50 years of the cassette

[eine]

Happy 50th birthday to the audio cassette! According to this Dutch article (and my amazing translation skillz), it was premiered on August 30th, 1963 in Berlin.

It was the first audio format I owned myself, and oddly my first cassette is now a raer - the Michael Jackson Bad Cassette Gift Pack, given to me by Santa along with a Phillips Roller tape deck. I've still got the Special Notepad, which has a sillouhette of MJ on every page. I'm saving it for when I have to write some special notes. It's that good.

My last cassette was delivered only yesterday, and I was involved in making it: a seance of a 1979 Throbbing Gristle gig. (Without further self promotion, more of that at a later date)

What was your first and last cassette tape?

[Paul-K]

how long did they take to notice that a biro saved batteries?

[pitch]

First cassette tape was the first Now compilation - I think.... either that or the Thompson Twins first album. Happy days!

Last cassette was a secondhand one bought earlier this year (have a cassette player in the car) and I think it was a Donna Summer compilation.

I shall be purchasing a cassette at next weekend's Cassette Store Day (or whatever they are calling it) - it will be the soundtrack to (the original) Last House On The Left, which is being released on cassette (and vinyl) next month.

[eclectiktronik]

Anyone in Berlin tonight? check out this cassette based celebration!

[Daddy Ya Ya]

I've posted it before....but...

When I was at college in the early 80s I built a big wooden cassette as part of an art project ..



I now use it as a cassette storage device ....



I recently bought an early 70s cassette storage box..



Which I should've used in my car on a boiling hot summers day ! ...



....and don't get me started on 8 Tracks !

[eclectiktronik]

Remember that gem of a box well, sir!
Incidentally, those tapes will probably play just fine if you put the spools inside some generic shells - just unscrew a few old TDKs or whatever and replace the reels with those from the deformed originals. Then you can keep the original inlays etc.

[Headless mermaid]

[eine]

Anyone in Berlin tonight? check out this cassette based celebration!

When I was at college in the early 80s I built a big wooden cassette as part of an art project ..

I am sure you could exhibit that in a trendy tape show. Berlin would love it! I would also lend my Michael Jackson pad.

Will try to find my old mixtapes and list some of the titles I gave them.

[Daddy Ya Ya]

Remember that gem of a box well, sir!
Incidentally, those tapes will probably play just fine if you put the spools inside some generic shells - just unscrew a few old TDKs or whatever and replace the reels with those from the deformed originals. Then you can keep the original inlays etc.

Thanks, That's a great idea ! I have kept them in the hope of a solution like that.

I am sure you could exhibit that in a trendy tape show. Berlin would love it! I would also lend my Michael Jackson pad.

Will try to find my old mixtapes and list some of the titles I gave them.

Ha ! Thanks !

[RedX]

My own wobbly pile of tapes



I didn't really buy them in the early days, preferring records. The first was Yello's "Stella" (top left) and Manu Dibango's "Electric Africa" (top middle), bought just before catching a train to go on holiday in the Scilly Isles in summer '85, about eight years after buying my first record. My last was probably Leslie Winer's Tapeworm release "& That Dead Horse" a year or so ago (pictured under the Yello one), or maybe the Metamono one. And top right is Singers & Players' "Revenge Of The Underdog", which had been my longest time 'want', found last year after about thirty years of looking. The rest of my motley bunch are mostly connected to my favourite record label plus a few NME ones and some odds and sods thrown in for good measure

[babycart]

I used loads of blank cassettes but was too interested in vinyl to explore much else
First one I remember buying and getting excited about was ACR´s Graveyard and Ballroom on Factory. Wish I still had it.

I also used to get the Touch cassettes of industrial/tribal music. The gamelan travelogue, Islands In Between, is still probably my favourite ever cassette along with special mix tapes from friends.

[Plainstone]

how long did they take to notice that a biro saved batteries?

Used to love having tapes and still have a few boxes stored at work for use in the car. Otomo Yoshihide did an art installation a couple of years ago using cassettes he asked people to send in and I was tempted to part with a few but left it too late.

Kept many mixes from friends as they really chart a steep musical learning curve for me in the early days, but not so many actual albums. First store bought cassette tape was probably a dodgy Italian Black Sabbath comp, or a Man album from the local electrical retailer.

My last was probably Leslie Winer's Tapeworm release "& That Dead Horse" a year or so ago

ditto!

[babycart]

If I had the time and the money I´d go globetrotting for cassettes - there must be huge amounts of music all over the world that only exists in that form and has never been tapped. Even in Spain, marginal genres like gypsy rumba seem to have lots of cassette only releases.

Apart from the venerable Awesome Tapes from Africa blog, there seems to be virtually nothing online tackling over thirty years of cassettes in Africa and the Middle East, and it´s still a major format there.

I also remember Asian stores in the UK in the 80s that were rammed with Bollywood, bhangra, qawwali and loads of other stuff.

Cassettes are tough and durable, too, so no Blo-type condition problems with your ethnic c60 raers.

[SirSlim]

I loved cassettes (and still do).

Got my first portable radio/cassette recorder in 1973. Something sort of similar to this Pye model:



First shop bought tape was the caseete version of this Lp:



Here's a collage of cassette inlay cards from my collection that I may have posted up before - but here it is again.

[nboldock]

I'm in the rather strange position of now having to buy tapes again.

I've just got a cheap car off a relative and it's only got a cassette player in it. All the cassettes I did have, I skipped a few years back :-(

All I had left was a dodgy foreign bootleg of "Lodger" which I bought about a year ago because it was 5p and I felt I ought to. Now I can't find the bloody thing.

So, having now trawled the nearest two charity shops I have a huge selection of cassettes I can listen to in the car. I can choose from Joan Baez, Thin Lizzy and REM. That's it! Now as much as I like those... I really need to get some more before I start hearing Joan Baez in my sleep. Seriously, you have no idea how many times I have heard the same songs, over and over, already...

(Yes, I do realise I can get one of those MP3 player adaptor things, but where's the fun in that?)

Cassette hunting is the new crate digging. For now.