The joy of cassettes

I’ve been seeing cassettes everywhere recently. They’re my current frequency illusion. Maybe those lightweight plastic encased tapes aren’t the museum pieces we all thought they’d become.

Only this week I’ve seen both a Twitter request from Alison Tyler as to which tracks people would put on a mixtape if they were creating one for her and an article in the Guardian about how cassette sales have risen dramatically in recent months. It appears that they are following in the wake of the vinyl revival. Then this morning I was sorting through a cupboard and found a box of tapes that I’d long forgotten about. Most of them are tapes that I’ve made of radio shows. This was in the days long before digital archives and catch up services, a time when if you wanted to hear a show again taping was your only option. I used to do this every week with the shows that Andy Kershaw  had on BBC radio. Andy was a protege of John Peel and one of the tapes I’ve found is the tribute programme that he did the day John died. Andy used to fill his show with a wonderful mix of ethnic musics from around the world along with punk, soul, country and blues. He hasn’t been on the radio for years now but to this day a large percentage of my record collection is by artists first heard on Andy’s show.

The great thing about creating cassettes was that you were in control. Digital streaming may give you a greater range but so much of it feels as if it’s being picked for you, I always have my doubts about those ‘if you liked that you might like this’ messages. With cassettes it’s up to you what goes in the  mix.  The music may not always segue perfectly together but it does always mean something to you. I remember a time when holiday planning always included creating a tape for the journey. One hand on the arm of the record deck, the other hovering over the tape machine stop & start buttons. Trying to get that perfect link.

Another of this mornings finds was a Ted Hawkins concert bootleg. We used to have a stall on Norwich market that had tapes of virtually every gig that took place in the city. They were always in garishly coloured cases and were available within days of a show happening. I’m sure they were illegal but that didn’t stop me buying, particularly if it was a gig I’d been at. I do have to admit though that the sound was usually rubbish, the conversations of people standing next to the guy taping much clearer then any of the music. 

Championing cassettes may seem a bit luddite but in these homogenised digital times it’s good that they’re still there.

My suggested mixtape tracks for Alison were 

• May You Never.. John Martyn
• So What.. Miles Davis
• Dirty Little Religion..Warren Zevon
• Road To Nowhere..Talking Heads
• Massive Nights..The Hold Steady
• Levi Stubbs Tears..Billy Bragg
• Born Slippy..Underworld
• Little Fluffy Cloud..The Orb
• P-Funk..Parliament
• Country Honk..Rolling Stones

The cassette table shown in the photo is in the garden of The Playhouse Theatre bar in Norwich