cassette anarchy

sony cfs-500, scored at local thrift shop for 43.60

2012-03-09T08:20:00.000-08:00

yesterday, i was making a run of the local thrift shops {there's about 6 within a 8 mile radius} on the motorcycle, one never knows what one will find.

i walked in and boom there it was. there are some cosmetic scratches and a couple of dings, but the unit is really solid, everything is working perfectly. really nice sound. belts are tight, no noise on pots or switches. battery compartment was clean and antenna was straight. nothing missing. really nice addition to the collection.
other things i found, several nice looking home stereo decks for about 15 bucks each. perhaps 5 of them in various places. a cheap mini double that the B deck didn't work but the A deck did work and it was 8 dollars. a lot of tapes to wade through, i didn't see anything that caught my eye too much music wise but i keep looking. the other day at a thrift store in texas i found a curtis mayfield tape that is really good. and a big stack of unopened blanks i got for a quarter each. i did find a bunch of books on tape, which if it's a book you want to hear, is pretty cool.

interview with billy sprague from sanity muffin

2012-03-02T17:27:00.002-08:00

Q: the two tapes i'm listening to a lot are the hondo's mobius stripsearch and galena's through veils. both are stunning! can we talk a little about the creative process behind these two?

link to sanity muffin

A: i can mostly only talk about the Galena tape since i was behind it, these were outtakes from my collab album with Nadja released middle of last year. thicker on the distorted baritone guitar and a little bit more exp meets black metal than previous releases.... basically i fill tapes up on my 4-track and then begin the editing process from there, choosing parts that i think work the best and building upon them slowly...

Q: this music sounds really great on cassette, i guess my question is a bit of a chicken-and-egg type question. is the end format something you keep in mind as you work, or do you work towards your goal and it just happens to work great on tape or what, how does the format and the art relate to each other?

A: i have vague ideas of what i wanna do but alot of stuff is just experimenting until i lock into something i like alot, then i develop it further. .. i usually work in the NOW and dont try to hold some preconceived notion of how it should be at the end... makes more room for freedom and spontaneity this way... most of my recordings are done on high bias type 2 cassette tapes on a 4 track or reel to reels so the tape format as the end medium just makes sense. the artwork with all our releases is very important and alot of time goes into that as well...

Q: in the recording, are things printed initially to tape like we are getting in the end result, or is there a process that is used in this regard? is there more mixing or more processing in the later stages?

A: yes, lots of mixing and adjustments and some overdubs and mastering done before the end master is made...

Q: can you tell us about the types of gear you used on the galena tape?

A: mostly baritone guitar via distortion,slight delay and reverb. space echo on vocals tweaked in realtime. blast beat drums done on a floor tom. broken casios running through synth processors and Moog synth. some field recordings as well....

Q: what are some aesthetic references for your work? some previous musics that inspired you?

A: i listen to way too much music to be able to pigeon hole any one group but at the time of this tape i was deep into the French black metal artist Moevot and well and Oregon's Velvet Cacoon and also the band Yoga.

Q:what city are you in? how does the local scene there relate to what you are up to?

A: i live in Oakland, Ca. there's alot of dark spaces to play in here and lots of metal and experimental, drone, dark ambient and the like... it's pretty thriving yet still underground.

Q: is there anything else you could tell us about how this wonderful music gets made? to me it sounds like post-everything.

A: we're just going for it really, sometimes mushrooms are involved in the process. my buddy Scott Caligure has been assisting with synth and other processing on all my newer work, as well as a couple tracks on this tape. so there will be more outside influence than before but its really helping things stay fresh. i still make most the final edits and mixing but having another head and pair of hands has really sent things to places i would not have gone on my own... like all collaborative work... plus he's a huge asset playing live.

Q: perhaps you'd care to comment on this. a few years ago as i was preparing for composing a record of mine, i dug in and was looking for the most interesting under-the-radar stuff to study. practically all of the really cool interesting stuff i found was coming out on these little tape labels, on cassette only, in limited numbers. can you comment on that?

A: i feel like it could have something to do with cassettes being more free and loose and fun thus containing alot of great energy you would not get from more "serious" and "over thought" recording and writting practices... alot of cassette releases are on the fly and raw and real and less self-inhibited i think than the "properly groomed" studio albums that are everywhere... just a thought))))

Q: thank you so much, for what you are up to. you make the world a better place with your art.

A: thanks so much, i really appreciate that)))
-billy

review of hondo's mobius stripsearch, on the sanity muffin label

2012-02-17T11:02:00.000-08:00

oh man, this tape is perfect. just what i was looking for.
i guess one of my favorite types of music is what i call twisted pop. where it sounds almost familiar but there's something different about the foundational elements or something. this tape is in there like that ...somewhere. i found it while perusing cassette labels in general, and found sanity muffin, and was able to sample some tracks and found this one...had to have it. it showed up really quick with a nice note and a couple free stickers. [take that warner brothers!]
the music. dig. very droney and ambient and reverby. dreamlike. snatches of things come and go. really good textures and tones. very interesting compositionally and also sonically. this kind of music sounds like real life so much more than other things i hear. where the dreams are alive and interfacing with the now and all these thoughts are flying by. it's very well done. a visionary work. these types of works are great on the cassette format, the noise floor and the way the program splits in half with A and B side make total sense with this.
the graphics are really well done. i'm a fan of very little info on the physical product. the music should speak for itself and i would rather it tell me the story. i think this tape is a perfect idea. right music, right format, right physical approach. okay i'm going back to juke on this.

new box off epay

2012-02-17T10:50:00.000-08:00

i got this off there, i was the only bidder. 29.95 plus the shipping. it's still in the original box. an old sears.
it's not collectable, but it's in perfect shape. and sounds pretty good. everything works. it's a one piece plastic box and the knobs are a little cheesy but it's basically brand new. sometimes you get burned on that escam trip. have to be really careful on there shucks. but this one turned out alright. it's nothing special but it's perfect and sounds pretty good. it's so funny when folks write and say "where do you get those things i haven't seen a cassette player in years!" well, you're running with the wrong crowd cuz those danged things are everywhere if you look. heck i saw one at a local thrift store that had a tv on it.

review of quilt

2012-02-16T16:36:00.000-08:00

i bought a tape by quilt on burger records. 6 bucks. at radar hair and records in seattle, the owner let me listen to several things before making my purchase. this really caught my attention.

the tape has very little info on it, which i think is really cool, because the only thing left to do is listen!
there are some great sounds on here, and the songs and singing are great. really good tones, reverby guitar melodies that are kinda familiar and kinda strange at the same time. there were a couple of phrases that roll by and i was thinking wow, that's not the usual place that fingering is played against those changes. it's refreshing music. i've been playing it for two days straight. it just gets better. of course burger records has a pretty high level of quality. the music sounds really good on tape and i think the cassette format is flattering to this arrangement. they sing and play great and they have a great vision, or imagery of what they are up to. really enjoyed this and highly recommend it for music fans. i have number 160 out of 300. i can't believe this music sounds this cool and was only 6 bucks. gosh is there ever a lot of great music out there. this is some of it.
i found an interview on the 'net and one of the players referenced lamonte young…so that makes some sense there. cool.

informative article on how to release your own tapes

2012-02-14T05:07:00.000-08:00

this is a really good site, all the way around. this article here tells you lots of good information.
i like to peruse the reviews on this site and order stuff. tapes are usually very cheap, in the 6 dollar range, so i can come in here and experiment and get three things for the price of one cd. typically i order something, and then go on about my day and forget about it. then a few days later i go to the mailbox and it's like getting a present out of nowhere and it brightens my day. then it's fun to come home and sit and drink coffee and listen. there is so much great stuff out there. it makes no sense to me when folks complain about "music" or the "music business". i overheard a guy bitching the other day about the grammys. and i'm thinking, gosh, how much more far removed from my experience and interest could something like that be?
now the fact that the ugly husbands let you download a few of their out of print tapes, now THAT is some information i can use!!!!!!
sorry to digress, this article is very informative and perhaps you will enjoy it.
how to put out a taped cassette.

here is a very interesting cassette label

2012-02-12T05:57:00.000-08:00

sanity muffin. check this stuff out. they have samples you can stream. sanity muffin link
a particularly killer track i found on there was this:
galena grave news for you
the soundcloud files at the bottom. hahah, dig the tape is sold out! shucks i'm too late, this stuff sounds killer. however, i ordered a couple things off here and will review later. i'm super excited about this music.

new jam box

2012-02-10T08:14:00.000-08:00

a good friend of mine gave me this one. said it was in their dad's back bedroom covered in dust. here's the deal.
while not a super collectable unit in various capacities [plastic chassis, three piece construction, no vu meters, those dang dangling wires in the back], it sounds great and has the graphic which is really a nice feature. all the knobs work and as yet hasn't required any deoxit on the controls. even the antenna is nice and tight. battery compartment has no leakage. here's a strange feature of this unit, when record is engaged, the record head swings into the tape path mechanically which is kinda hep. also there is only one mic, so it records in mono {which is terrific!}. they made zillions of these kinds of things and they work pretty good and are all over the place. panasonic rx-c32. they'll run forever too and the battery life is really good. rca input jacks. output is only via headphone 1/8" jack. when i hear someone complain "oh man how is someone going to get a cassette deck in this day and age?" heck, lots of really good ones don't cost anything. a few strategically placed stickers and this jam box would be ready to go. how many of these are just sitting around? plenty to last till i'm dead, so i'm cool.

side note, a list of cool things that are gathering dust somewhere that you can just about get for free:
shotguns, sailboats, motorcycles, banjos, reel to reel tape recorders, bicycles, comic books. ...oh and jam boxes.

goodwill haul

2012-02-09T08:47:00.000-08:00

these tapes were purchased at a washington goodwill for 50 cents each.
motorhead and iron maiden in particular sound great on a jam box. that's kind of how that stuff should sound from my point of reference. that's a lot of juke for 2.50.

the jam box tapes

2012-01-25T10:49:00.000-08:00

a new project of mine. 100 different tapes with a collective title, the jam box tapes. all handmade one at a time on a cassette jam box in my living room. well, kind of my kitchen too but that's neither here nor there.
each tape is un-mastered, un-edited, un-mixed, recorded straight in, jam box style. each tape with different music, and with hand drawn covers. signed and numbered. i'll be playing a mixture of: hymns, songs of mine from throughout my catalog, songs of friends, songs i heard off the radio, songs i make up on the spot, instrumentals, me reading through various stacks of music, ambient instrumental freak outs, and experiments of various types. whatever happens to be on the music stand that day. {no requests}
i'm going to sit down and make them one at a time.
available by mail and at my shows only. details will be on my personal label site:minner bucket records, my cassette label

found a shop with a tape selection in bend oregon

2012-01-24T14:40:00.001-08:00

in bend oregon there is a cool store called ranch records, right downtown. they had a pretty good selection of tapes.
i got a copy of an elmore james record on cassette for 3.75. classic stuff. the fellow manning the till told me about a repair shop in town that might have had some reel to reel machines, i called but they were out of them at the moment, saying they had them from time to time. have to check back.

dave prewitt on rediscovering his tape collection

2012-01-18T09:10:00.000-08:00

I just had to replace my car. On my birthday, that's another creative story, although - this car's replacement had a cassette deck. I was, honestly, originally, a bit bummed. I thought "damn I can't use my ipod". I realized immediately that this indeed was the power of satan in today's music attempting to gain another for it's fiery onslaught of my radio dial. I knew I had some stash somewhere. I went to the garage, dug out THAT box, which became boxes - of old cassettes.
Yes cassettes. I kept a bunch. I have a small collection of things from the punk days which I kept, like Dead Kennedys, Big Boys, Peter & Test Tube Babies... More importantly I unearthed demos from local bands I had been given & bought through the 80's & 90's. I also have a mountain of live cassettes I have acquired or recorded through the years. Magical moments in time that no one could ever possibly relive if it weren't for this small amount of plastic. Some may say those moments are best lost and memorialized through memories. My memories come to life when I hear the sound of the show I was at, the drunk next to me who thought he could sing "Texas Flood" better than Stevie Ray, the two guys who found time to fight during Tesla's "Love Song" - so many things I may not ever remember nearly as clearly without that audio reminder. Remember when you would spend time combing your vinyl or the radio dial waiting for THAT moment to record THAT song which would make the special mix tape perfect? I DO. Usually it was for a chick who didn't deserve it, other times for the best country drive you'd ever take. Cassettes definetly aren't cool, don't ever let anyone else know that they are. Turn it up!

a possible aesthetic for acoustic music.

2011-12-19T06:35:00.000-08:00

here's an idea for an approach. let's say you are a singer/songwriter/guitarist, or have a small acoustic type band, possibly based in some form of roots american concept, and you have some songs and you want to make a record.

if a person were to do some prior research, and listen to lots of current mixes in this field, principally what will be heard are lots of pristine recordings. many times, the schema of the reverb times, compression ratios, mic placement, eq, mixing etc. are very similar. eerily similar. in a stepford wife kind of way. [example, tune in on satellite radio, to a station that plays recordings of this ilk, and a sonic similarity will display itself after just a few pieces roll by, even though the tracks may have been actually recorded fifteen years apart. it's a very bland approach to the audio.] my thinking is that, things can only get perfect in one way, but things can be kind of processed and messed with in lots of ways. ergo, more interesting.
to me, the age of audio photo-realism in acoustic type music, or picking music or whatever you may call that, is over. it died in a giant box of 1000 cds that no one could sell, out in the garage of a band that forgot why they were playing music in the first place. about ten years ago.
it's time to liberate thyself from the audio version of portrait painting.
a way of creating interest in your music would perhaps be a lo-fi type recording. as an example, think of how many thousands of cds have been made of bands with a bluegrass type instrumentation where they go in and set up in a proper studio, and the instruments are isolated and the proper mics are placed, etc. lots of this stuff ends up sonically the same. and there are lots of engineers and local studios that are really good at making this happen. [no foul on them they are doing what they are paid to do.]
part of the "interest" of a recording, however, is the process itself, not just the music that gets played. so if the artist doesn't take advantage of this, they miss a great chance to do something of interest.
i would suggest this to the small acoustic ensemble: find an old reel to reel and have a go with that. perhaps even an old cassette jambox to record with. seek out an interesting sonic palette and see if you can bring that into the overall structure. incorporate environmental sounds. if a dog barks up the street, why edit that out? record as many things at once as you can, and do as much pre-mixing as you can. try and see. noise is good. leave it in. consider not using the right mic.
perhaps an interesting question to ask thyself: what audio mistakes [ inconsistencies, brushstrokes, errors] are actually adding to the overall effect of the work aesthetically? at what point does the audio polishing begin to take away from the meaning of the work, detracting from the overall experience?

i don't know how this happened

2011-11-14T08:58:00.000-08:00

but i'm sitting here juking to a new cassette of my music that just came out.
it's a bunch of demos that i did for my new regular cd release that's called rocket. from my station in life [beneath the underground....i'm so far down it all looks up to me], they are a huge record company or label or whatever term you may prefer. i guess record companies get dogged a lot, but i'm blessed, they pretty much let me do whatever the hell i want to do and there's some cats that work there that are into my jazz so that's pretty cool as far as i'm concerned. anyways, i'm listening here at the kitchen table i recorded all the stuff to begin with, listening on an old jambox i got off ebay [man the batteries last forever in that thing]. i'm fortunate. the point of this is it feels like i got away with something really great ha. [like i just got the batter out with a low, outside, offspeed pitch]... listening to a new cassette. it's 2011. i love the dark murky swimmy sound these things have.
thanks for reading. thanks for listening.

the tascam four track

2011-09-30T05:51:00.000-07:00

wikipedia article on the tascam four track

ahhh, my beloved cassette four track. here's the deal if you see one of these, and it works, you better snag it. they sound great!

one of the most profitable projects i've ever been involved with was made on one of these. the band i was in rented one from a local store, and eventually paid it off with the rentals, the silliest most expensive way to get a piece of gear, but we were broke, and loved the thing. over time however the main project done with that deck is still one of the best money makers i've ever been involved in.
with all the advances in mastering, these things are more viable than ever. the hep thing about four tracks is, you have to bounce, which is like pre-mixing, which is destructive editing, which forces you to make decisions.
personally i would be more interested in hearing just about any music ever made, recorded on one of these, over the pro-tools trip.
[ hey artists, if you make your music in the box, and then make cds and mp3's only, you get to participate in what i call how the man killed the art.]

take a look at that wikipedia list, there's some hep records on there. and there's thousands left off that list. the funny thing is, there's producers and plug-ins valued in the tens of thousands range, that you can instantly replicate for free with one of these units haw haw.

you can still get parts, and you can still get blanks. and you can still find them on ebay. heck these things are like sailboats and shotguns, there's plenty of them laying around unused. pilfer around and see if you can dig one up.

practical uses for an old cassette jambox

2011-09-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

just like old motorcycles, reel to reel machines, banjos, accordions, or any mechanism of that ilk, if you see an old one laying around and it works, snag it.
most folks probably have one, or know someone that has one in a closet, or are within about eight minutes of a hock shop, where there is a cassette jambox waiting for you. one of my favorites came from a phoenix goodwill for a ten spot. here are some things you can do with one.

a. do you ever hang out with someone that has ipod a.d.d. and they keep skipping to another song in the middle of that song? i think there is a reasonably good argument that there is a clandestine effort out to kill art by making all these little digital files instantly available. there are industry guys that i have hung out with that seem unable to let a song play all the way to the end without either turning the music down and talking or skipping to another track. putting mixes on tape will encourage you to turn it up and let it play. just burn those playlists right to tape. they will instantly sound better, and you can also manipulate the gaps between songs, as well as how hard you hit the tape for my beloved tape compression effect. [i was raised to listen to music like you are watching a movie, staring at the playback unit and sitting in silence, like a mixdown session.] putting your mixes on tape will give them a new life and sort of sets them free. it's nice to listen to music without "booting" something.

b. record your song ideas. some of these units make pretty dang good recordings. i've written lots of music with these idea tapes, where you just make a bunch of ideas on a tape, and then go back and sort them out. it's a very friendly way of working. you don't have to pull out mics, or headphones, or any of that. also, if things fall into place and you get something cool, it's going to sound very interesting. example: if you have a studio record or something, having a jambox recording of you sitting in your living room softly strumming one of the songs can be a really cool bonus track. a good mastering guy can make a jambox recording pop pretty good.

c. use it as a plug-in for your d.a.w. i remember being at a pro-tools guy's house and he was showing me this very expensive plug-in, and i remarked, wow that sounds like a cassette jambox. why not just bump a track over to the actual jambox and then back into the d.a.w. for instant grit? much cheaper and cooler than that 500 dollar plug-in.

d. record drums. man with those weird compressor things some of the jamboxes have, drums can sound KILLER. you have to kind of move the unit around as the guy plays until you find the right place. but that's a surefire way to get one hell of a badass drum sound. it's a pretty specialized effect, might not would use it on every track on a project but if you are looking for a different sound, that's an idea.

e. use as a monitoring environment. one of my friends was telling me about taking a workshop with rupert neve who was talking about an old friend of his that was into the london symphony back in the day, and had a great love affair with the 78rpm records. so rupert gets him tickets and the guy goes to listen. and doesn't really like it because it doesn't sound like his records. hence "point of reference." i grew up listening to music on tape and on jamboxes, so when i go to mix, with that playback unit, i instantly know what the heck i have. if i go into a studio to work and don't take a jambox, i usually end up asking myself the question, "what does this exactly sound like?" the rooms can be quite different, and the playback gear brings in lots of variables. but with my little panasonic 5000 series jambox, i can take a line out, and get a handle on what we really have. and yes i'm putting a million dollars worth of gear into a 40 dollar tape deck.

f. if you have a cell phone music streaming service [or off youtube], try burning that stuff right to tape. for me, while it's great having that portability of the music on the phone, one can basically look up just about anything and have it playing in an instant….but it's still on the phone. making tapes of these streams really brings them to life and sets the music free.

g. taking a jambox into your dressing room or hotel allows you to make a sterile environment "yours."

h. great jamming in the car with one. you can have a tape you are listening to in the house, split to the car, listen there, go into where you are going and take the unit in there with you. right now i have this lee perry and the upsetters tape that i have been listening to for about a week straight. i carry the unit to the car and blast away. i think music sounds weird in cars with the speakers all built in, and with those subwoofers.

i. it's very economical to listen to tapes. i just bought a great wes montgomery tape in a goodwill for 60 cents. i told bill frisell about it and he goes "man that's a GREAT album." there's lots of interesting new music coming out of the underground on tape. six bucks a pop. and if you don't like the music? tape over it. even if i get crappy music on a good tape, it's still something valuable. i found a jimmy reed tape in nashville for 50 cents. i make mixtapes for free and swap with friends.

j. metal, hip-hop, punk rock, and dub will never sound better than they do burnt really hot onto a good tape and blasted out of jambox.

k. to me the coolest ones are the one-piece, single deck units.

l. hey the mainstream doesn't know about it, so it has to be cool.

review of julia ladense- bored housewife

2011-09-16T04:56:00.001-07:00

i have no idea what is going on with this tape but it's really cool.
just one kind of odd thing after another, a bunch of really cool sounds fill up the whole thing. if i'm not mistaken, there were only sixteen of these made. when i ordered the tape, she wrote right away thanking me and sent me a zip of the mp3's so i could juke forthwith. how's that for customer service. i think of the sounds on here as experimental soundscapes. kind of like if you lived next to a recording studio and you constantly heard muffled parts of songs coming through the wall and at times you sort of had a dis-embodied listening experience and floated away. very interesting blend of common and far out sounds. here is a person that knows how to get the most out of the format. lo-fi, weird and good.

review of cough cool's clausen

2011-09-16T04:30:00.000-07:00

i love this music. the second song on the B side is called sucker and it's really great. there's lots to grab onto here in regard to layers and textures and songs.
the recording is really nice, and fits the tape format very well. not not fun records is doing some good stuff. i like the way you just have the song titles on the cover. really clean look. if you are a music fan and ever asked yourself, why in the world would i want to buy a tape in this day and age?……this is the answer. there is some really cool actual independent music coming out on this format. it's nice getting into the flow of the songs, the sequence is really nice on this. dreamy music that you can have on ambiently or directly juke to it. highly recommended. i have another tape of theirs that's great also on sweat lodge guru another really hep label. very cinematic music.

the live tape experiment of july 2011

2011-09-08T09:07:00.000-07:00

hey musicians. here's an experiment that turned out great. i played a show recently and just set a jambox down on the stage at my feet.
the tape turned out great! since it sounds good where i'm at, voila the tape sounds good and i now have a tape document of that vibration. to me the sound is much more friendly and warm and comfortable than the typical board mix. and it's cool to hear what the musicians are saying off-mic. i just used a panasonic rx 4940 which is not a fancy box. no tweeters, but the battery life is really long and it's one i have been carrying around for a while. i used this position 1 maxell 110 tape. i tried to keep up with the fliperoonie during the set, but had to concentrate on what i was up to, though i could get that wired pretty good, perhaps setting an egg timer or somesuch. the sound just off the floor is really good, though it's harder to see what the status is.

if you'll notice in this photo, i'm juking to another tape, the savage young tater bug.

i'm working on some remixes for my label minner bucket records, and i'm going to do a mix where i play the track out of this box, re-record it, dump it back into ableton, and add some big ass drums to it, then maybe do the process again.

interview with Steve Harmon and Eric Lee of Wil-Ru Records

2011-07-06T07:21:00.000-07:00

via email.

Q: a couple years ago, while researching new music that was coming out, i came to a realization that there's tons of super creative stuff coming out on cassette. can you talk a little about that?

A: Sure. Well, it seems that most of the music coming out on cassette is independent music which is generally more creative or perhaps less mainstream than the stuff coming out on bigger record labels. Artists don't feel the pressure of having to please everyone in the world with their sound, due to the limited numbers of their releases, so ultimately they are freed up a bit to pursue more creative niche genres.

Q: what is your typical tape buying customer like?

A: Although we don't know many of our customers personally, first off, we assume that they have cassette players. Secondly, we've noticed that the market is a world wide market. We are always getting orders from places all around the world (US, Europe, Asia etc.). The tape format appeals at various levels; first to someone that grew up listening to cassettes will have that nostalgic connection to the format and fidelity. Younger listeners see this as a new exciting and perhaps retro format in an age dominated by digital music. Due to the nature of cassettes (side a, side b), they are really designed to listen through the whole album with out skipping around and just focusing on the "Hits". People who are buying and listening to cassettes are most likely wanting to the album as a whole.

Q: what about playback units? where do you recommend someone find one, if you are asked, can you talk a little about that?

A: Ebay is a great place to get boomboxes, walkmans etc. Even cheaper is your local thrift store. You can find walkmans for as low as 99 cents these days.

Q: can you talk a little about your aesthetic vision?

A: In an age focused on digital sales, physical releases are becoming viewed as objects of art. It's important to please costumers on a visceral level and give them a reason to purchase physical releases. Cassettes are somewhat of a boutique product now, so it's imperative that they are presented well in order to give them collectible value as a unique limited object.

Q: how did you get where you are?

A: Well, it started with the idea of releasing a one sided 12" by Davis Hooker, which ended up being a co release with Marriage Records. After that materialized we realized that we had a record label. From there we started putting out releases by friends. Soon after that, Eric started contacting electronic artists who he had corresponded with in the past which quickly lead to the development of WR (the sub label of Wil-Ru focused on electronic music). We have managed to put together so many releases in such a short time due to two things: cooperative and willing prolific artists and affordable formats.

Q: what was going on in your life when the idea to put out cassettes first came up?

A: Steve is an entrepreneur and Eric is an artist, so the collaboration made sense.

Q: what types of things are coming out this year?

A: A whole lot of electronic stuff. Also an full length LP by Ozarks is on the schedule. And a bunch of unannounced stuff. Check in at www.wil-ru.com. We tend to release things in batches (and frequently!).

Q: where do you feel like we are in the story arc of cassette culture?

A: About in the same place as in the story arc of Muppet culture. The new Muppet movie coming out this fall is called "The Muppets" as if nobody knew about them until now. Introducing the Muppets.... ...Again

new jam box

2011-07-05T07:50:00.000-07:00

just got this jam box from a friend of mine in nyc. it's a big old GE 3-6000.

it's in perfect condition and it cranks like you wouldn't believe. love the sound of these old boxes. the various manufacturer experimented quite a bit back in the day, trying different things with different features and all that, so you can get what you want. this one is kinda space age, the transport controls are in this recessed place which is very hep because sometimes those buttons will get damaged if they hang out front, but here they are safely tucked away. the unit is kind of a thinline type design. the knobs and switches feel very positive and required no cleaning upon arrival. i have been listening to tapes non-stop since i unpacked it.

panda beach, last days ashore

2011-07-05T07:12:00.000-07:00

i fell in love with this tape. aesthetically this is very well put together on every level.
the poetry, playing, songs, and recording are all very well done. i listened quite a bit on headphones with my walkman, and i felt like i was dreaming. the music kind of sounds like you wake up in some strange house in some remote place, and there's this weird etherial music going on in another part of the house and you can only make out snatches of it but it's beautiful. the melodies in the voice are great and the suspended chords and things in the accompaniment are very well done. i think this is a great work. the packaging is really simple and cool. great songs. loved this. here's the site to order

two new tapes, apache and cleaners from venus

2011-06-26T07:59:00.000-07:00

i think one of the coolest labels ever is burger records. they have lots of great stuff on tape that you've never heard. the quality is really high. i've never been disappointed in any of my purchases. today's offering is two tapes, cleaners from venus {english electric}, and apache {radical sabbatical}.
they showed up really quickly, in a safe bubble wrapped package, with a free sticker and button. with a handwritten little note of thanks. my cost was a measly 12 bucks. it's really fun to get this stuff in your mailbox! mixed in with the bills was this great little gem. it's really fun, i get to searching for stuff online, make an order then go back to life and kind of forget, and boom! it shows up!

the music:
apache is really funny and great. it's kind of a sludge/guitar/metal/pop/punk thing that's well done and has a great vibe. the music isn't quantized so it's really cool to hear the guitar hits and the drum hits kind of swimming around on the "grid" but still hitting at the same time. good live feel. the music itself works really great on tape. sounds good loud. the songs are well done and the playing is cool. it feels like the compression is cranked pretty hard overall which i love, like when a cymbal hits in the stops. this may be when they went to cassette the levels were perhaps nailed pretty good, which is awesome. the cover is well done and funny. recommended.

cleaners from venus. one of my favorite bands. this one seems a little cleaner sonically than some of the earlier tapes, but still sounds like them. i really like their songs and aesthetic and this tape is well done. always great songs, and this one doesn't disappoint. martin newell is a hero. i would get all their tapes you can find.

both of these are numbered editions. apache, i have 14 of 250. and the cleaners i have 76 of 250 total copies. it's so cool to buy things like this. offered cheap enough so i can experiment with unheard music, and in a format i really like. plus since it comes in the limited edition of just a few copies, it feels like i really have something tangible. i realize most folks have no interest in this stuff, but for me it really means something important. it's like me and a few friends have our own private music industry that is way way cooler than than the other one. the songs are better, the media is collectable and plays on my cool old jam boxes. the aesthetic is more interesting. and we can all afford to experiment. on the generating end, and on the fan end. which is an example of my precious win/win concept.

it's really great to find labels that have thematic unity, or aesthetic concept or idea or whatever you call that, whereby the customer/fan can buy other items blind, and discover new things that are worthwhile. this is the way labels used to be when i was a first getting into music. certain labels were always good. i'm all for this set-up. so many of the modern cd companies put out so much stuff that doesn't relate it's impossible to sort through. but if you find a label like this, or sweat lodge guru or some of the others, everything is cool. so you can buy stuff blind and not be disappointed. and at six bucks a pop with a reusable media, you can't lose. hell if i don't like it, i'll just record motorhead over it.

burger records is a great company and both of these tapes will juke.

the great tape experiment of 2011.

2011-06-16T07:57:00.000-07:00

there's an interesting dynamic at play with objects in the physical realm.
in the early nineties i got interested in getting a small sailboat. after poking around for a few days, it was discovered that there were lots of desirable sailboats in slips just sitting there rotting. when i was looking, i would hazard that 20% of the boats in every marina i visited were just wasting away. it's kind of that way about instruments too. when someone asks about a banjo, sometimes i dream about how many thousands are tucked away in back closets or under beds unused. i've had the same dream about shotguns, skateboards, jam boxes, '60's era arch-top acoustic guitars, comic books, in short just about any weird thing i'm interested in.
so a few months ago, i put the word out on facebook and stuff, that if anyone had any cassettes they were sitting on, i would take them off their hands.
whoa, you won't believe all the cool stuff i got. folks just started mailing me all these boxes of tapes it was awesome. i got piles of cool old blues and punk rock, and live bootlegs of various things, mixtapes of various stripes {hey, metal 90 minute tape? boy have i got a repurpose for that!}, really just an unbelievable pile of music. free. folks were really nice about it. i'm still going through this stuff. i'd say about 1000 tapes showed up at my door. maybe more. free.

some of my more critical readers may think "well what about new stuff? that's all old!" easily handled. most of the cool cassette labels now put out mountains of cool stuff for about five bucks per unit. and also in regard to stuff from yesteryear, if i haven't heard it, it's new.

also with cassettes, if you don't like what's on there, tape over it.

the artist guys that i look up to, always seem to find a way to do stuff no matter what the scenario, and i seek to emulate this behavior.

new mixtape from rick shithouse

2011-05-03T09:25:00.000-07:00

i just got this in the mail. it's been rolling for two days non-stop. it's on a regular high bias tape {denon dx1-90 with head cleaning leader} and it's kinda grainy and cool sounding. he did a great job of song selection. i only knew two tracks off the whole tape previously. i am listening on a jambox on my kitchen counter. it still is an amazing feeling to get an actual mixtape of a bunch of new stuff. {if you haven't heard it, it's new.} great getting a hand written note of the track listing. makes me want to go back and make a track listing for my last mix, but i'm afraid if i posted it, someone would make a cdr of the mix. which is like getting a henna tattoo of a real tattoo. mixtapes take time and effort. there's a line on my new record where i yell "i'm a mixtape junky, it might sound a little funky but baby do you know what i mean!!!!??" haha

i like to listen to a chunk of information over and over. and this will be spinning in the deck for a month or so. i'm not one of those guys that plugs in the ipod, and keeps skipping around where you never even hear a whole song, and then turns it down and starts talking. that's not what i think music is for. i think music is for hardcore listening. that's the way i've listened since i was a kid, and i'm sticking with that method. listening carefully to the bad brains is more interesting than listening to any single human being talk about anything. especially when i get to listen on my beloved jambox/tape combo.
i don't know why there's so much whining about music. there's more cool stuff being done than a person can listen to in a lifetime. lots of cool bands on the road, lots of cool bands putting out great music.

here's the track listing:

side A
c30,c60,c90 go bow wow wow
fuck all      atari teenage riot
charred remains autopsy
back to dungaree high turbonegro
maggots in your coffin repulsion
right brigade      bad brains
you broke my heart wermacht
hypnotize    scritti politti
carfull of stash      gluecifer
stockhouse      kong
19    mumakil
supermarket monstrosity old
bittersweet samba    herb alpert
whole lotta love    dread zeppelin
0078h      m83
{can't figure out what this one is}

side B
reagonomics dri
like rats      godflesh
see the constellation they might be giants
all the guys      intense degree
just friends    righteous pigs
moving dub dub specialist
armageddon siege
running out of time   mitch murder
simian kind groop dogdrill
corporation pull in terrorizer
russian roulette dr. and the ?
why am i i ?
oozing for pleasure   the hard ons
out future    larm
prime mover zodiac mindwarp
one side surprised paintbox
swinging skull 324
blown a wish my bloody valentine
dead      heresy

mark rubin on cassettes and music and life.

2011-03-18T12:37:00.000-07:00

if anyone was ever into music, my good friend mark rubin was/is really into music. here he writes:

If the truth be told, cassettes are how I got here. I can remember quite vividly when it started and why too.

In fact I had a very active relationship with music already having been raised by two amateur musicians who filled the house with radios and record players and even a “Happy Days” era jukebox that played 78’s. I loved the big LP’s and the large pieces of furniture that played them. For my 11th birthday I got two items for my birthday, a camera and a radio. I was so thrilled with the latter that the very first picture I took was of the former. I took it everywhere with me, oft infuriating my parents. I reveled in the idea of taking music with me everywhere I went.

But just a few short years later, the radio let me down quite a bit. It was the mighty KOMA blasting from OKC, a pioneer rock and roll station famous for playing regional and even local artists with a signal that could be heard anywhere in Oklahoma, and at night when they were allowed to “bounce” the signal off the atmosphere, even as far away as Tucson so I could listen in when I visited the grand parents. But the AOR format had just begun to manifest itself, along with its 10 tunes in rotation play list. Personally, I was a band geek and a freak for brass quintets, but like a lot of people I had little or no opinion about popular music I simply listened to what was on my favorite station. Then came Peter Frampton’s grindingly long and indulgent live LP with the 13 minute version of “Do You Feel Like I Do?” It showed up in “heavy” rotation on my radio, that is to say once an hour, every hour, every day. “Really? “ I thought, “This is crap.” I don’t know why, but I just HATED the tune and there it was on ALL THE TIME, you couldn’t hide form it. Change the dial if you like and chances were still good you would hear the damnable voice-box thingy, oh God the very thought of it today send me into fits. Then came Rush. REO Speedwagon. Boston (ok, I still like Boston but it has to do with my first sexual experience in the back of the band bus coming home from an away game, the 1st Boston 8 track was my soundtrack.) But you get the picture. For whatever reason, I was not impressed with what I heard on my lil’ radio and figured there was something better out there.

Another birthday, my Bar Mitzvah in fact, and I was given the key to my escape of programmed music: a brand new, Sony Walkman. For the first time in my life, I was now in control of what I listened to on the fly. I could buy any kind of music I wanted and listen to it, without bothering anyone else with the use of the new fangled ear buds. My first cassette was purchased from the cut out bin at the Record Bar at Sooner Fashion Mall: “Baroque Brass” a collection of Handel and Bach for brass quartet by an anonymous studio group. I think it was $2.99. And now that I had the format, and the itch to find stuff to play on it, I made myself well aquainted with local record shops; Peaches, Sound Warehouse, even the independent hippy run Rainbow Records. Every one of these places had big bins filled with cassettes, not one of them more than $4.99. The salesmen would stick up their noses at the little boxes I would stack up at the register. “Doesn’t compare with the sound of vinyl,” they’d offer. True enough, I reasoned, but you can’t listen to the LP when you were your bike and these things were more in the budget of the allowance afforded to the children of educators.

It wasn’t too much later, I guess I was 14 or so, that I came across a cassette that caught my eye for some reason. It wasn’t cut out, it was a full price new release and the cover was unlike the other artwork I had seen on most products. And the name was different too: DEVO. I left the store, popped the cassette into the Walkman, and hopped on my Schwinn to cross the I-35 bridge to go back to the house. By the time I did get home, I was pretty well blown away. This was a completely different approach to music; strange yet oddly compelling, classical in composition but played on rock instruments. I was confused and thrilled. “Oh you like that,” said the clerk behind the counter. “You might like this..” And so it began, my curiosity piqued and nurtured by the snobbish counter staff ,UK music magazines, and even these new handmade, homemade “zines” dedicated entirely to music that was off the grid at the time. I picked up a new Realistic “jam box” at the neighborhood Radio Shack. They were sturdy, industrial grey and really, really loud. I took to lashing mine onto the handle bars of my cruiser so I could annoy the “squares” as I rode past. Thanks to an ad in a zine, I found out that there were whole labels devoted to underground music and most of them pressed cassettes. You sent away for the catalog and then ordered them by mail. The Alternative Tentacles list had 25 or 30 bands I had never heard of, but at $6 a throw you could easily take a chance. “In God We Trust” by the Dead Kennedys was the first of many purchases there. Then a record shop wonk hipped me to a new label that was cassette only, called ROIR they only had a few releases but I saw that one of their bands was actually coming to my little Oklahoma college town. I sent away for the 1st Bad Brains release as was totally blown away by not only the intensity of the music but by the contrast of the shredding punk rock and reggae vibes. Seeing them live not but a few weeks after totally sealed the deal for me; I was a confirmed music freak and for the meantime cassettes were my ticket for admission. By now, I had customized my humble little jam box into a mobile piece of punk rock folk art, now spray painted a gloss black, covered in band stickers and festooned with dog collar spikes ala “Beyond the Thunderdome.” Damn, I wish I still had that box.

Probably the most liberating aspect of this discovery was how relatively cheap it was to get your “album” released on cassette. There had been many fine underground music groups operating out of Oklahoma; the Memlucks, N.O.T.A., the Hostages to name just a few. But it was not easy pressing an LP; it was expensive to set up (still is) and even more expensive to print in the small batches that any band not on the radio could hope to sell. Then, invariably, by the time they had raised all the funds to record their music properly and press the LP, the bands had broken up. You could make a 45 for not a whole lot, but you only got 2 tunes which was limiting. I recall the living rooms of musician pals filled with boxes of unsold, former band releases now repurposed as end tables and other furniture. None of us could ever hope to get radio play, so why bother with the vinyl? But the cassette was far more an effective tool for getting your music into the hands of people, people more like ourselves. My own roommate released a 6 song EP for his band Diet of Worms, the Flaming Lips first studio experiments were sold off the stage with Wayne Coyne hand drawn covers. Anybody with access to a duplication (Norman High AV Lab for instance,) and a Kinko’s could make a release. Friends of mine would have a dub of a dub of a dub of some amazing band that they heard about and that’s how I first heard Metallica for instance. It was a secret empire of music freaks turning on other music freaks.

I eventually did spring for my own turntable, mostly to play European 12” and local punk rock 45’s and frankly, I turned into one of those who looked down at the sonic quality of the cassette format. But it’s use as a tool had hardly diminished by the time I have moved to Texas. I could make an entirely separate essay about the culture of the “mix tape” and amount of attention and creativity I put into crafting them, but I still have some of those those tapes. Killbilly’s first release was cassette only as was the Bad Livers gospel release. The cassette was the thing you sent to a booking agent along with your 8 x10 and press kit.

But further, cassettes opened me up to whole other worlds of music. I was at Las Pulgas (aka the Flea Market) in south Dallas when I stumbled upon a little booth, entirely brimming with cassette tapes of Mexican performers. The vendor spoke little English but I asked him what his favorite band was and he handed me a tape by Los Algres de Teran. From then on I never missed an opportunity to visit the Mexican neighborhoods and score a few random tapes. There was a Spanish language record shop on S. Mary Street near 1st in Austin where I met a funny dude who worked the counter. I as scanned the Nick Villareal and Ramon Ayala tapes stacked under the counter, I inquired “So, which is your favorite.” His response validated my own method for buying a tape; ‘Dude, I just buy the ones that have a cool cover. How can you go wrong?” Indeed, seeing the morbidly obese Villareal surrounded by big bootied chicks in bikinis was why I knew about him at all, and Nick power-used the cassette format by recording “potpourris;” essentially a polka and ranchera medley timed to run the 15 minutes of the whole side of the tape.

While I traveled the world, I sought out these little stalls and shops coming home with Native American C&W bands from Quebec, local accordionists from Brittiany, Zydeco and Cajun releases, and bootlegged re-issues of Old Time American music taken from 78’s. Global Village in NY released an amazing catalog of folk and ethnic music from around the world, all on cassette only. Even the Smithsonian made available, for a small fee, a well-dubbed cassette of any LP ever released on the Folkways label. My education in music had a rewind if you get my drift.

Even when I finally succumbed to the CD, grudgingly and only because awesome music was being re-issued on that format now, I still had the cassettes right along side them. There was too much good stuff that had only ever been released that way and until only very recently I had something approaching 30 pounds of tapes in my house. It was a box of cassettes from Budapest that introduced me the wild sounds of Eastern Europe, where the portable and copy-able cassette is still king. And it was live taped recordings of Bill Monroe and Bronia Sakina that gave me glimpses of master musicians now since passed. Just the other day a box arrived with demos and live sets of one of my old bands that never got off the ground. I’m pleased to see the re-invigoration of the format, if only because it signals a change that I did not anticipate which marks me as now officially middle aged. And also to see that the tape is performing the function it was suited for best, allowing the workers to control the means of their own production.

Viva La Revolution.

barnyard electronics is available on cassette

2011-03-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

this is my effort for musically pushing the banjo forward. i never felt like the concept of using jazz fusion aesthetics as a basis for new music, counted as a new idea. my feeling was that a more futurist manifesto type of ideology would be more apropros. i don't think soloing in straight un-swung 1/16th notes in an ionian or dorian mode, really qualifies as a new idea. so within this work, my goal was to destroy that. and use the banjo in a truly contemporary way.
here is a link to the futurist music manifesto: article
such a work would incorporate noise, spoken word, loops, cut and paste, glitch, and computer processing.
i hand drew the cover and color them on my kitchen table.

so i met the ramones when i was a kid

2011-03-02T08:51:00.000-08:00

i grew up in belton texas, just north of austin. and in the seventies, music was a big deal, you could see lots of shows in austin. lots of the stuff i was interested in like punk rock, reggae, blues. anything different and not mainstream i guess.
so a crew of us went down there to see the ramones play {1978, i was 16}, in a white senco nail gun van. we had a keg of beer inside the car. so someone in our crew wormed their way backstage at the armadillo and discerned where the band was staying. at a la quinta inn up on i-35. so after the show, we drove over there. and there they were, hanging around. at first they looked at us suspiciously. we roll up slow in this van. but they figured out we had that keg of beer in there (it was after hours) and suddenly, we were whisked inside. so we found ourselves in there drinking and hanging with those guys. mark bell had just joined but i think it was before road to ruin came out.
joey had this battered old yamaha acoustic, that didn't have all the strings on it and he had it tuned to an open chord so he could just play with one finger and he sang some of the ballads that later came out on road to ruin.
but the coolest part was, he had this old jambox with him {i don't recall the model, but it was a one piece, single deck unit}, and the ubiquitous cardboard box with lots of lovingly made mixtapes inside. i believe he had hand drawn the covers, which is what folks used to do back then. but it was kinda cool cuz back then that's how we dug music was on jamboxes and mixtapes. it was cool to see these hep guys from nyc doing the same thing. i remember he had lots of trex. and being a trex fan myself, we chatted about that for a while. {that record tanx, helped me survive my childhood.}
we also discussed david bowie, and slade. it was pretty cool. and he had that deck, and he could carry it everywhere and jam. what i liked about him, was that he was a fan. and as a fan myself, we could relate on some level. {strangely, you can meet lots and lots of people in "music" that don't seem to really care for music that much.}
i recently was given that book the boombox project by a friend of mine, and was reminded of this story. the way those guys back then juked was on a jambox with lovingly made mixtapes. as i write this, there's about 30 cassettes on my kitchen table.

great article on cassettes

2011-02-25T08:33:00.000-08:00

npr article on tapes

got sent this link. great article. new stuff to forage through. have fun.

recent LA trip

2011-02-25T08:23:00.000-08:00

so i went to LA to make a new record at my friend's place at the village.
article about the studio
it was a great place and we had fun. however, i kinda wanted to put my mixes on cassette. and they weren't able to find a working deck in the place and no one had one. last time i make a record without taking my own jambox, haha. anyways. so they had this room, where all the old tape machines went to die i guess, and i got to walk around in there. i shot a movie on my phone, if you ever run into me somewhere i'll show it to you. it's amazing. i did find this panasonic deck in there. here's a pic.

which was a pretty cool looking unit. it was on a shelf in a storage room. all across the world there are stacks of cool gear like this waiting to be repurposed. let me know what you find.

scotch tapes

2011-02-17T17:21:00.000-08:00

link to scotch tapes

this is a pretty cool site to poke around on.

if you needed a cool jam box, this is one.

2011-02-15T04:21:00.000-08:00

decent jam box to buy

this would probably be a pretty good one. i just found it on etsy. it's a good price, and that's a pretty cool unit. i have a few of that series and they are pretty nice. it's not super-collectable or anything, but they are built pretty good and they'll crank. battery life is pretty good and they make kind of cool live recordings as well. someone should snatch this one up.

boombox project segment on cbs sunday morning

2011-02-14T17:02:00.000-08:00

video

some cool boxes. not so sure about the narrative. but cool units.

sanyo ms 560 jam box

2011-02-09T10:04:00.000-08:00

i got this for 85 bucks including shipping from this guy i know in nyc. it's a really cool balance between size and sound. small, but jukes pretty good. one thing i really like about this unit is the switches are all real nice and solid feeling. the five band graphic is pretty handy. rca ins. real solid little design and sounds good. it sounds crisp and tight. full range except for the super low, on account of the speaker surface area, but still a really nice unit. it's a three piece but i never use that feature i like the focused sound of just the box itself. tape transport works perfectly. obviously you can see the soft touch buttons. only thing is the receptor plug for the wall wart is loose, so i'm just running it on batteries right now. i'm thinking that i have a different plug somewhere that might have a slightly larger barrel and would hold in there better. may have to replace that, just jamming on batteries now. also, the dude sent this badass mixtape with the unit, the first song is planet rock that old song, and then a whole tape of stuff like that, haha!
great car, hotel unit.

list of 101 cassette labels and assorted other cool links

2011-02-06T07:16:00.000-08:00

101 cassette lables

"In the age of GarageBand, Myspace, and file sharing, it may come as a surprise to some that cassette labels are still very much in operation. Tapes now function as a basic form of patronage between musicians and their audience; since a physical format is no longer necessary to send or receive music, these objects become a gesture of support. Tapes act to make tangible the connection between a creator and their listeners, and the attentive and often handmade packaging speaks to this exchange."

this will take you hours to go through. there is more cool new music being done right now than a person can even keep up with. and it's not expensive to get. what else can a music lover do but simply dive in, find cool stuff, and inform their friends of the best stuff? music is badass.

free gift for you

2011-02-03T10:12:00.000-08:00

the first five folks that write to me on danny barnes will get a free mixtape. thank you for reading this blog and thank you for being interested in tapes. include your physical address, domestic only.
danny barnes

article about a new cassette label in pitchfork

2011-02-03T08:58:00.000-08:00

link to article

there are some pretty interesting links buried in that article.
and some pretty hep tracks to stream.
link to the label discussed here

an article about plustapes

2011-02-02T06:53:00.000-08:00

link to article about plustapes

"Listening to a tape is different than listening to a CD. Big time. ‘Cause you can’t really fast forward. So listening to a tape is an all or nothing sort of experience. I find a lot of times when I’m listening to tapes, I actually have a walkman input in my car now. I would just leave the tape on and let it flip, and keep listening to it. So you get this kind of circular listening experience. And it’s the same thing with vinyl where you have to get up, flip a side, and you’re not just gonna listen to one track and get up again. No, you just listen to a side. The same thing with tape, where you can give pp - it’s almost like a mini show. They’re listening to a whole side, whereas CDs, 'No, I don’t like this song, this song blows, blip blip blip, OK I’ll listen to this song again. 'You don’t do that with tapes. Yeah you may not like the middle part, but you’re still there and you’re in it, and that’s awesome," Drase concluded.

review of faux jerome

2011-01-31T17:10:00.000-08:00

okay. get this one. no kidding, this is one of the best records i've heard in quite some time. not only is the music cool, but the packaging was really great. this is an awesome tape.
first off, the music. really cool samples, drum loops, drum machines, recorded in a kind of grainy way. it's sort of like an 8mm film in audio. each piece is kind of a scene. some of the tracks are songs and some are cinematic event things that build and shift around. i was really happy with the sound, ideas, and the execution. the music is it's own stew that draws upon many sources. some dubstep type basses waft in, and samples off old records and movies. always around a pretty interesting drum concept. this music works great in the cassette format.
secondly, the box. this was probably the coolest package design i can remember seeing in any post LP format. the picture won't really do justice to the tactile experience, there's a swatch of red flannel in there, and this picture out of an old magazine ad, and this cool light blue cassette. i was really impressed with the interesting package design. it reminded me of the music, low tech, but well done. {maybe a better term would be it's-own-tech.}
overall i thought this effort was fantastic.
on lost sound tapes out of seattle. i got a hand written thank you note from the owner of the label inside the envelope. there were only 100 made. it was only five bucks. i can't say enough about how much i enjoy this tape.
lost sound tapes

a person asks for an ipod/walkman comparison

2011-01-30T07:20:00.000-08:00

the advantage that a walkman has over an ipod is tunable tape compression. if you've been making tapes for a long time, and you make lots of mixes on certain brands of tape you can get your touch together on hitting things to tape in a certain way that brings out the bass and squishes the cymbals in a really cool way. i haven't been able to replicate this in a DAW. one can get fairly close but it's a simulation of something easily done on tape. also like if you watch a movie, they use filters to adjust the color palette in certain ways. most films aren't just a "picture" of a scene. the colors are processed to create a thematic unity therewith. a really badass filter to run music through is just a slight amount of surface noise or tape hiss. this is why many hip hop records and experimental guys will cut in a sample of a run out groove off a vinyl record. it adds a very flattering filter to the music. one which a person making a cassette can control. {tape type, machine type, how hard the tape is hit} if you ever go to a live show and you see the lights on stage, they'll pump some smoke out there to give the light something to bounce off of. filter.

i'm a big believer in using the right tool for the job. if you want to take a zillion songs and pack lightly, of course the ipod. if you really want to juke, you're going to need some cassettes, a walkman, and some badass headphones.

i should also mention pause button editing, and controlling how tight the gaps are. this can be done digitally in a DAW, but the basic itunes software does not allow this type of creative listening as far as i know.

review of resonars, lunar kit/nonetheless blue

2011-01-29T05:25:00.000-08:00

burger records is doing great stuff. it's really exciting to find a label that you can buy things blind from, and the transaction works out great. i think this business model is a good one. it seems that sometimes record labels will put out so much stuff in quantity, i guess in hopes that something will stick, that the overall quality ratio goes way down. and if every entity does that, we have too much crap to sort through and brand identity is lost. if cds cost 20 bucks, in a cash strapped world, who is going to gamble on that? they'll just buy things they already know, or steal it. what's so difficult about that concept?
but burger records is nailing it. companies like this make the world a better place. win/win is the best social model.
i bought this one blind off their site. i think with shipping it was seven bucks. it's been in the player for going on the second day. i like to spin just one tape for several days. two records on one tape, we get here. the playing, songs, arrangements, overall vibe are really great on this. fans of like, and i'm terrible with those catch-word things, garage pop or whatever are going to love this. there's a kind of a small faces/jam vibe going on. it's all very well rendered. it works great on cassette. i'm very happy with this purchase and would recommend it.
the only place they kinda lost me, and this may just be that i was alive the first time that came around, are the kinda overt beatles references. they do their own take of it and it's cool, it's just that's not my fave stuff. i love that band, but kinda quoting them for some reason makes me wince just a little. in my view it's a little like quoting bob marley or bob dylan {quoting in a sonic way}, those guys are such a fabric of our landscape, we can just go listen to that, if it isn't already permanently wedged in the cortex already. but that said, the resonars have plenty of other stuff going on, forgive me for the slight offhand comment.
jangly guitar riffs aplenty. there are moments of kind of an early stooges thing, the pre-punk punk rock and all that stuff, that to me is the badass part of this tape. there's a couple like mc5 jams on here that kick some major ass. good singing.
overall they have a cool sound, set of references, and great songs. the recording oeuvre fits tape very well. it sounds great to smoke it on a jam box pretty good. especially a mid-size one, cranked up till the bass breaks up just a little. i was having a weird day the other day, blasted this and felt better. it's like safe dope.

jam box collection from gluecifer

2011-01-29T04:39:00.000-08:00

gluecifer's jam box collection

my friend rick put his collection up on youtube in a short video. he lives in australia and some of the models don't look like they were available here in the states? i'm not sure.
a box that's kinda piqued my interest is the jvc that has the detachable walkman, the pc rm 100jw. in red. i don't see that in there, looking again. here's a video of that particular unit. jvc pc rm 100jw i'll email him and ask him.
however, rick has got stacks of the classics and some weirdo ones too. check out the 777 still has the stickers on it!! this is some serious geek-age.
there was a fellow over here in vancouver ca that had that jvc i'm referring to on ebay last year and i watched it like a dog looking in a butcher shop, but it went kinda crazy towards the end of the auction. it had a slight belt issue seems he said the REW was slow. sometimes if auctions end at weird times of the day you can get in there and get stuff cheap. i'm up at all weird hours and i check. i never understood folks that would bid their max amount and then walk away. it just drives the price up for everyone else. i think the best form is to lurk and then hop in there in the last 45 seconds. but then again i buy on there and never sell anything. you have to be really careful on ebay, there's lots of shitheads on there.

fixed this one today

2011-01-27T17:18:00.000-08:00

fixed this one today. one of the guys on a jambox forum told me how to make it happy again. it's smaller but is a pretty good travel box. metal case. the tape counter is nice. it's not very bassy but it's pretty cool. the belt is really tight, the FFW and REW blaze along pretty good. i bought it for my collection to have a jambox for the suitcase. one that wouldn't take up too much room, but with which you could still do the hotel juke. with headphones it has a fair amount of boom, but it's not great. and the antennae has this weird trip where it goes down inside. like an old cadillac. most of the boxes, the antennae rides on the outside. it's pretty well made and the switches are nice. also instead of a balance fader, it has two volumes, left and right. i think i paid about 40 bucks for it.

review of the homostupids, great music collection

2011-01-27T12:07:00.000-08:00

short version, badass hardcore. 23 songs under ten bucks with shipping. fits tape format perfectly. great lo-fi cover. yellow shell. they did a great job on this. on fan death records, how can you resist that name? there are these little commercials at the top of A and B side, then then the boom starts. highly recommended. there are times when this is the perfect music. haha, so i go to the mailbox and that's in there.....this is gonna be a good day. found out about this band from this skater friend of mine.

notes from the format war

2011-01-27T02:06:00.000-08:00

there is some type of analogy i'm playing with here. i'm not sure, but this is just an off-the-cuff hypothesis. forgive me if this is conceptually a bit slapdash. as usual i reserve my right to preface everything with "i could be wrong about the whole thing," but here goes:
back in the eighties, certain guitar manufacturers started making these really flashy guitars. they had these bigger exaggerated bodies, neon colors, and floyd rose tremelo systems, active pickups, all this stuff. and for awhile they sold tons of these things. there is a certain type of mechanism at play when companies make a lower quality product, make it easier to get, advertise the crap out of it, and make it really flashy to the eye, and ofttimes shallow to the spirit. it attracts folks that aren't that interested in the subject in the long term. more folks that are dabblers will pull the economic trigger on something like that, then put it in the back of the closet and move onto something else. it looked really good in the ad.
from my ad 101 class i had at the university of texas back in the day, the suits consider this a success.
anyways, after a few years, the dust settled and folks figured out, you know, these things sound like crap without tons of distortion, they are heavy, and they kind of look like musical leisure suits. and folks started going back to playing les pauls and strats and teles more.
i believe there is some type of analogy to be had here with audio formats as well.
there are some industrial designs, that are just very usable friendly designs. another example is the colt 1911 semi-auto pistol. that's one of the most enduring designs ever made in the history of american manufacturing. that design is still kind of the standard. much like the les paul and stratocaster, or telecaster. sometimes folks stumble onto designs that stand the test of time. { i read that the wright brothers kind of just stumbled onto a propeller design that was very efficient, without the aid of computer modeling. that perhaps they just kind of eyeballed that one. } the big block chevy V8 is still the screaming hot rod engine. the cessna 172 is still an awesome airplane design.
i think cassettes are somehow like the telecaster of the audio formats.

there is a universe of great music, that you are probably missing

2011-01-27T01:39:00.000-08:00

animal psi

this site is amazing. tons of tapes of music i've never heard before. i like to shop here and randomly buy things. lots of stuff with shipping is under ten bucks and they throw in stickers and stuff. like, way under ten bucks. it's pretty cool, you make your order, and then go about your business, and then a few days later you get this gift to yourself at the mailbox. it's really fun to go down the list of labels on the left side and just randomly read and listen to samples. when i hear someone whining about music, how they just don't make it like they used to and music today is so predictable and uninspired, i just let 'em go. there's more stuff out there than a person can even listen to in a lifetime. there's always great, creative people doing badass stuff for the win/win. and figuring out different ways of making it available. this is a great time to be in music, and to be into music. i have a need to stimulate my brain with different sounds. cassettes are really the format for this right now.

cassette walkman = boom.

2011-01-26T07:17:00.000-08:00

bought this for ten bucks plus shipping on ebay. it's brand new and works perfectly. with a good set of headphones, juke shall abound. old school hip hop, metal and punk rock really sound killer on here. especially with homemade mix tapes on a good blank and you smear the levels on there. i did an experiment where i burned some mp3's really hot onto a good cassette and it was badass. that's definitely the trick for making downloaded songs rock. not as hep as vinyl to tape, but surely better than an ipod. there is a bass extender switch on the unit which is pretty hep. ten bucks. i never use the radio feature. it has auto reverse but i'm not a big fan of that because i like to pop the tape out, flip it over and close the door. but i can live with it. the thing about auto reverse, as well as the impetus in the current age to arrange the program linearly, i don't like hearing albums or cds or whatever straight through. i like the way a side A and a side B work out. you get the program in two chunks. which is more flattering to the music to me. if all the dramatic plays in the world were suddenly run straight through with no break, it would change everything. they have Act 1 and Act 2 for a reason. did you ever notice how you'll be over at someone's house and they'll put a cd on and about the fourth song in they'll start talking and forget what's playing and then go over there and turn it down? more likely the middle of the first song. i can't really dig music like that. when i was a kid my father would play records and you had to sit on the couch and stare at the record player like you were watching tv and you couldn't talk. which is why i feel comfortable in a studio. staring at speakers. that's why i like 45's too. i like to play one song over and over all day.
i couldn't believe i got this thing for a ten spot. it's brand new.

fixed this one. now it's rocking

2011-01-25T16:48:00.000-08:00

bought it on ebay for 20 bucks plus shipping. needed a few things, but it's all happening now. sony cfs- 3000. check out how i got the bass cranked on the three band eq in the pic. it's smaller but sounds pretty good. the belt seems really tight the FFW and REW fly pretty good. playback speed seems pretty good.

review of pizazz, get out of my house

2011-01-25T08:20:00.000-08:00

so i like to just buy tapes willy-nilly from some of these labels that i like. one of the coolest labels i've found for twisted pop music {one of my favorite genres} is burger records. that's how i found the pizazz. the tape is called get out of my house. i'm not super familiar with the references or parameters these guys are working with. there's a particular sound they work with on here and develop. not knowing too much about it is kind of a relief to me. it's nice to just to get into something because one likes the songs and the playing and the way it's recorded and the aesthetic, and not because you have a bio and narrative all memorized. i really thought these guys were from england, there are some kind of mid-period british pop motifs on here. turns out they are from detroit. anyways, i really like this tape. the songs are really well done. the poetry is well rendered. and it's recorded kinda hot and mushy which highlights the material in a very flattering way. it's a very interesting combination of well done and lo-fi that is compelling. it's cool the way the beats swim around in places, in other words, it isn't quantized. and that's pretty hep. this tape represents what i think is cool about this stuff. an interesting label, putting out cool music, and it's inexpensive so you can buy things just because you want to find out about it. there are some really good songs on here. my copy is number 85 out of 250. it's nice the way the cassette format kind of forces you to listen straight through. i just put one in and play it over and over for a couple days. the font on the cover reminds of the ones i used to get from columbia house or whatever in the 70's. but in kind of a funky funny way.

how to buy a jambox

2011-01-23T18:41:00.000-08:00

basically what you are dealing with, are old units. they don't make them anymore. what i'm referring to are the single unit, one piece construction, single deck machines. to me those are kinda the coolest ones. like the panasonic 5000 series, a personal favorite of mine. however the early attempts at the three piece unit {detachable speakers} are still kinda cool. my favorite jambox of all time is of this ilk {sanyo c 30}. however usually i prefer the one piece. i would never buy a jambox with a cd player in there because that is really uncool. single deck, one piece, no cd player. hopefully with aux ins/outs.

there are all these "holy grail" models that i would probably just stay away from. those are "collectable" items that are too expensive typically. {i just want to jam i don't want to impress anyone.} instead, you should look for a good basic working jambox in the 50 dollar range. i wouldn't jump into an 800 collector model for the first one. look at a lasonic brand monster on ebay. those things cost a fortune. badass, but expensive. {no no no no NOT the ipod one.}

here's what typically will be wrong with older jamboxes:
a. belt issues. when powered up, if you hit play and the little wheels won't spin, yet you can hear the little motor going, usually that means there is a loose or broken belt. this represents the majority of cassette player malfunctions. it's not a very difficult repair, however sometimes getting the jambox apart is really hard. they were made to sell not fix. if you are fairly handy, learning to do this would be a good idea if you want to get them cheap, fix them and offer them to your friends or whatever. usually when the playback is slow, the belt has stretched. you can download repair manuals and find info on the net to fix. you kinda need a bench and some badass light. and lots of screwdrivers of various sizes and lots and lots of patience. if you learn to do this simple repair, you can buy badass units all day long and fix them really cheap. it's not quite as easy as it sounds as they can be really hard to take apart and put back together again. jamboxes weren't really made to open up.
b. button/knob issues. sometimes you will hear crackles and stuff when you turn the volume up or down or move the selector or whatever. over time, the contacts will oxidize. there are two types of sprays you can buy. one for metal to plastic contacts, and one for metal on metal. if you don't know which switches need which spray, stop. typically the unit will need to be taken apart to really get to the potentiometers good.
c. jack issues. the headphone jack may not work. the proper spray often fixes them right up. sometimes if a unit won't make sound but the mechanism seems to work, you can clean the jack for the headphones, and it may then be able to pass signal to the speakers and start playing. the little audio cut-out device in there that turns the main speakers off when the headphones are plugged in can get dirty. easy fix.
d. head alignment issues. this is a tough one without the proper gear. i would pass on this one.

really your best bet is to get one that already works. remember these things are more than thirty years old. so over time, the rubber and resin bits will dry out and sublimate. but you can still find units that work. that's your best bet. just get one that already works pretty good. clean the battery compartment, perhaps with some fine sandpaper on the contacts, clean the heads, demagnetize them, and treat the rubber. you can research how to do all that stuff. it's really easy and cheap to do and will fix about 40% of the problems roughly speaking.

here's what to test for. make sure it powers up. check the battery compartment. for some reason knuckleheads will leave those batteries in there for years and they will corrode all over the place. {i've even had guys ship me jamboxes with ten of those big dead corroded D cell batteries still in there. probably would have cut the shipping weight in half to remove them.} it's nice if the battery contacts are super clean. pop a tape in that you know works and you know what it sounds like. hit play. it should play full range out of both speaker sides. move the balance knob back and forth. both stereo sides should sound the same. if there are woofers and tweeters make sure they all work. sometimes this can be just a lose wire, if one of the speakers isn't functioning. overall the knobs should move and properly affect the sound without crackling. though, from sitting around, they likely will make noise. some of this will go away with use, or it may have to be cleaned. again if it pops badly, you might want to pass on the unit as it will need to be taken apart. check the FFW and REW and see if it works. the tape should move quickly and smoothly. any issues here are likely belt stuff. make sure the cassette door opens smoothly. they lube the pivot at the factory and that will dry up after a few decades. that is a super easy fix. heck i have a couple jamboxes where i just have to help the door a little bit when changing the tape and it's no big deal. i have a unit that doesn't rewind that great, but i don't care i just keep playing it. part of the deal of cassette over mp3 is that you kind of listen straight through anyway and don't do much rewinding. {have you ever noticed that most folks rarely listen to a whole song on an ipod before they change the song. please stop doing that. about the time i get into the jam, they'll switch the song. arthur "no guitar boogie" smith.}

that's about it. the best deal is if they work already. if there's a little bit of crackling with the knobs, it maybe plays a tiny bit slow, and there's a slight hesitation on the FFW or REW, don't despair. if it's a cool unit you really want and it's cheap go head and get it. i have purchased units like this that continued to work for years.

now about ebay. it's a real crap shoot. i have bought units off there from guys that had a real high rating and they guaranteed the unit to be perfect, and it showed up and would not play. more than once this has happened to me. so be warned about that. if you go back to the seller, they get all sheepish, "well it played when it was here la dee dah". so i assume that if i buy four units off ebay, only one is going to be in great working order. one will need some minor work and two will need lots of work. even if the rating is high and the guy assures you they are all perfect. i speak from experience.

your best bet is to find them in the wild {pawn shops, garage sales, thrift stores…hey while you are there, buy a bunch of tapes}. that way you can test before committing your hard earned dollars and/or time. never let a good one that works get away. ask your friends and family about them. if someone has one, lots of times, they never use it and you can just have them. i repeat, never let one that works get away. if you find one, buy it.

repair places. i have never found a place that will work on units that aren't backlogged for months, and staffed with unfriendly guys that do NOT want to work on those things. they typically will try to talk you out of the repair and/or quote you some really high price to make you go away. if you find a place that's worth a damn, please tell me, i don't care what state it's in.

you will most likely have to find them in working order and/or undertake minor repairs thyself.

great radio show featuring tapes

2011-01-23T17:19:00.000-08:00

c 60 radio

brad does a really cool show. download some of these things. lots of music you've never heard that is well conceived and well rendered....in short, killer. there is a great list of links there as well. bone up on the underground cassette world. good stuff.

i like to order from these guys.

2011-01-23T17:11:00.000-08:00

lost sound tapes

the service is really good. the fellow is really nice. they have all this music i have never heard really cheap, so i can afford to buy things on a whim. i really enjoy buying music like this. it's really cool waiting and then i kind of forget and then one day i go to the mailbox and boom, there's a gift that i bought for myself in there! i really dig those funky covers. one of the badass things about this aesthetic is that the boneheads get weeded out so fast hahaha. cassettes also sound slightly different to me on different machines which adds a whole nother layer of mystique to the proceedings. i highly recommend this company.

my friend jack's tape collection

2011-01-22T17:35:00.000-08:00

how to spot a music fan. look for this type of behavior.

review of seth bernard's warm/cold

2011-01-22T16:33:00.000-08:00

mr. bernard personally handed me this tape last year when i worked a show with him. i really like the design of the tape. it's homemade looking but well done. the overall aesthetic was pretty hep. i like the way it looks. it's pretty punk rock the way the tape is labeled with a piece of tape. side A is called warm inside on a cold day and side B is called cold inside on a warm day. sonically there are some really cool ambient textures on here. the playing, songwriting, and the vision are all great. what's cool, is there are some ambient bits that roll along and the songs kinda pop out of there and then something else comes up that kinda bridges it until the next song happens. the overall effect is really pleasing. it sounds like you have some really good friends in the next room playing this really cool kinda chill music for themselves, and you are overhearing it. the use of space on here is very hep. sometimes i kinda felt like the levels might be a little low and that nailing them on there would give another layer of compression and would also bring the apparent noise floor down a couple db, but the way it is is pretty hep….there's my beloved tape noise. so, however it was made, i'm all for it. music like this where you can still see the brushstrokes as it were, is really appealing. a couple of really great lines from the songs that stuck out are "you don't have to keep it to yourself, but you can." and also "he who dies with the most toys, leaves the biggest mess." the songs, recording, poetry, playing…the whole thing is great. i also like how you can hear other things going on. at one point i think i heard a bird outside. it's very refreshing to hear music like this. what's badass about lo-fi, is that when things sound really clear, that gives a whole other perspective. so there's another layer of interest in there. there are some stunningly beautiful moments on this tape.

dear musicians, stop handing out cds.

2011-01-22T08:03:00.000-08:00

i guess it was in the late '90's or so, when one day, everyone in the biz suddenly had a cd. looking back, i don't guess we were quite up to our collective necks with the things like we are now. and it seemed like a real legit thing to do. to make a cd. make it look all good. and hand them out like candy to anyone that would accept it. wow this person has to be good, they have a cd.

roll the tape forward a few years. now the deal is, whoa. the truth is, no one really wants these things. if you hand them out to people you just met and all that, the recipient doesn't really know what to do with them. the point is not to say that all cds are bad, but the value of the concept of promoting oneself through handing out cds has waned. i'm not really sure that was ever a really great idea to begin with. {my idea is to focus on making the music badass. don't get sidetracked by having the world's greatest 8x10 or worrying about networking and all that, make the music great. that's what the world needs. not another well written bio. i think self-promotion should be called bothering others while making yourself look like an idiot.} it would be a fair guess to venture forth that just about every person in the music line of employ has a giant box of promo cds that folks have given them. what does one do with these things other than trash them? perhaps you listen once, but then what? it's a waste of resources. in the event that there's some groovy music on there, pretty much the thing to do is rip what you like off there, but then you still have this big plastic thing that has no re-purpose.

here's my suggestion. make tapes. because then you are giving someone something that has intrinsic value. tapes can easily be recorded over and re-purposed. even if the music is awful, you have something. {hopefully, they went all out and put it on a position 2 tape. boom. i'll put that dr. alimantado stuff on there.}

i'll come back to this in a moment.

see, here's a problem. many years ago, the weirdos were the only group all into music like crazy. there was all this great stuff, and not much effluvia actually…..well less anyway. records had to be hunted like wolverines. they didn't just appear. currently the problem i see with music is that it's too easy for people that don't really like music to consume it. we'll call them "boneheads." much like middle aged guys that decide they are going to watch baseball, and then follow the yankees or something, because they don't want to be on the losing side, boneheads get all into these big bands and stuff… and it's really easy for them to consume the product. the issue is, boneheads are so thick in the head that mountains of crap must be made for them to notice, for they do absolutely zero research on their own. enter the cd. cheap to make zillions. just like big macs. there's just too many of these things and folks can't figure out what to do with the ones they paid 20 bucks for, why burden them with another one featuring the music of someone they barely know and are likely completely disinterested in…if they were, they would have already gone to the site and streamed the songs for free.

here's the solution. stand out. make something interesting. put your music on cassette. {it's not going to be in your advantage to attract a bunch of boneheads to your shows anyway. money is NOT everything. it's probably best to weed those bastards out right up front. and believe me, if you try to hand one a tape, they will shudder as though you handed them a dirty diaper. it's like an automatic rat deterrent.}

one day last year i was playing at a music festival in one of the northern states. and was talking/hanging with some younger scruffy musician folks after my set and we were talking about music and stuff. the fellow says "hey can i give you a cd?" i said…"well, do you have anything on cassette? i like tapes." and his eyes lit up and come to find out, he had tons of stuff he was doing himself on cassette. now THAT's some badass shit. his name was seth bernard and the tape was killer. he had several. i'm still listening. his tape is going to be my first review for this blog. he made a impact on me. the odds were that he was really into what he was doing. the way it stands now, pretty much the only folks aware of cassettes are folks that are really into music in a big way. boneheads think cassettes or other analog formats are "dead." great. that way i won't have to listen to their bullshit.

see, if somehow cds could be made onto useful objects like a carrot peeler or something, one would at least have something. tapes are intrinsically useful. man those position 2 and 3 tapes are hard to come by. those things are real gifts. very useful for a music fan. fan as in fanatic. think of it as putting one's name on a trinket like they advertise for in the bonehead magazine on the airplane. put your firm's name on a pencil eraser or whatever. tapes are valuable unto themselves.

i think the thing for an independent musician to do is to use soundcloud. they will host your music for free and if you want someone to listen you can just email them and direct them there, or tell them verbally. {actually, kind of like no one needs to give directions on leaving a message on an outgoing voicemail message. we all know to leave a coherent message after the beep. everyone has a site. everyone puts their music on the site. stop giving me these cds. stop wasting your own resources on them.}

that way the person can listen at their leisure. then they aren't stuck with this useless cd, at the end of the process. in my worldview, the best model is to make cassettes with a free download card. or a 45 with the free download. {i think a really good way to do a record would be to record the whole thing as a body of work, stream the whole thing on the site, make cassettes, and a 45 of the two best songs.}

when i go to a real record store and buy some tapes and some vinyl, i can hardly wait to get home and listen. when someone hands me a cd, i feel like i'm being asked to watch home movies of someone i don't know. and i can't think of anything less interesting than your vacation.

the conclusion is my suggestion to stop handing those things out. if someone asks for one directly by all means give them one, but try making tapes. heck just make a tape of the cd.

2011-01-21T20:30:00.000-08:00

these things are like little boxes of gold. this is an old unopened blank. position 4. metal baby. this will make a cd hide behind the couch in fear.

2011-01-21T20:27:00.000-08:00

this is another jam box i got from one of my friends on boomboxery.com. it's smaller and the bass isn't super hep, but it will fit in a suitcase and rock a hotel room. it plays perfectly. it makes pretty cool recordings but doesn't have aux in/out. its amazing how long the batteries last in this at full blast.

2011-01-21T19:58:00.000-08:00

this is my favorite one. it came from a thrift store in arizona for just a few bucks. the sound quality is really good, plenty of bass. it plays just a little slow which is actually pretty cool. it had one cracked transport button, but i fixed that with some epoxy and a clothespin. cleaned the heads and pinch roller and boom. it runs on 8 D batteries. the five band graphic EQ is pretty hep. i could just listen to this thing for the rest of my life. it's so fun.