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.
