simmo wrote:I suspect that this is simply because amongst those making this kind of music, there are a lot of people predisposed to taking great pleasure from being as awkward as possible.

What is this bullshit all about? What's awkward for you might be more convenient or financially feasable for others.

this is also curiously my answer to "how to prosper in the coming hard times."

not really interested in the way this dude is slavishly trying to reproduce a vinyl dj routine, but working with tape is the shit.

it's a great medium to sample & collage from. lot easier than pressing & scratching yer own vinyl.

the following was all made by yers truly scratching tapes:

shameless self-promotion

i may very well be awkward, but i am most certainly having fun.

I'm actually recording on boom box right now. It's the only thing I really have access to at the moment, plus it's just quickest way to make an idea somewhat tangible.

I haven't copied any of my cassette recordings yet, but I might and just pass them out to whoever might have some interest.

As far as hipster appeal is concerned...I still kinda doubt it, but I do like the idea of other people doing it.

jimmy spako wrote:
the following was all made by yers truly scratching tapes:

shameless self-promotion

i may very well be awkward, but i am most certainly having fun.

I like your aesthetic very much. If you ever want to collaborate long distance, I'm your man.

I rather like cassettes, especially for weird self-released nonsense. There's always something unsatisfying about putting out CD-Rs (even though I do).

I don't miss cassettes one bit, I don't see anything positive about cassettes. They are big and bulky and sound like crap, unreliable and do not last long. As much fun as I had making music on my cassette 4 track back in the day or making mix tapes for people I enjoy my digital 8 track and making mix CDR's much better all around. It's the same exact thing but 300 times easier and faster.
Feeling nostalgic about cassettes is like pining for a time before you were sexually active.
I do not miss being a virgin and I do not miss cassettes.
F cassette tapes, you have given me enough grief in my lifetime. I will not let you back in.

The scratching with the cassettes is kind of fun though, I saw Martin Atkins and Genesis P'orridge go nuts scratching on some cassettes like that at a pigface show years ago. Was cool through a bunch of echo and whatnot.

This so-called "tape scratching" was actually around before turntable scratching.

Laurie Anderson was using it in her live performances as early as 1977.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_v ... bow_violin

nam june, baby...


but that's like saying john cage was the first DJ just because he happened to use record players first.

The phillips cassette is an amazing piece of technology. you would think true analogue audiophiles would be all into reel to reel.

it is the least compromising of all the analogue audio formats. It blows LPs out of the water.

Not crap, just for the sheer inventiveness of it.


Btw 'Sup, you're much better off recording to cassette on a four-track than you are recording to a digital eight-track--- To my knowledge, I have NEVER heard a single good recording that was made on one those crappy digital eight-track gadgets. By contrast, I've heard plenty of neat music that was made, say, on a Tascam Portastudio.

EDIT: Maybe one of you engineers could back me up on this?

Ekkssvvppllott wrote:Not crap, just for the sheer inventiveness of it.


Btw 'Sup, you're much better off recording to cassette on a four-track than you are recording to a digital eight-track--- To my knowledge, I have NEVER heard a single good recording that was made on one those crappy digital eight-track gadgets. By contrast, I've heard plenty of neat music that was made, say, on a Tascam Portastudio.

EDIT: Maybe one of you engineers could back me up on this?

Ok, a test.
See my link, the gigantis lobe myspace page?
There's 6 songs on there, 3 were recorded on a tascam cassette 4 track and 3 on a digital tascam 8 track. If you can tell which is which I will agree with you. Same mics and instruments were used for the most part on all the tracks.

Dr. O' Nothing wrote:

simmo wrote:I suspect that this is simply because amongst those making this kind of music, there are a lot of people predisposed to taking great pleasure from being as awkward as possible.

What is this bullshit all about? What's awkward for you might be more convenient or financially feasable for others.

It was just a flippant joke, although I do think that in some cases there may be some truth in it. I'm sure people do release things on cassette because it's all they've got the means to, and more power to them. I actually like the medium and steal my girlfriend's cassette walkman on a regular basis. Is it really cheaper than cd-rs though? Obviously a computer costs a lot more than a tape deck but I'm guessing most people have computers these days?


I do acutally enjoy a lot of avant garde/improvised music and have been involved in avant garde projects. In all seriousness though, I have encountered some weird attitudes amongst people involved in esoteric music, and do sincerely suspect that there's a small quota of art student types who like the idea of cassette releases because they see it as esoteric in itself. If you were choosing to release on cassette not because it's all you have the means to but because it's more "underground", that would be pretty damn stupid. I do think some people do that - dunno, maybe I'm wrong.