and their linear navigation certainly promoted more of a patient attitude towards music than either records, before it, or mp3 and CD players, after it.

I have recently run across This Dude again. He's also into Janet Jackson cassingles.

I still buy cassettes occasionally, but have had to scale it way back due to the sheer bulk of them. The last big score was three or four years ago, when a local supermarket was selling like a truckload of 'em for a dime apiece. It was whole stocks of unsold stuff like just about a complete run of those spoken word albums on New Alliance, a lot of SST albums (Painted Willie - Trotsky Icepick - Slovenly - Universal Congress Of? Got 'em covered.) Best of all was a whole stack of obscure (to me) Latin albums -- it's where I discovered "El Jeque" by Tommy Olivencia and the super-amazing Barrio Band album.

Briana what did he say?

Sorry, "briania".

Oh, man, it was the same sort of deal: "HOW BIG OF A HIT WAS MISS YOU MUCH?" "JANET JACKSON WAS MORE POPULAR THAN MADONNA, RIGHT? *RIGHT*?!!" This guy really needs to be on ilx.

Maybe he could settle the Janet/Madonna beef once and for all.

I imagine him with a fisherman's hat pulled down tight over a buzzcut, dark socks, white sneakers.

woah.... twin cassette walkman!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sony-Walkman-WM-W800-2-Deck-Recording-Cassette-Player_W0QQitemZ160221888378QQihZ006QQcategoryZ15053QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1368/877000800_852dd35338_o.png

Hoos, I mailed you at the address above (which I may have fucked up) and through ILX. Did you get either?

I just got Richard Pryor's That Nigger's Crazy on cassette, 'cause I couldn't find it on CD. Probably get around to digitizing it sometime this century.

I believe I got in before the Hoos, Kevin:

Next time someone's about to bin their old tapes, please send to me instead.

-- S-, Thursday, January 24, 2008 12:38 AM (2 months ago) Bookmark Link

However os postage is def. deal killer...

Ugh I didn't see that. Sorry.

Usually just listen to a lot of public radio in my car (no CD) but lately I've been rocking a bunch of 80s cassettes. Totally forgot how much I love the first Hoodoo Gurus.

nah dude i didn't get either email (?? :( ) but it seems s- has a def claim on them before me anyways if he wants em