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Randy

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I actually ended up wittling my list down to 8 from Sorry State, because I'm not really into metal or punk anymore so I picked stuff from the indie and garage genres. This is what I ended up with:

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The Attachments' II
Human Music's Self-Titled
Feed's Self-Titled
Desert Secretary's Self-Titled
Versing's Nirvana
Fossor House's Western Sessions
Tropical Trash's A Dent in the Forever Can
Datenight's Sonic Youth 18 Years on Earth

Then I ordered some stuff from Infinity Cat, a label based in Nashville. Only buying tapes from TN artists (got two Nashville bands' tapes from Sorry State, too). This is my haul from Infinity Cat.

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Reality Something's Life Noise
PUJOL's X File on Main Street
Faux Ferocious' Self-Titled
Daddy Issues' Can We Still Hang?
Suicide Squeeze Records Presents: Forever Singles

So now I'm addicted to cassette tapes, and I need more places to buy them online. Anyone?

EDIT: I really don't want to give Urban Outfitters money, but, uh, they have 36 Chambers and Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill on cassette. And I like Ariana Grande, so... Well, fuck. I've found a few things on Amazon, and I'll likely get all of the tapes Beach House offer on their website instead of through Amazon.

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No offense, Casey.  But I'm an old man.  I lived through the disaster that was cassettes the first time around.

What's the appeal of cassettes now - other than a hipster element? 

I thought all of us who had cassettes eaten and destroyed and warped and ruined after a few listenings had gladly moved on never to look back. 

Honestly, I don't know.  I'm not judging, I am just curious.  Because if I could have the time back I wasted rewinding fucking cassettes that barfed out tape with a goddamn pencil, I probably could have passed a few HS math classes.

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40 minutes ago, EdA said:

What's the appeal of cassettes now - other than a hipster element?


That's pretty much the whole deal, especially with bigger artists. I have heard that for smaller artists that sell cassettes, they do so because they're much cheaper to produce than any other format.

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Ah, OK.  Well, that was the same reason a lot of people stuck to cassettes when CD's came around.  Good luck with that. 

You will soon learn the ninja tricks of repairing cassettes.  God help you.

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Just now, MORELOCK said:


That's pretty much the whole deal, especially with bigger artists. I have heard that for smaller artists that sell cassettes, they do so because they're much cheaper to produce than any other format.

Oh, sure.  I can see that.  And for shipping, cassettes are relatively indestructible.

It's just...you know...consumers kinda went away from them for A TON of reasons.  But, whatever works.

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I'm pretty sure Vinyl is the only hard copy format I'd ever go back to, and I don't even know how to work a record player.  Of all available formats, cassettes are right up there with 8-tracks, beta max, and laser discs for things I never need in my life again.  Trying to do tape surgery back in the day was such a pain in the ass.  Somehow it would twist, then I'd have to cut it, then try to cut a piece of scotch tape the same exact width, so I can tape it back together...no thanks.

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12 minutes ago, supremebve said:

I'm pretty sure Vinyl is the only hard copy format I'd ever go back to, and I don't even know how to work a record player.  Of all available formats, cassettes are right up there with 8-tracks, beta max, and laser discs for things I never need in my life again.  Trying to do tape surgery back in the day was such a pain in the ass.  Somehow it would twist, then I'd have to cut it, then try to cut a piece of scotch tape the same exact width, so I can tape it back together...no thanks.

And car tape decks had a hunger for cassettes that was insatiable.  You'd see ditches flowing with brown ribbon from all the eaten cassettes thrown out car windows.

I MIGHT still have my tiny screw drivers somewhere from all the tape surgery I had to do.

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It's mainly just a collectors thing for me right now. I'll play them in my car, yeah, but my commute to work is only about 10-15 minutes. Not like I have a boombox or whatever that I'm going to be playing them on constantly :lol:

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A lot of bands include download codes with the tapes they sell, too, which is still good for me as I have hard drives full of music that I listen to and I don't want to spend money for a streaming service. I also have a tape player in my car too so they're good for that and not much else, but my guess is that cassettes are much easier to sell to people at shows than vinyl (expensive to make and necessitates a high selling price) and CDs (which seem to be even more out of style than cassettes at this point). Touring musicians need to get money where they can.

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones, as I can't recall my car ever eating any of my tapes.

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3 hours ago, EdA said:

No offense, Casey.  But I'm an old man.  I lived through the disaster that was cassettes the first time around.

What's the appeal of cassettes now - other than a hipster element? 

I thought all of us who had cassettes eaten and destroyed and warped and ruined after a few listenings had gladly moved on never to look back. 

Honestly, I don't know.  I'm not judging, I am just curious.  Because if I could have the time back I wasted rewinding fucking cassettes that barfed out tape with a goddamn pencil, I probably could have passed a few HS math classes.

Yeah, I don't see the appeal at all. If I could have all the time I spent trying to salvage/repair cassettes back, I'd probably add a couple of years to my life expectancy. Yes, CDs cost more, but in comparison, they are damn near indestructible, easy to store and excellent sound quality (at least to my damaged ears). I can't believe all the cassettes that I had that self-destructed within a month or so of purchasing. Fool me once, shame on thee. Fool me twice, shame on me! 

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You can’t really just casually toss aside the price point of cassettes versus CDs or digital music. It’s a selling point. Example - Beach House’s albums on CD are $12ish, on tape they’re $7. That’s a $5 difference. Maybe it’s nothing to some of you guys, but for others it makes all the difference. What do I care about sound quality when it’s mainly a collecting thing and for a commute to work?

Plus, of course some of you aren’t going to want to return to tapes (or whatever it may be). I grew up with strictly CDs, but mainly my childhood was digital files when it comes to music. Vinyl and tapes are tangible relics, and I like them.

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I've got an old-as-dirt buddy that has forsaken vinyl these days completely for tapes because of price. Both analog formats are on a comeback because of hipsters and, at least for me, because I and a lot of others like physical media, but vinyl is through the roof compared to when I was a kid while tapes are super cheap as explained above. I still grab tapes when I can't get the vinyl but vinyl is my shit -- I've gotten a record in the mail every day this week so far, matter of fact.

You know what? In all my years, I've never had a tape eaten. I had one get cooked in the car one time from heat, but that's it.  

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Well De La Soul has been in the news this week to announce that their first 5 albums will FINALLY be re-released on digital platforms BUT they didn't stop there. Pos, Maseo and Dave basically madepublic how Tommy Boy fleeced them in the profit split (i.e. 90% to Tommy Boy and only 10% to de La AND Tommy Boy claims De La owes them $2 million for rights issues for sampling). Needless to say This has led to other artists coming out for a fairer deal for De La...

https://www.okayplayer.com/music/de-la-soul-tommy-boy-boycott-questlove-nas.html?fbclid=IwAR2SmfUNn7GdPvy2bbmSg5krR8s7qr04j6YJnvrk9anRJEkYyMfl1M62lGU

James

 

Update: Looks like Tommy Boy has already agreedto renegotiate!
https://ambrosiaforheads.com/2019/03/de-la-soul-tommy-boy-negotiations-catalog/?fbclid=IwAR2dsIAlDaJ2RvGH3u2Ep3D-Z1eYCzG9XWZoRCwqMxwH0ZXnncUEugHmUE4

Edited by J.H.
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On 2/27/2019 at 11:05 AM, Casey said:

It's mainly just a collectors thing for me right now. I'll play them in my car, yeah, but my commute to work is only about 10-15 minutes. Not like I have a boombox or whatever that I'm going to be playing them on constantly :lol:

do-the-right-thing-bill-nunn.jpg?w=576

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I wouldn't listen to cassettes these days myself but I can understand the love of it as a tactile object. At the big second hand record store in town here, they have a tape section and it was really neat and nostalgic to hold one in my hands after 25+ years. The compactness, the weight, the look of them all lined up together, the occasional differently coloured plastic, it all appealed to me. I think I ended up buying a couple for the hell of it though I don't and won't have anything to play them on.

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The nostalgia can be deeper if you happened to be in a band that put out a cassette demo. In fact, me and one of my former bandmates have been talking about ordering up about a hundred of our last band's unreleased split 7" and giving them to places like Sorry State to sell on consignment. (Here it is if you want to listen: https://unnerve1.bandcamp.com/releases)

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https://returntonothingness.bandcamp.com/album/return-to-nothingness

Well, Jack Control is back at it and though the first album for some reason got buried and forgotten in my collection, this new one hits the spot. Rather poetic, somewhat Japanese (like the music) lyrics about, well, death over blazing and unique hardcore punk. I still prefer his work in the almighty World Burns To Death and Severed Head of State, but this is great stuff. 

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Guitar Wolf rules, though they aren't a HC punk band. I consider them more a blown-out version of something like the Reverend Horton Heat.

EDIT: It has been a minute since I've listened to them and that's a cover so my memory might mean that's a poor comparison

Edited by Curt McGirt
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25 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Guitar Wolf rules, though they aren't a HC punk band. I consider them more a blown-out version of something like the Reverend Horton Heat.

EDIT: It has been a minute since I've listened to them and that's a cover so my memory might mean that's a poor comparison

My young friend, Guitar Wolf is punk as fuck, although they are definitely second generation, having formed in the late 1980s. Possibly the best show I've ever seen was The Demolition Doll Rods, Guitar Wolf and the Cramps. Damn, I get goosebumps just thinking about that show. 

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Oh, they're punk as fuck, they're just not a hardcore punk band. I'm on my phone right now so I'll write up a little tutorial on Japanese hardcore history when I get home.

Them playing with the Cramps is what I was getting at: stylistically, they're more of a psychobilly band, only minus some of the corniness that typically entails.

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54 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Oh, they're punk as fuck, they're just not a hardcore punk band. I'm on my phone right now so I'll write up a little tutorial on Japanese hardcore history when I get home.

Them playing with the Cramps is what I was getting at: stylistically, they're more of a psychobilly band, only minus some of the corniness that typically entails.

Okay, I'll go with that... Psychobilly/Punk fits Guitar Wolf like a glove. Good call. 

What some would call "corniness" others would call self-deprecating humor, but point taken. You have to have a pretty damn good sense of self-deprecating humor to record both "Muleskinner Blues" and "Shortening Bread" (both of which the Cramps did to fine effect); to say nothing of a fifteen-minute version of "Surfin Bird". Damn, I miss the Cramps.

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