I’ve never had a broken cassette (the fuck were you guys doing to your tapes?)
It’s not about tape abuse.
It’s a fragile format with a bunch of precarious moving parts and 100 yards of super thin delicate tape spooled onto cheap tiny plastic reels. This is then put into a player with motorized spinny gears and tiny tape reading magnets and other crap. It’s a friggin’ Jenga stack of a million things that can and will go wrong (one of the heads spins too slow or fast, the tape gets twisted, a piece of dust lands on something, a spring gets loose, a mouse farts on another planet). It’s just a waiting game before disaster strikes.
You used tapes occasionally as a backup format or to once in a while listen to something you duped. So, what? You’re recording or playing a cassette maybe 10 times a year? This was daily life for many of us. Pop in a tape. Listen to it on the road. Eject it, listen to another . . . . do this literally 50 times a day, 365 days a year . . . eventually everything dies.
but I can imagine the clear tape getting hot or starting to peel and fucking up an already fussy tape deck.
There were no magic fixes, and yes, the “repaired” cassette was just another accident waiting to happen. Putting a tiny piece of tape (or anything) on the tape material only greatly increased the likelihood that the thing would get tangled up on itself and then weave a rasta nest of doom inside your tape player and you only hoped that you were able to pull all those stringy black pubes out of the player and salvage the machine as a whole (not likely).
[reply]
I’ve never had a broken cassette (the fuck were you guys doing to your tapes?)
It’s not about tape abuse.
It’s a fragile format with a bunch of precarious moving parts and 100 yards of super thin delicate tape spooled onto cheap tiny plastic reels. This is then put into a player with motorized spinny gears and tiny tape reading magnets and other crap. It’s a friggin’ Jenga stack of a million things that can and will go wrong (one of the heads spins too slow or fast, the tape gets twisted, a piece of dust lands on something, a spring gets loose, a mouse farts on another planet). It’s just a waiting game before disaster strikes.
You used tapes occasionally as a backup format or to once in a while listen to something you duped. So, what? You’re recording or playing a cassette maybe 10 times a year? This was daily life for many of us. Pop in a tape. Listen to it on the road. Eject it, listen to another . . . . do this literally 50 times a day, 365 days a year . . . eventually everything dies.[/reply]
Was mostly in jest when I asked what the fuck you people were doing with your tapes. I know they’re incredibly fragile and that playing them constantly would increase the probability of them breaking. Pretty obvious. Luckily, I never had to deal with them to the extent of some people. And even for the short amount of time that I have dealt with them they were nothing but a pain in the ass.
I definitely played them more than 10 times a year when I was younger though. As far as actually buying a tape by an artist - I think I had maybe 3. Right down to the tiny album art and liner notes I hated them. The only thing I think was positive about them is if you made a mixtape for someone they were more likely to listen to it all or at least most of the songs since it was such a pain in the ass to fast forward sometimes, and if you did you risked going too far and ending up in the middle of the next song.
Right down to the tiny album art and liner notes I hated them.
Amen to that.
What was on the record sleeve a really beautifully composed 12" square piece of fine art, was now an awkwardly positioned 2" square on a folded up piece of cheap paper stock.
The suitcases were pretty lame. I preferred the cheap plastic trays with the slots because you could easily put them in with or without the cases. All this was easier for me, though, as I just had a pickup truck with one large vinyl bench seat so I could have tons of crap next to me.
The best tapes I heard were on a blank. Although I did love my cassettes of Exodus’ Bonded By Blood and Sabbath’s Sabotage.[/reply]
Some prerecorded ones were fine but in general (depending on the record label too) they were cheap rubbish.
Tape singles usually sounded good. Good quality blank tapes if looked after well can be great - I used to listen to the same tapes all the time, for years and some of them still sound superior to (some) mp3s.
A pal of mine years ago bought tmiatttt on tape in Romania while on holiday there. The front cover was a HR Giger designed Debbie Harry portrait that was a solo album cover of hers, except it said MINISTRY on it. It was a slightly faster speed, I think the guitars were a fret and a half higher than they should have sounded.
I remember visiting Amoeba in LA last year and I was rather surprised to see they had a shitload of tapes on the go!
Certain folk still release tapes…obviously they are few and far between.
Dub Reggae has a rep for sounding better to “heads” on tape rather than vinyl/cd.
German 8 bit Dub man Bo Marley released an album about 3yrs back ONLY on tape…
Bo Marley Masters Of The Universe : Cassette
CAT NUMBER: JTREP07 RELEASE DATE: 26 Apr '10 ABOUT THIS ITEM
“After their undying classic album from 2007, Bo Marley are finally back with a vengeance - and a massive ghettoblaster! Always ready to rock your backyard, street corner or…er…local super market (as done in a legendary surprise attack last year in Leipzig), the Harlev homeboys once again power up their Chariot Of Fire and drop a floor-devastating tape reel here that effortlessly rolls up electrifying beats, short-wired robo-magic and a voltage drenched low-rider bass into one big and long masterpiece. The patented Bo space-lyrics in German/Danish warp mode are again dealing with the big timeless themes of our age: rocking it on stage (“Wir Setzt Den Trend”), rolling along with the Bo Mobile (“Rollen Vorbei”), the joys of driving a scooter (“Mofa Fahren”) and Robot Cars (‘with volt power - yeah!’). Kaptain Dreck joins the posse for one tune here, with a fistful of rhymes that would even impress He-Man himself. With Fe-tape for Xtra Bass! Be quick - ultra-limited edition. Skeletor need not apply.”
A Cassette Tape featuring Masters of the Universe. Way to stay current, Bo. I’m gonna rock this one on my Sanyo boombox whilst sitting on the porch drinking Bartels and James and wondering if Reagan’s Star Wars program will be able to keep us safe from an imminent Soviet Invasion.
Oh fuck,Bartles and James…I was just having a covnvo the other day about that stuff with some other old fart…we used to buy that shit cuz the chicks liked it and also because you could buy it if you were underage cuz the clerks at the 7-11 could never figure out what the fuck it was hahaha…that shit was wack…those 2 old coots on the front porch…man ,that marketing campaign was ubiquitous…
My dad and uncle once went on a Zima run. I didn’t really think about it til I got older. Why they were on the mood for a girlie drink I’ll never know.
When Zima came out it was exciting. It was something new and different. It quickly became a running punchline, but back in ‘92/93’ everyone tried it at least once.
Most of us from that era have one good Zima story. So here’s mine . . . .
I was living up in the desert at the time and my buddy Joe’s parents were gone for the weekend, so me and another friend were there to spend the night and get silly. We scored a bunch of ZIMA and, while eating Pillsbury cinnamon rolls and watching “Thrashin” and “Headbangers’ Ball” we got kind of radical.
I don’t even remember how it started, but, next thing we knew we’d all taken off our shirts and were drawing on each other with his sister’s lipstick (she was about 16). We drew all kinds of pentagrams and crosses and such and wrote “Devil’s Child” and crap on each other (I think we thought it was a Samhain tribute or something).
Then we proceeded to run through the streets of their private community like maniacal idiots, finally jumping the fence of the community pool and jumping in with our jeans still on. I think the water probably snapped a little bit of reality back to us and we headed back to the house dripping wet with our soggy jeans and quasi-Satanic makeup running down our pale ass torsos.
When we got back, Joe’s sister was locked in her room, terrified of the ruckus we were creating and thinking we were all possessed by the Devil or something (can’t really argue with her reasoning). It took Joe about an hour to calm his sis down and convince her not to call their parents and/or the police.
Oh fuck,Bartles and James…I was just having a covnvo the other day about that stuff with some other old fart…we used to buy that shit cuz the chicks liked it and also because you could buy it if you were underage cuz the clerks at the 7-11 could never figure out what the fuck it was hahaha…that shit was wack…those 2 old coots on the front porch…man ,that marketing campaign was ubiquitous…
