I don't care how cheap they are. I don't care about the art of sequencing a mixtape. I don't care if they're making a resurgence. The fact of the matter is that cassette tapes are hissy, and make MP3s sound like an exercise in sonic fidelity.
Yet, somehow, it seems that folks think they're worth bringing back. The BBC has a story about labels like the Tapeworm and Tape Fiend.
Experimental punks Fucked Up have released tape-only records, as has one-man garage oddity Nobunny, but it seems like the stuff released on cassette is off-the-cuff material for fans only. It's not like any bands have released their best material exclusively on cassette. As the BBC article states, musicians are using the cassette tape as "a ready-made frame for sound art" as opposed to a viable medium for release.
However, this isn't exclusive to Canadians, the British, and men in bunny masks -- it's a local thing, too. Love Garden offers tape duplication services, and local acts like Coat Party and Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk have released tape-only albums.
It's so precious, it makes me ill. If you want to be bleeding edge, and cooler than cool, make like Baiowolf did with Hella Gnar Gnar and put your next album out on VHS.
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You know that some places still make 8-track, and they have recently started remaking Edison phonograph cylinders. Honestly, I'm not joking!
Wow. The standards at the Pitch are high. Glad there's room for groundbreaking articles about mp3's sounding better than tapes. Do you get paid for painfully underwhelming declarations, or is it your propensity to rag on small acts having fun that got you this job?
1. Tapes don't sound like crap.
2. They're fun.
3. They're cheap.
Need some tapes dubbed, I'm yr man!
"Liking something because it sucks is simply ridiculous."
then why does your column consist of sucky stuff almost exclusively? (barring local acts, of course)
rooftop vigilantes "who stole my zoo? e.p." comes out on tape in march. btw. TAPE HISs IS AWESOME!!!! FOR EXAMPLE GUIDED BY VOICES!!!! that is unless you prefer do the collapse to bee thousand. i thought punk rockers loved tapes? i've never heard of a magical romance starting with. hey i made you a mix. you should download it! theres nothing wrong with digital, theres nothing wrong with tape. ska blows. and thats why you can by a real big fish tape at a thrift store for 50 cents. i say choose your battles, and leave great local bands out of it. couldn't you just review a record or show on this thing?
DEAR DEAR NICK SPACEK,
All Outsider music has sprung from the black earth of tape, HIP HOP and METAL in particular with the Mix Tape and Back-of-Zine Tape Trades, respectively. Sad to see you are in a place of authority as a programmer for a once great station and a blogger for a weaker and weaker PitchWeakly; take a hint from your Great Aunt Sissy and SUPPORT underground culture, she provided completion cost for Eraserhead, the film that long ago layed your college level aesthetics bare. I will still play my grey DJ Screw tapes and hand colored Hot Garden Stomp cassette, and the world outside of you will keep rising, even if it crumbles and warbles as it does.+
Don't make him too mad, or he might just show up at a show with big ol' magnets.
Just cuz you don't like tapes doesn't mean that saying who makes them is an insult.
Tapes are fun. Records are fun. Media diversity is fun. Maybe Nick hates fun. Maybe he's a clarity freak. Maybe he has garbly hearing and needs all the help he can get.
Nick does like ska, so maybe the anti-ska snobs can tell him how it's dead and was never good in the first place, then he can go on the offended defensive, then the tables will be turned, everyone will feel right and wronged, and then the whole metro area can roll its eyes at each other at once and maybe we'll just tip over into the river.
I have a four-track cassette recorder, and to me, it sounds better than recordings done with the digital setup I have, which is technically capable of much higher fidelity.
I like tapes because of the way they sound, not because lo-fi is fashionable right now. It's been popular in circles for a long time anyway, the one difference between then and now is the internet.
Also, you might not want to write sneering blog posts that namedrop local bands. Just a thought. It's a little rude.
@nick
the toothpaste you use tastes bad
i think maybe you shouldn't use elmer's glue
I am merely stating that the cassette tape is a dinosaur format that has neither the sonic fidelity and durability of vinyl, nor the ease and affordability of CD-Rs.
@Nick I think you're denying the explicit artistic decision to release on tape. It's short-sighted to focus so much on sonic fidelity and miss the overall artistic expression. While 'the medium is the message,' to write off releases on cassette because they "sound like crap" is foolish at best.
@Grant Maybe Coat Party was overextending the metaphor, but Fucked Up spending $50,000 to remake a Christmas nugget with a modern-day all-star cast is performance art. Playing a 12-hour marathon show is performance art. Playing 'til you bleed is performance art.
@Nate I'm not proscribing how art is made, not am I implying or suggesting that you should release albums in a certain format. I am merely stating that the cassette tape is a dinosaur format that has neither the sonic fidelity and durability of vinyl, nor the ease and affordability of CD-Rs. All of the bands you named as your examples had no other options available to them, and doing it simply because they did is slavish devotion.
@jjskck By saying cassette releases are "so precious, it makes me ill", Nick is proscribing how art should be made and how music should be released. This as snobbery and promoting it in a blog like this diminishes genuine appreciation of contemporary art and music.
I believe you're being needlessly sensational and almost taking pride in ignorance by hating on a format like this.
Um, I think he's just saying they sound like crap when compared to today's better (and yes, cheaper) audio options. That, plus he doesn't have to climb into an attic to (maybe) find a piece of equipment to play them on.
I don't keep up with myspace/pitchfork/etc enough to speak to what's fashionable right now, but it strikes me that you're neglecting the importance of medium in process.
Would you prefer that artists start out with DAWs, CD-Rs and MP3s instead of four-tracks and cassettes?
(I'm thinking of Bruce Springsteen, Daniel Johnston, Odd Nosdam, U2, John Vanderslice, Jandek and John Darnielle when I ask this.)
I believe you're being needlessly sensational and almost taking pride in ignorance by hating on a format like this.
Nick,
What constitutes 'perfect sound'? If it's anything above and beyond the basic decision or taste of the listener, I'm not really sure that I understand its definition.
Gabe
The bands that seem to be doing this are acts with a certain shared sense of art. The people buying said cassettes are similar folk. I was using Baby Birds and Coat Party to draw parallels between the local scene and national acts. Nobunny, Fucked Up, Baby Birds, Coat Party -- all acts that have an element of performance art to their music. They're taking the art to the next level with their music.
However, it's a medium that is appreciated for the reason it fell out of favor: namely, the fact that it sounds less than perfect. It's an stance with which I cannot abide. Liking something because it sucks is simply ridiculous.
Nick,
I've released three cassettes by BBDDM, and all were very quickly out of print. There's a market, and a group of people who appreciate cassette tapes and their sonic quirks.
I wasn't arguing against your stated opinion, either. The BBC article, done wayy late in the game, anyway, is mostly about the European tape scene. Why bring local bands and local record stores into a blog post that lacks any objectivity and is far from constructive? It seems like an attack, rather than a review of a medium with which you don't agree.
Gabe
It's aesthetics at this point: all of the interaction required of playing a record (the actual mechanical process therein), but cheaper and easier for bands to produce. I understand that.
The argument everyone seems to be making for tapes is that they're cheap. CD-Rs are even cheaper. You want to release something with lousy fidelity for free? Use mp3s. No physical medium required at all.
@Nick
So it's not the sound quality, it's the fact that you don't have access to a tape deck?
Regardless, I find it fairly despicable for you to be using hard-working local bands and businesses as canon fodder for your argument. Support the scene. I live in Los Angeles now a place Bradford Cox, playing as Atlas Sound, described where "nothing is sacred." And while this is arguably true, their is enough decency for LA media to support their scene and not damn them for releasing cassette tapes.
Amusing fact: there's one of Gabe's comps in that box of tapes. It's the red one with text.
I appreciate the fact that tapes are cheap, but the sad fact of the matter is that it's easier and cheaper for me to get a CD player that works than it is to get a decent tape deck. Every tape deck we've gotten at my day job (trusted name brands all) has died, and at a cost twice that of the CD player. Explain to me how a device with a laser manages to keep going for years, but the tape deck dies within a month.
I, for one, don't even own a cd burner. My record player, mixer, and tape deck were all free. I couldn't afford a computer with a cd drive at all. Going to school and being in a punk band doesn't offer the luxury of mixing fancy studio albums and mass producing shrink wrapped silver discs. You'll be the first to get a Weird Wounds tape, since we can afford to mass produce them on the cheap and trade/give them away for nothing. Then, you can tell me how bad it sounds.
Nick, what's the point? Cassette tapes are a viable medium for small run labels without ready access to money. Tapes can be purchased by the hundreds for an extremely low price, dubbed quickly and can be distributed easily/cheaply to those who are actively interested in tape/CDr culture.
You're entitled to your opinion, but why drop the names of hard working, self-reliant LOCAL bands into your rant? Why come down on Love Garden, of all places? Way to support the scene.
Gabe
what's with the tape hate? here is the shortlist in favor of our coiled friends:
1. THEY ARE CHEAP FOR BANDS TOO. if a band wants to release something and isn't cooler than cool by a sufficient margin to warrant receiving tons of label money, a tape is a great way to do it. you can easily duplicate and package a bunch of tapes on a limited budget.
2. FREE MASTERING. this kind of falls under the cheap category, but just the act of putting something onto a tape singes the digital edges a bit and makes it sound better, although this is a matter of opinion.
3. COOL SHAPES. i just like the way tapes are shaped vs. cds. they are more fun to draw on.
4. THEY REMAIN MATERIAL. its difficult to get music off of a tape and onto your itunes, and while this might strike some as an inconvenience, i don't think convenience is necessarily a universal good. there are some songs i don't ever want on my computer cos then i would listen to them too much. some people still like to have the songs and the artwork inextricably connected and certain nerds even enjoy flipping a tape or a record mid-listen.
I loved/loathed the hiss, combined with the fact that crappy cassette decks (i.e. the ones I owned) always played the beginning of the cassette faster than it should have due to the lack of tension on the tape. I remember the guy at the beginning of Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions sounded like a friggin' chipmunk when he asked if London was "ready for the DefJam tour".
I completely agree, Nick. Although, I have a soft spot just because my car had a tape deck for the first couple of years and dubbed a lot of mix CDs to tape and like, every NOFX album to tape as well. But still, when I got a CD player the tapes went to hell.
I'm a big fan of recording on cassettes, live stuff, practices, etc..
In the immortal words of Bow Wow Wow:
"C30, C60, C90...GO!"
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