Cassette Jam 2K5: Cat Stevens + Toots & the Maytals


I owe the inspiration for this post to Noz at Cocaine Blunts & Hip Hop Tapes, and Phillip at the MAKE: Blog. Noz said it the best, grammar or no:
In the mp3 blog press frenzy a lot of writers compared the phenomenon to making a mixtape and that's just not the case. As much as i love what technology has done for the dispersion of music...it will never come close to the hand to hand distribution of a really good pause/mixtape. it pains me to think that the youth of this and future generations will never know what it felt like to have to tape new songs off the radio if the album hadn't drop and you either couldn't find or afford the cassingle. They'll never fret over getting everything perfect on a mixtape for or about a girl you had a crush on, they won't know third generation hiss or cross their fingers in hopes that the drop outs won't be that bad after rerecording over a tape for the sixth time. They'll never shove tissue in the top of a wack retail tape to record some good shit, or have a song cut off at the end of the side and have to rush to flip over the tape to get the rest of it. ipod playlists are heartless beasts in comparision.

You're damn right they are. I've had my free iPod mini for two months now, and have yet to prance oblivious down the street with it. This is downtown Fredericksburg, for Lee's sake. I would feel ashamed, ruining some nice White family's Civil War re-enactment with my little white earplugs and my groovy black silhouette. Truth be told, the ryPod is currently plugged into my stereo via Matt's tape adapter, and I have no idea where the little white earplugs are.

The cd deck in that same shitty combo has been broken all year, so we've been leaning hard on our tapes & vinyl. Imagine my delight when Phillip linked this crazy collection of nearly every cassette tape ever made. Thank you, anonymous Japanese archivist, for the trip down Memorex Lane. Here are a few favorites to wash this morning's soundtrack flashback down with.

Alisha made me a mix in high school, covering one of these with rainbows & butterflies & stars. My first thought was "Fuji DR-I? What a classless bitch." I've been considered an asshole for about as long as I can remember - that's just my style. But I'd feel really blue if I didn't think you were going to forgive me.

Uh-huh, this my shit. Now if Alisha had given me her "specially picked good songs mix" on an XLII, we'd probably be conceiving little brown babies while listening to her tape, which would have retained a very high fidelity over the last decade, matched only by that of our fruitful hippie love marriage.

This beast is from the Seventies. Deven's mom gave me a sweet Deadleg on one of these. Mrs. Karvelas was on tour cooking for the band, and sat on the edge of the stage while Jerry sang "It Must Have Been The Roses" to her. That show was later released as Reckoning. I can't believe I'm listening to the Dead again.

Man all I know is that I have this tape somewhere. I don't remember what's on it, or where I got it. But just look at that shit, would you? It's like a little Trapper-Keeper for all your Human League B-sides.







So I dug around a while and found Alisha's tape. Here's a few choice cuts. See 'lish, at least I kept it this long. There's hope for us yet. "Trouble" is one of my favorite Cat Stevens songs. "Pressure Drop," I'm ashamed to say, is the only Toots song I've ever heard, unless you count "54-46," which I don't. Bad hippie.




Cat Stevens - Trouble
Toots & the Maytals - Pressure Drop

right-click, save target as | buy Cat and Toots from Amazon

This entry was posted on 10.19.2005 at 5:35 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.

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12:21 PM

trapper keeper. lol. those things always got all tore up and fell apart    



12:26 PM

i know i think they were shitty on purpose, a marketing tactic to make you buy more. i always want more anyway.

p.s. your blog is FILTHY, dude.

-ry    



10:24 PM

oh em gee. the XLII.
drawers - DRAWERS - of dressers in my house are/were filled with these, the little tabs broken off to prevent rerecording. full of my favorite dead shows. damn straight. i'm glad i'm still friends with someone who actually appreciates the importance of this specific tape type.    



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