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Cassette Store Day?

Relaxer
Joined: October 15, 2001 at 05:01 AM UTC
Posts: 5410
Re: Cassette Store Day? July 16, 2013 at 02:36 PM UTC #
I used to have ~600 Dead shows, comprised of more than a thousand cassettes, which I painstakingly compiled in the 90s.

But a couple years ago my wife rightly pointed out that they were taking up way too much space and I rarely listened to them to so I pulled out my top 100 shows and then put in ad on Craigs List offering the rest for free to the first person who showed up. An hour later, a VW bus pulled up and Toked Out Teddy and a woman who introduced herself as "Teddy's old lady" showed up and almost wept in appreciation as they hauled it all away.

So now I have around 200 cassettes in my music area and I occasionally will pull one out. But if I want to hear, say, a 5/2/70 or 5/8/77 or 2/28/69, I'll just pull up the mp3 file most likely.
i am gay and i like cats
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Re: Cassette Store Day? July 16, 2013 at 03:00 PM UTC #
you dont seem like the person who has ever liked the dead, especially enough to have that many tapes.  and your tone toward toked out teddy and his traveling terrific treat trader, makes me even more suspicious.
Yada
Joined: February 05, 2003 at 06:01 AM UTC
Posts: 12418
Re: Cassette Store Day? July 16, 2013 at 03:02 PM UTC #
walkonby wrote:
you dont seem like the person who has ever liked the dead, especially enough to have that many tapes.  and your tone toward toked out teddy and his traveling terrific treat trader, makes me even more suspicious.


closet jam fans walky, closet jam fans.
Relaxer
Joined: October 15, 2001 at 05:01 AM UTC
Posts: 5410
Re: Cassette Store Day? July 16, 2013 at 03:09 PM UTC #
I can assure you that it's completely true. I realize it's not so in-line with my current RAWK tendencies, but I was a major deadhead, a veteran of 62 shows (as in Jerry shows, none of this Further or Phil & Phriends stuff), and I still will put on Boston Garden 5/7/77 (personally, I think Barton Hall 5/8/77 is overrated) or that incredible Harpur College 5/2/70 or maybe even a playful June 1985 or something from the Spring 1990 tour. I loved the Dead so much and still do. I will geek out on Dead talk any time and have very concrete theories on:
Donna: Bummer or Bonus? (I love Donna shows)

Space: Never warranted the amount of time devoted to those sets. To be sure, I was blown away at times by the space sets, but too often it was the time to get a beer/piss/pass out

Pigpen vs Keith vs Brent vs Vince: Keith was the best piano player, Brent had the best voice, Pigpen had the best presence/vibe

Jerry's playing pre- and post-stroke: Post-stroke, Jerry got super lazy and too many of his solos were either arhythmic soloing or he just played glorified scales

Merits of the Wall of Sound: I don't particularly love any of the 73 or 74 shows and the sound quality on most of the tapes tends to be prety blown out because of that speaker system. And those 'Ned & Phil' sets in 74 were god-awful


And I wasn't disparaging Toked Out Teddy at all. It was just such a funny sight to see a genuine 60s throwback and the bliss he was having out of getting all these "new" tunes.
i am gay and i like cats
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Re: Cassette Store Day? July 16, 2013 at 03:14 PM UTC #
ok, you are now believed

donna  =  awful

pigpen

space  =  not awful

barton hall, so tired of hearing about that show

wall of sound . . . owlsey was good for one thing
Relaxer
Joined: October 15, 2001 at 05:01 AM UTC
Posts: 5410
Re: Cassette Store Day? July 16, 2013 at 03:19 PM UTC #
I used to really dislike Donna, and I don't really care for her solo singing spots like Sunrise (though 'You Aint Woman Enough' kicks ass) but I really grew to love her caterwauling in stuff like Playin and Music Never Stopped and Samson. Somehow it just fit in with the ramshackle nature of those mid-70s shows. And Keith's piano playing was so jazzy. Brent's keys were so 80s synthy that I could never love them, but he had the most soulful voice.

Pigpen also had a great voice and his singing on Good Lovin, This is a Man's World, Lovelight, etc. was great but his light flashed too bright and brief and then he was gone. Its a shame there's so few good 66 and 67 shows. Anyway, like I said, I can geek out on the Dead for hours and often do.
hutch
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Re: Cassette Store Day? July 16, 2013 at 03:21 PM UTC #
I was thinking last night… about the Dead as I dug out my Jerry LPs and admired them….just this weekend I bought the Steal your face double lp for $3 (yes I realize people think its shit), Robert Hunter's rum runners for $3 and wake of the flood for $1 (two of my copies got beat in a flood two years ago.. talk about fitting)..

anyways I want to say I prefer Pig Pen but the truth is I prefer Keith… there I said it..except for singing wise.. singing wise Pig Pen was the best..

can't stand Donna though…

in fact I'm listening to Jerry's Compliments on this morning…

the Dead is one of those acts that I can put down for years and go back to and really get into…and its such a broad world
atomicfront
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Re: Cassette Store Day? July 16, 2013 at 03:25 PM UTC #
Nigel wrote:
I occasionally go down to the basement to look for my old cassettes.  I haven't found them yet, but I've noticed that whenever I ask my wife if she's seen them, she changes the subject.  That's probably not a good sign.


When my basement flooded all my old cassettes got ruined.  I talked them into giving me 20 bucks a cassette as I was going to replace them with Vinyl and my insurance had replacement coverage.  So I got 2400 dollars for 120 cassettes.  So who says cassettes don't have value?
hutch
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Re: Cassette Store Day? July 16, 2013 at 03:29 PM UTC #
atomicfront wrote:
Nigel wrote:
I occasionally go down to the basement to look for my old cassettes.  I haven't found them yet, but I've noticed that whenever I ask my wife if she's seen them, she changes the subject.  That's probably not a good sign.


When my basement flooded all my old cassettes got ruined.  I talked them into giving me 20 bucks a cassette as I was going to replace them with Vinyl and my insurance had replacement coverage.  So I got 2400 dollars for 120 cassettes.  So who says cassettes don't have value?


yeah yeah we heard this story… made me feel great about donating mine…
Yada
Joined: February 05, 2003 at 06:01 AM UTC
Posts: 12418
Re: Cassette Store Day? July 16, 2013 at 03:45 PM UTC #
hutch wrote:
atomicfront wrote:
Nigel wrote:
I occasionally go down to the basement to look for my old cassettes.  I haven't found them yet, but I've noticed that whenever I ask my wife if she's seen them, she changes the subject.  That's probably not a good sign.


When my basement flooded all my old cassettes got ruined.  I talked them into giving me 20 bucks a cassette as I was going to replace them with Vinyl and my insurance had replacement coverage.  So I got 2400 dollars for 120 cassettes.  So who says cassettes don't have value?


yeah yeah we heard this story… made me feel great about donating mine…
bunnyman
Joined: November 19, 2001 at 06:01 AM UTC
Posts: 5542
Re: Cassette Store Day? July 16, 2013 at 08:41 PM UTC #
The best part of cassettes was making mix tapes. But the format (specifically store-bought mass-produced tapes) really had inferior sound quality. I never understood their allure. Cassette store day just sounds dumb.
Nigel Tufnel
Joined: August 01, 2011 at 05:46 PM UTC
Posts: 116
Re: Cassette Store Day? July 16, 2013 at 08:50 PM UTC #
bearman wrote:
The best part of cassettes was making mix tapes. But the format (specifically store-bought mass-produced tapes) really had inferior sound quality. I never understood their allure. Cassette store day just sounds dumb.


It's the same thing as MP3's - cassettes were a lot more convenient than any of the other options - you could play them in your car, you could rewind/FF, you could make mix tapes -  so nobody really cared about the sound quality.
atomicfront
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Re: Cassette Store Day? July 16, 2013 at 09:03 PM UTC #
Nigel wrote:
bearman wrote:
The best part of cassettes was making mix tapes. But the format (specifically store-bought mass-produced tapes) really had inferior sound quality. I never understood their allure. Cassette store day just sounds dumb.


It's the same thing as MP3's - cassettes were a lot more convenient than any of the other options - you could play them in your car, you could rewind/FF, you could make mix tapes -  so nobody really cared about the sound quality.


If you bought quality metal based tapes you could get pretty good quality.  The problem is the ones that came pre-loaded with music.  That and they tended to break.  I remember when record and tape traders used to rent records I would rent everything that came out and put it on tape. 
killsaly
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Re: Cassette Store Day? July 17, 2013 at 09:34 PM UTC #
http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/why-weve-created-cassette-store-day-and-why-its-not-just-hipster-nonsense
I?ve been a fan of the cassette for as long as I can remember. My mum gave me my first tapes when I was little; a copy of ABBA?s 'Greatest Hits' and Michael Jackson?s 'Thriller' which didn?t leave my ears for the entire summer. Since then, even as my Walkman changed to a Discman, changed to an iPod, cassette tapes have stayed a large part of my music collection. In 2011 I started Kissability, the label on which I?ve released tapes for the likes of DZ Deathrays, Splashh, and Thumpers.

The inaugural Cassette Store Day will take place on September 7. It began with an email from Steve Rose who runs the Sexbeat label (Fear of Men, Eagulls). ?I had an idea this weekend? Why not International Cassette Store Day??

Steve emailed Matt Flag from Suplex Cassettes (Spectrals, Fair Ohs), and the three of us set about contacting a few of our friends who run tape labels in the UK and US. And then it snowballed. Releases now include At The Drive In?s 'Relationship of Command', Haim?s 'Forever' EP, and Deerhunter?s 'Monomania'.

In London, we will run an afternoon at Rough Trade East with a couple of instore performances, and there will also be events at Burger Records in LA, Big Love in Tokyo, and Mirror Universe, Godmode, and Gimme Tinnitus blog are doing a cassette fair and show at Silent Barn in Brooklyn.

Unlike Record Store Day, this is less about supporting shops and more about celebrating the cassette format that has been making a comeback for a while. I can imagine that outside my indie circle this announcement is being greeted with rolls of eyes and a sigh of, ?Fucking hipsters.? But it?s not all nostalgic cool. Tapes make sense in not only our current economic climate, but in our musical one too.

Music today moves faster than ever before. We are swamped hourly with new acts, new tracks, and endless free downloads. It becomes addictive, with more and more bands wanting to release their music, and most importantly, more fans than ever wanting to become a part of this world and start a label. However, you can't sell mp3s from the merch table (and it isn't the most romantic way of introducing someone to a great band). Plus cassettes are cheap to make and you don?t have to commit to large quantities, unlike vinyl.

I?ll leave Matt from Suplex to have the final say:

    Tapes have been the most constant musical format in my life. As a kid it enabled me to cheaply buy new releases but more importantly, it allowed my friendship group to grow our music tastes by swapping blank tapes filled with gems and even our own home-recorded forays into music. Today it is the most affordable showcase for a band that is not ready to spend £1000 to drop 500 7"s into the world, so I can run a label that takes chances and puts out as many releases as I want to due to the cheapness and convenience of the format. Plus they look rad!
(i like tapes)
i am gay and i like cats
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Re: Cassette Store Day? July 17, 2013 at 09:41 PM UTC #
so . . . when is vhs tape day?  i got a shit load of those fucking things to get rid of, and best of all, no memories attached to a damn one of them.  except akira, the japanese anime that rules, because it is the only version with the original american voice actors and killer soundtrack by yamashiro shoji.  oh ok, and janes addictions soul kiss.
killsaly
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Re: Cassette Store Day? July 17, 2013 at 09:43 PM UTC #
We need some limited edition, small run VHS tapes, or it wouldn't make sense. 
hutch
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Re: Cassette Store Day? July 17, 2013 at 11:46 PM UTC #
walkonby wrote:
oh ok, and janes addictions soul kiss.


i got that a few months ago at a thrift store i think..
i am gay and i like cats
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Re: Cassette Store Day? July 18, 2013 at 12:09 AM UTC #
the entire thing is on youtube.  that is sad and cool at the same time.
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