Herein are the words of the experts, active in the world of audio arts combining cassettes and the post office to create something new and invisible, perhaps a new "gold". This material was gleaned from the correspondence in general as well as the interview itself. During the past five years (1985-1990) that this interview was active some of the questions have been adjusted, for example the term "networking" has always been hard to define, and the last question has changed in wording, but the idea has been to collect outstanding favorites, see if there any interesting things to demonstrate that way. Well, the results are not very exciting, so the last question has been ignored, and the variation between "networking" and "distribution" has been added, as well as the eleventh question about tips, which emerged all by itself.
There are eleven questions and 46 participants, most of the material was gathered in 1985, and some ideas have been borrowed from other essays. They seemed to fit pretty well at the time.
These are the contributors:
Connie Bunyer, tENTATIVELY, A cONVENIENCE, Rich Jensen, Mike Vargas, John Wiggins, Jason Renaud, daS, Kerry Norman, Ron Slabe, Steve Jones, Chris Hardiman, Geoff Kirk, Bart Plantenga, Laura Christopher, Frank Kogan, Carola Von Hoffmannstahl, Sue Ann Harkey, M. Schafer, Craig O'Donnell, Thomas Wacker, Matt Mawson, TS Vickers, Bret Kirby, Evan Cantor, Will: The Unnatural Logarithm, Naofumi Ishimaru, Charleey Holbeck, Bo Stefan Lundquist, Qubais Reed Gazala, Thomas Beuthe, Duane Isaacson, Lord Litter, Running Deer, Roger, Dino DiMuro, Tom Dyer, anonymous, DDS Greg, Rod Summers, John Hudak, Tommy Franklin, Stuart Hallerman, James Hill, Marshall Stax, Sandy Nys, Joel Haertling
Here are links to sounds by some of these contributors that are taken from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7 from ?What Next? Records/Nonsequitur
Heather Perkins
tENTATIVELY, A cONVENIENCE
John Wiggins
Carola Von Hoffmannstahl recording with Solomonov and Von Hoffmannstahl
Sue Ann Harkey recording with the Kitchen Table Ensemble
Naofumi Ishimaru recording as Yximalloo
Qubais Reed Gazala
1) What is your earliest memory of using cassettes? What do you do with them now? How did you get started?
2) What are some of the best ideas that you have heard for using cassettes? Don't limit yourself to music, or even commercially available material.
3) What are, if any, the worst ideas that you have heard for using cassettes?
4) Do you have any comments about legalities regarding home taping (copyrights, taping records, distributing cassettes, taping other people's tapes)?
5) How do you get your cassttes around? Do you trade? Do you have distributors? Do you send them to magazines or people that you like?
6) What does the term "networking" mean, in the context of our subject matter (audio cassette art exchanges)?
7) Who has produced outstanding cassette creations and utilizations? What did they do?
8) Do you have any observations about the uses of cassettes in different parts of the world: Africa, Japan, South America, Europe, Australia, etc, (marketing techniques, amateur/home activity, etc)?
9) Do you have any comments about the technology surrounding cassettes?
10) How can people make money with cassettes (for example, some bands sell their tapes at shows, etc) Do you? How much do you charge? Does it work?
11) Do you have any other comments that you would like to make regarding the general topics we have discussed? What have we missed? Do you have any tips to share?
We fully expected to continue this project, using the audio cassettes that answer the questions. But so much time has gone by now, and the tapes do sound pretty cruddy. In any case, here are the written responses to the circulated interview.
1) What is your earliest memory of using cassettes? What do you do with them now? How did you get started?
Earliest memories of cassettes were dictating machine type things which we used to take into stores, hidden, and ask the sales people all kinds of dumb questions. Also used to hide it and go into music stores and while one guy read the lyrics from song books I would call out the chord changes..we got caught doing that though. Now I record sounds in the field on a UHER 160 AV unit in stereo, for sampling and concrete use, I still love to hide the deck and go into UTB or the fire house and talk to bums. I call these Danger Recordings. I also sneak the UHER into concerts, mostly Lincoln Center New Music Concerts. Excellent.
John Wiggins can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
Until I was nine I had and treasured a three-inch spool reel-to-reel which never, never worked. I had tape for it, a microphone and lots of keen buttons to push. It was enough. Later, I began to make video because I "liked to push buttons."
My first cassette was a Supertramp industrial which I played constantly. I never, never liked the music. I only had one cassette.
My first memory of cassettes was using them to record Top-10 on Radio, back in '69 or something. Then we used them to record "readings" small plays, etc. Back in 1980, I was born in 1955, I discovered some strange cassettes in a record store. I had then done some records with a rock band. I became fascinated by the possibilities of packing and artwork with this little thing. And inspired by for instance Peter Meyers NATTOVNING I saw and heard that artists can use this little thing in an exciting way. So back in 1985 I got CLEM in my hand, and a new world was opening. I got my first cassette out "Vinterhjarta", which got a good reception. Then it has been some more, and a little import and distribution. With some brakes because of my job and my son (3 years old in 1988).
My oldest cassette is one of my most precious. My oldest cassette is a recording of hip sixties music: Dylan, Joplin, Stones, broadcast over Armed Forces Radio Viet Nam. It was recorded by my step-father in Saigon in 1969. This cassette taught me something about pop culture, sub-culture, and war culture. I decided my teen age years spent listing to this stuff in the late seventies had not been so anti-authoritarian after all.
I remember this old reel to reel, 5" cheap-o format tape recorder of my mothers when I was about 6 and my brother was 8. We taped ourselves reading magazine comics, played it back and had a good ol' time. More recently I've been recording conversations without telling anyone. Sometimes I play it back sometimes I don't. My favorite subjects are between the ages of 2 and 4 or over 75. Then I dub them to reel, cut them up and make giant loops over-dubbing other sounds, drones, rhythms... I guess I got the idea thru exploring music concrete and collage stuff from other artists.
tentatively, a convenience, wi(demo)uth tapes:
Some of my best ideas for using cassettes have been:
While residing in a house from which (in conjunction with some friends) I operated a "phone stations" (i.e., a phone # which was known to the public at large as a link to the unpredictable - in the form of answering machine messages, call-forwards to phone booths, etc) the house was burglarized. As a response to this I put a tape on the phone station's answering machine which asked callers to explain why any burglars present in the house shouldn't burglarize us - this tape and it's responses were rendered loudly audible by leaving the answering machine monitor on while no one was in the house (other than, possibly burglars) as an alternative to bars on the windows or burglar alarms.
3 projects that I haven't realized yet:
A. To make a tape specifically to be played anywhere on a walkman as a t.ore/tour guide tape explaining the most likely generic aspects of the environment.
B. To make a tape marked: Led Zepplin (or some such) & to leave it visibly exposed on the dashboard of an unlocked car or to entice people to steal it. The actual contents of the tape would be a political lecture on anarchist concepts of property as theft (or some such).
C. To make a mobius loop.
tENTATIVELY, A cONVENIENCE can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
When we were teenies we recorded from the radio, since 1987 we record our own.
I record sounds onto cassettes and then I edit then into finished pieces. I then put these onto compilations as I collect enough to fill a 60 minute or 90 minute tape. I then give, sell, trade them to / with others. I don't have a turntable (not since 1976) so all my listening to music is from cassettes (virtually).
We compose with cassettes and of course sell a few and trade a lot. We started in 1979 with really primitive equipment and ideas, sending things to Doctor Dimento that he wouldn't dare touch.
I don't know if you have thought about it much but the next move will be independent low budget interesting videos with superior sound. Big City Orchestra will be releasing a two hour presentation soon that will be available for about $15. Should be interesting to see what the distributor will say with all the other standard boring vids being about $30 - $40 for 40 minutes.
My first use of cassettes was to record my own music / improvisations. Now I use them to play music, I have taped most of my records. When the tape wears I still have the record in good condition in 10 years or so the record might be unavailable. Most of the records I had in the 70's I have had to rebuy as they were worn out.
I use cassettes to take "idea tapes" off T.V., i.e., ethnic music or language, bits of sound tracks, sounds, and environments. I then use these in a piece or use the beat or feeling.
I've also released a cassette of my music and started collecting cassettes of other people's music.
Naofumi Ishimaru: Sakura Wreckords
What do I do with tapes? I do playing vocals, mini-moog, vss-100, tambourine, pc-66, handclap, next, salon, one key, spx-90, tin drum, sk-1, pipe, accordion, guitar, korg-echo, tr-505
Naofumi Ishimaru recording as Yximalloo can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
How I learned about all this studio equipment stuff is by running my own record company in London for 3 years and taking a few classes on studio techniques and straight electronics, I find I know more than most men, I find very few women know anything at all about this, too bad. I think women are easier to teach and learn and use these electrical recording devices better than most men. Running a studio is very much like running a household with a large family.
I'll try most things, I think that the best tapes you will hear, considering inventiveness, are made by people passing the phase of practicality. They are saying "I know the rules, now lets take the rules and re-arrange them." Brilliant stuff comes from a few people who have really said "My friends aren't helping me and I have to do this myself." The day of "solo" artists has come and its roots are in the independently done stuff, by people who don't care if they are on the top ten, in fact it would be too mindboggling to them if they were, like it could cramp a style.
Sandy Nys: 3RIO, Magisch Theater
There is going something wrong in the world. (Actually, it is going wrong since mankind started to think). There is a big xenophobia going on, which certain governments use as a weapon to indoctrinate, and use people for their personal benefits. Communications is an important way in the understanding between people with different politics, religion, color... Trying to understand each other and respect each other's ideas could bring us closer to the point where we can get rid of the garbage from politics and religion. Because politics and religion give xenophobia and hate to people who don't think the same way. Communication we can do by using words, music and visuals (painting, mailart..) They go straight to the inside of mankind. You don't have to use your brain to translate visuals and music as a message. (A brain which is polluted by centuries of politics and religion). Visuals and music don't need words and translation. They show you things you can't explain but will understand. Art and music can be used in the long way to "Utopia". Even if you are not an artist or musician there is always something you can send to somebody, to communicate with somebody. And even if we all die in a big mushroom cloud or a polluted earth, at least we TRIED.
I. Aims/Views/Conception
From historical point of view we don't live anymore in a pure physical world, we're now (in highly developed countries) surrounded by signals, symbols: we live in a symbolic world. Processes of differentiation have lead to a highly complex world with an individually incomprehensible quantity of such signals and symbols (and finally information), where reduction of complexity is the instrument to survive. This concentration and channelization on a special level is controlled mostly via media. P16.D4 tries to counter-act these processes, while aiming to get such signal/symbols as a status of processed perception, which are pushed aside by the information and communication pools. So P16.D4 works in a field emphasizing just other structures of selectivity, X-raying the routines of perception, leaving the security of the usual paths and is highly interested in unexpected events. From this point of view it seems more sensible for us to explore the possibilities of noise and other "non-musical" material with "non-musical" techniques than carrying on the banner of "music". This doesn't mean to exclude the enormous possibilities rock/jazz/classical music gives as elements of others, of course. Our next projects enlarge this sense of a compilation in so far as material of different groups from distant areas will be mixed, transformed and finally structured in a new way. So at this time processes of compilation, mixing transformation, a sort of meta-music is the center of our current work.
Early in 1985 I released my first cassette called "Prototype". It was mastered onto metal cassette tape with Dolby from the 4 track reel to reel (using 15 ips no noise reductions). I found the quality was quite good. So far I am dubbing the copies myself real time into TDK D90 cassettes. I did all the art work and photocopied the inserts and rubber stamp the label. If I get enough orders I will remix in a professional studio and use noise gates and E.Q. etc. and have it commercially dubbed real time and the insert printed. The cost of commercial dub printing is what I pay for the blank cassette only now.
Phantom Soil as a releasing label had been inactive since release #355 (circa 1978). In 1983, when I finally got my 4X and release DINO DIMURO SEZ: SLEEP ALONE TONIGHT!, I merely guessed that I had around 600 tapes and re-started the labeling process with PO600. Since then I've counted closer to 500 but I'll continue to issue OFFICIAL releases in the 600 range while filling up the lowlier stuff with 500 numbers.
All these years I've stored my cassettes (pre-'82 cassettes each have a plastic cover) in shoe boxes with big black numbers on the ends (BOX #1, BOX #2, etc.). This system had severe drawbacks, especially when moving or digging up a certain release. This year for the first time I bought a wooden rack which holds 100 cassettes, eliminating about 5 or 6 shoe boxes. Eventually I plan to store all the cassettes this way, which is why I was forced to go back and account for every single cassette and catalogue number. (Amazingly, I have truly "lost" only 5 tapes total, though another 5 or 6 have broken with old age.)
I have vague plans to record the earliest cassettes onto 1/4" tape at 7 1/2 i.p.s., one track at a time, and store then in a closet so I never have to worry about the tapes disintegrating (especially important for me since ALMOST ALL of my early tapes were recorded on those 3-for-a-buck COMPACT CASSETTE tapes though thanks to my doting care they're in prime condition). This will obviously take time and money and a lot of patience (the temptation is strong to leave out stuff that seems worthless, when in fact years later it can become priceless. I erased some wonderful stuff in my youth, and now as a rule I erase almost nothing).
Perhaps the greatest advantage to owning 2 stereo decks was making compilations. Even in the earliest days of the CEMENT CORNER and BERTH, I'd make open-speaker "BEST OF" tapes, later graduating to those cheesy little dubbing chords between portables. Compilations have always been a great way to recharge creative batteries and collect good material from interior stuff. Amazingly, as a group, BERTH never made a tape from individual cassettes; it was all one-time-edits only, and the PYTHAGORAS series was a special project of my own without John's input as to what should go where (BERTH REUNION REHEARSAL 1983 was done the same way, and was our most recent pairing). AS my older cassettes break off get brittle I'm eternally thankful I have pieces of almost everything dubbed onto other tapes.
With the release of SLEEP ALONE TONIGHT my audience expanded from 3 to about 30, mostly KPFK people and other friends. Six tapes later I entered the Mail Music Network with the compilation tape BEST OF DINO DIMURO, and the following release, TROUBLE AT THE MUTUAL ADMIRATION SOCIETY, holds the record for my widest distribution (just under 50).
Chris Hardiman: Antenna Theater
With 1984 just months away, it's good to know that efficient mind control technology is now on the market. Thanks to micro-chips, it's affordable. An enterprising person can get in on the ground floor of this growth industry without a large capital outlay. Here's how: just buy some walkmans and start to record mind control command tapes.
For example, you want someone to cook your favorite meal. O.K., read your recipe into a tape recorder. Be sure to leave time for the different operations. If your recipe calls for a fifteen-mninute stir cycle, record fifteen minutes on the tape. During the fifteen you could say "keep stirring, stir s-l-o-w-l-y," and give some positive reinforcement, "you're doing great," or "that looks delicious."
Talking for fifteen minutes will get boring. So play some music; give the cook something to whistle and improve performance. Clasical is best for slow stir cycles like white sauce; rock and roll is dynamite for dicing onions. Music gives rhythm to the affair. Before the Walkmanized chef knows it, the souffle is fini.
So forget the Big Government boogieman, security cameras on every corner, truth serum injections and telephone taps. With Walkmanology, we can be each other's big brother. You've been waiting for this for years. Finally a chance to be heard over all the others (the radio, the TV, the stereo, even the vacuum cleaner). When you load your tape into a Walkman and put that Walkman on someone's ears - I don't care if they're standing in Grand Central Station - they're goint to hear your voice above the din, your voice inside their head, washing out everything else. And you're going to get that meal cooked just the way you like it.
Look at ads; look at commercials; look at Dada or Surrealism or Post Modernism for that matter. Government is not the only one trying to capure our attention. Artists, graphic artists, moviemakers, actors, are all crying at us to become mediums for their media. And they're enlisting the scientists and engineers to build bigger and better entertainment traps. Better ways to grab the audience through chemistry, electronics, and bioengineering: 3-D glasses, smell-o-ramas, thrust stages, quadraphonic sound systems, and so on. Pretty powerful weapons. And weapons they are, because everytime you go to a theater, an exhibit, or watch TV at home, these weapons are trained on you to overwhelm your senses, to grip your emotions, to suck you into the fantasy world of the artists' conglamerates.
Entertainment is out to take over the human race. It wants you to become a media junky, read a magazine, listen to the radio, watch TV, or see a movie. You're surrounded. You're trapped. You're a victim and you love it. Being an action-packed-go-getter in this high-pressure world is exhausting and now and then it's nice to relax and let someone else do the driving. Sometimes you just feel like going out to see a movie, a play, or just letting a new experience wash over you and sweep you away. Aw, sweet surrender.
Slipping into someone else's fantasy is a great way to ditch your own fantasy world. The more engulfing, the more encompassing, the better.
But beware. These media tools are beyond your grasp. They are making you into a passive observer, a slouch. They dance while you sit and watch. Have you ever seen some sucker racked in anguish and felt you knew the way out of the dilemma? Have you ever wanted to hop onto the stage and get into a scene but you couldn't because you knew you were an observer; it wasn't your scene?
With Walkmanology you become the actor. Say your friend gave you a recipe tape and you turned it on and started to cook. And another person had a table-setting tape and another person had a feed-the-dog tape. Everybody would be doing their tapes, making things happen. It would be a play and you would be in it. That's theatrical Walkmanology; you as an audient become an actor; you as a spectator take the stage. Actors memorize entrances and exits and lines, but you as a Walkmanized audient/actor hear them directly. No memorization problems. No fear of forgetting. No stage fright. It's just you and your friends acting on stage.
That's theatrical Walkmanology today. In the future it's conceivable that Walkmanology will not only be able to make you an actor but a human (the difference between an actor and a human is free will). What if you could go where you wanted, do what you wanted, decide how you'll deal with any given situation? A Walkman-like device linked to a computer could do this.
Of course, this is down the road a bit, but it's there. It's all part of the potentiality of Walkmanology - which just may turn out to be the most evil, most powerful entertainment weapon yet devised. It's not only after your mind or your heart, or both, but after your body as well. So it's lucky that Walkmans are so cheap because while someone's out there making a tape for you, you can be making a tape for them.
Well, first off, in my personal philosophy of making music, it's immediate gratification. It's like you go out there and there are these guys who make music, and they're very good and very competent and everything, but they're not very excited about it and, for me, every time I go to play, and this pertains more to playing live because in the studio you can turn into a fudge head after a while, but basically I want to go out and be Jesus Christ every time I play, you know. I wanna go out and have a great time. Playing live, in front of people, is the cheapest, purest, free-est type of high there is. You don't have to worry about "Whoops, am I supposed to feel guilty about this in the morning?" My favorite point when I'm playing is when my intellectualmind is not invlved at all. I'm just doing it, and it's great. That is why I lay music. In terms of recording philosophies, 'cause this is what I've thought alot about lately, the general technique in studios everywhere is, everybody get extremely concerned about, "Like, oh, do we have the perfect tom drum sound, and having perfectly separated clean tracks and all that stuff." I can understand that kinda production for somebody like Michael Jackson. But I think it totally misses the point when you're recording somebody that's an actual rock band, and ya get these records that sound perfect but they don't have any feeling left in 'em. To me, performance is paramount, and that's what you're trying to get on the tape.
I started out with The Battle of New Orleans and Hound Dog, these were my number one and two hits. My Mom and everybody hated em, of course. And then in those High School days I used to sing madrigal kind of music and all that junk.. And then I retired from music..got into a period of hitchhiking, drug abuse...Sometime along in my adventures I decided it was time to go be a musician again, and so I started to play the guitar. When it came down to crunch-time I bought me a Gibson SG and amplfier. i basically spent the first six months going CCHCSKK CK!!$# $*& %$ Then it's "It's time for a band!" and they started out as the Adults, then the Colorplates.
So anyway, through a sort of natural evolution I acquired a lot of four track stuff that I thought was good enough to go out. And Warner Brothers just wasn't buying this week, you know, so I just gave Green Monkey three hundred bucks, and figured that's gone, and put out the cassettes (Local Product, Truth or Consequences) And what I wanted to do was go out in the world and make contact with people who were doing something else.
Anonymous , 1986
So, you ask, why did we get started?? Or, no, you asked HOW we got started? Either question would be appropriate. We often ask ourselves WHY. We get an answer when we get a great tape in the mail that really excites us.. and of course when we get orders and words of enthusiasm.. We got started as [anon.]. That's where a lot of the contacts first started. We made a lot of good friends that way, internationally. Bob originally got the idea for what we did next. It sounded (sorta) like fun to me, so off we went. We decided Bob could initially contact everyone about it, and I would design the flyers and catalogues. The rest is history (?).
Why do we make cassettes? Like I said above, LP's or cassettes are both nice. Luckily, though, cassettes exist. We couldn't afford to put out a record every time we have material for a release. We would never have gotten anything out. Records are too expensive.
We are always waiting for that wonderful cassette that will pop up in the box and totally blow us away. Criteria for selecting tapes: first, the cover has to "hit" us. I HATE seeing poor covers, gives me a bad impression right from the start. The cover shows me that the artist cares, or doesn't care, or can't design worth a fuck. Second, of course is the music itself. We hate to admit it, but we will be honest, it the first ten minutes are horrible we sometimes don't make it past that point.
When I decided to really get into cassette culture, I virtually owned nothing. I was lucky to be takin' over the very cheap room my girlfriend used to live in - my biggest expenses were my very small costs of living, just the rent of 100 bucks (60$). I made a little money writing gig reviews and other music related stuff for a local newspaper. With a settlement I got from my last job at a collectively owned bookstore I was able to pay for a double cassette deck for high-speed copies, plus I had the September 1983 copy of 'Op' magazine with hundreds of addresses from the alternative network - that's where I started.
Today I've got 3 very expensive guitars (Fenders, Hammers) and some others, a Marshall Amp, a two-room working space with several hundreds of tapes and records, get huge newspaper coverage for my new band 'pull my daisy', tours & record license deals in other countries (hmmmm, well, one other country, to speak the truth) & don't have to work any more at all (if you considers 'work' to be doing a 9 - 5 job as opposed to your "hobby").
I'm a very didactic person - this drastic description is to show you the possibilities of working with tapes. the cassette medium is a cheap instant-medium just like xerox copies that work best in small quantities, that can produce a series of unique items, each one slightly or very different, than just plain copies of a master. you don't need money to do it - you need ideas. Being part of the network helped me getting ideas, or tripping off of other people's ideas for my small corner where I live.
Some time ago I got into combining mail-art / do-it yourself aesthetics with Swiss rock/pop. This allowed me to work with renowned bands putting out tapes in bizarre packages which took advantage of the media attention the bands already had. This helped all parties involved: the bands get another bit of street-cred, smaller bands on the label got attention they would have lacked otherwise - & I got to manufacture all those tapes, so I was able to finance a small infrastructure: a master machine (1/2 track high speed reel to reel), 10 tape decks, equalizer and a cassette loader. I still do a lot of demo tapes for bands & d.i.y. - productions for money....... The greatest coup has been the first LP of my band "pull my daisy" being renowned for working exclusively with cassettes & defending the political implications of this choice, I shocked the "scene" by announcing the release of a picture disc as a follow-up to the debut, a cheaply made trash video. We went then into our rehearsal room, where we laid down backing tracks for seven songs on a 4-track portastudio. With that we went into a 16-track studio to add more guitars & vocals, doubling & tripling. 3 days, 1400$ left us with a gorgeously sounding master tape on our hands. Back in our rehearsal room, we did some jamming to record 'bonus tracks'. Then we put everything on cassette, one side studio. One side bonus from record distributors we got several hundreds from their overstocks & leftovers for free, mainly spanish new-wave or boring dance-maxis. On these we glued our glamorous concert poster, cut the thing out, & finished was the pic disc. Packaged as "picture disc with free tape", we sold several hundreds of the stuff. This got us into the Swiss indie charts with that, plenty of airplay over several weeks, gigs all around the country for a lot more than just gas money ... I doubt if we would have made that impact by a normal vinyl LP alone, left alone by your usual d.i.y. - tape....
A young boy saves his pocket money and sees many tapes with nice colourful covers. He buys a couple. Takes them home. He listens to them. The sounds they produce are not like the bands he sees on national t.v., but he likes what he hears. That young boy was myself.
Some of the earliest independent cassettes I ever bought were very extreme in musical styles and were of an industrial nature. The sounds were basic and rhythmic and after hitting rulers on pieces of wood et cetera I found that I could produce similar sounds and in some cases better than what I was buying. Then I discovered fanzines and found addresses of bands from other cities with tapes available. So I wrote to them and started receiving many tapes of different quality, sounds, and styles. Several months later the pilot issue of Australia's and possibly the world's first music cassette magazine came out. A cassette on fashion and music called TAPE was released in Australia during the late sixties. (1 issue only). The one to which I refer is the highly successful Fast Forward cassette magazine which produced 13 issues before sadly collapsing due to personal struggles.
In 1981 I purchased my first double cassette recorder and began compiling tapes of my favorite songs together for my own listening. Then it struck me. "Why not release tapes yourself?" The first few attempts were rather chronic and were only vailable in small numbers as the tapes were costly to purchase for duplication. I named my set-up Cretin Recordings," and I think that the name put people off straight away. Then one of my tapes turned out to be a legal hot potato. The singer from a certain band, sent me a tape to release but apparently without the permission of the rest of his band. However all was finally sorted out and I decided to take a break from releasing and set about collecting. [Simon has returned again and again to the role of producer since this was written in 1985.
DDS Greg: ZAMO, circa. 1985
Here is the delivery: two slightly moldy Zamo tapes. We are still compiling lyrical information, (none of us can perfectly interpret the mighty Z, even he himself.) I offer this as a brief explanation of the Zamo "Musical" philosophy:
1) All songs on "Pestering Flavius" are the original one-time-only recordings. We think of a riff or idea with the tape on standby, switch it on and go. What we create is what you get. Raw. Silly. Bad. But sometimes interesting, and always fun.
2) We use only the finest equipment. All songs are recorded in ZAMOSOUND, which means a cheap portable cassette deck with condenser mikes, usually set in the crowded corner of a dark Semi trailer. FOOTNOTE: "Everybody Like's Rachael," "In the Swamp," and "If You Pick It Up..." recorded in stereo on 1/4" reel to reel for that real professional sound that we obviously could not achieve. 96% of our stuff is done the other way, but we liked these songs and could almost decipher the lyrics.
3) Finest goes for tapes, too. These are "normal" bias. Sometimes stereo, sometimes not, depending on whether we've overloaded one or the other of the condenser mikes. No equalization. No noise reduction. Tape hiss? We laugh.
4) Band Members: Huvboy, lead guitar; Smallboy, bass guitar; DDS Greg, drums; Zamo, vocals. For this tape, at least. It's always the same four idiots, but sometimes we play different instruments, switch instruments, or sing. Our next two releases will display more of our versatility, if such a thing can be imagined.
Finally, we play for fun. Some, after seeing us "live" complain that our energy does not translate into this tape. Fuck them.
Will, The Unnatural Logarithm:
I make cassettes of electronic music on my own or in the the company of friends, which I sell through the mail or by personal contact. Of course I also listen to music, words and other sounds on cassettes.
I started recording on cassettes in December 1971. At that time I recorded acoustic guitars, voice and jew's harp. Later electric guitars, homemade tone generators, radio, etc were added as I moved from mono to stereo, and added overdubbing, tape collage, manipulation and effects and so on. In March of 1981 things changed as I began using toy synthesizers, and selling my tapes through the mail.
I record every performance and most sessions on cassettes. I record things off the radio, I make drafts of songs on my Sanyo portable, I record things off the TV for cut-ups and for keeping programs that interest or shock me. But mostly I buy and record my original music on cassette tapes.
Sue Ann Harkey recording with the Kitchen Table Ensemble can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
My earliest memory was making comedy tapes and different strange things when I was about 11 or 12. We would fart in the mike and similarly juvenile things, sing along with Beatles songs, do interviews, commercials, etc. (this was a cheapo GE cassette with a built in condensor mike) later I started taping hit songs of the radio and stuff, eventually learning to use patch cords instead of mikes. When I was 18 I got my first stereo Deck (a JVC) and began taping albums, not long afterwards I got a synthesizer and began recording pieces live using a mike with a Y cord for some glorious monophonic sound. I made a primitive tape with a guitarist friend where we just freaked out all the time (it was awful, I wish I still had it!) Then I learned about the I.E.M.A (International Electronic Music Association) in 1979 through the now Synapse magazine. I decided to use a friends 4-track to produce some music for the collective electronic music tapes (aka "group tapes") that we were and still are putting out. It was at that point that I realized that I could put out my own tape, so I did (under the name Cerberus, which it turned out was also the name of a local metal band) It was called Advent Guard. A couple of years later as I was preparing to record a follow-up tape I bought a used TEAC 4-Track on which I did "Zagadka" and the collaboration "Better Music Through Electronics" with Bill Trivision. So my use of cassettes is presently as the final copy of my music (the mixed master) and the dubs of that master that I sell in some local stores and by mailorder.
My earliest memory of cassettes is when I would borrow my brother's recorder (when I was 8 or 9 years old) and record the family at get togethers and play tricks on my dog by calling its name on the tape and then hiding the recorder while playing it back I use cassettes now to record the world at large - I liken it to a form of reporting. I get started by wanting to save everything I heard on the radio that I thought was neat. Voila! Cassettes.
My earliest use of cassettes was in 1969, when I got a cassette recorder for Christmas of 1968, call it wither your you prefer, but my very first tape ever made was called "January 1969" and was a collage of sounds from around the house; clandestine recordings of family conversations. some little ditties for acoustic guitar, or toy piano, or zither, a weird moaning sound that I recorded from the faucet of the old bathtub in the cellar, sounds of traffic outside, etc. etc. I dearly wish I still had that tape but it was destroyed in a flood at my first apartment (it was in a box in the bottom of my closet and it was in a basement apartment, sigh). That year I recorded about 30 tapes similar in nature to that, all with different titles, though I also fondly recall "November 1969" which among other goodies a conversation with my brothers Tim and Steve in a car in transit, a fragment of "Touch Me" by the Doors off the kitchen radio, bits off Christmas specials on TV, etc. Ah, those were the days!
Now I use them to play music, I have taped most of my records. When the tape wears I still have the record in good condition in 10 years or so the record might be unavailable. Most of the records I had in the 70's I have had to rebuy as they were worn out.
I design and make cassette covers utilizing many media, but especially collage - no two are alike. I started this foolishness because I'm easily bored, but at the same time easily amused. I was feeling blah and wanted to make something fun to cover those dull looking high tech cassettes - now these things have taken over my life!
ideas collection
Exchanging ideas through the mail or personally. So people can listen when they're in the best frame of mind (most receptive).
Everything from dictation, instruction, stories, letters (my brother did that when he was in Vietnam) to, of course, the cost effective distribution of music. The stuff that the Radio Art Foundation is doing seems like the most innovative to me. Recording rehearsals (bands, theater, etc) is also very useful, as is recording lectures at school.
The best idea I have heard of using cassettes is a campaign last year here in Sweden. An anti-apartheid organization was collecting new and second hand tapes from people to send them to ANC's radio-station in NAMIBIA. They record programming and then smuggle them into South Africa illegally. This is great support, because they got a great lack of cassettes there.
My favorite idea for using cassettes is setting up a recorder on a busy sidewalk in a park (where there is little traffic, y'see) and taping people's conversations as they walk by, fade in and out. (Perhaps I like this because it appeals to the voyeur in me. But I find it intriguing and relaxing.)
What are the best ideas for using tapes? Many people don't have the recorder for records, you know cutting machine. But many people have recorder for cassette. And now we can get multi-track-recorder by cheap price. So, dubbing by mail is the best idea, I think.
Naofumi Ishimaru recording as Yximalloo can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
I think one of the best uses of cassettes besides music distribution and international trades are audio letters. To actually hear the person's voice is great. Zan Hoffman and I try to out do each other making audio letters, again recording in places or under conditions where no man would go. But I think trading internationally is a form of global good will and I have tapes from around the world to prove how this technology has brought us and our ideas and feelings closer together.
John Wiggins can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
Willem De Ridder and the radio Arts foundation, Alexander Boerstraat 30, 1071 KZ, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The most innovative propoganda promoting audio and cassette art in the world comes from this place. Amazing ideas about theater and the mind. Plays where there are no actors; instead audience members taking stage directions from walkman cassettes. Narratives for momentous walks around town. But watch out! He seems to have a dangerous imagination. Weird sex and weird death are part of his repitoire. He also promises to play the first few minutes of any cassette on his program on Dutch National Radio. Be a big time audio artist in Holland. Sounds okay to me.
The thing that has always intrigued me about cassettes is that they are like cats - they live multiple lives. Records come and go, cassettes live on in many reincarnations, reflecting the life of its owner/maker and its progression. This month it's entertainment, next month its a travel diary, the next month a letter. Accessible, reusable - that's communication!
The talking books originally for the blind now taking off in USA for busy people. Cassettes magazines for music is another great idea. A video cassette magazine for music even better with interviews with music under, split screen with interview & group playing. Not a lot of film clips stuck together. Compilation tapes great, hear before you buy.
Cassettes are for recording. and frankly it's more interesting to me to think about the different ways that they might be recorded, or the ways that those recordings might be used than it is to tell you about my favorite tapes. I like new things, things that seem fresh and intelligent, and things that seem clear. I like to listen to tapes of Thanksgiving dinners. I like new things. things that seem fresh and intelligent , and things that seem clear, I like to listen to people being themselves, What else can they be? Well, I don't know. I like tapes of things that seem like they belong on tape. I go through moods when I hate almost all music. They are stupid moods but still I go through them sometimes. I think MUSIC! Why the hell is there music on all those record players and cassette and radio stations? What the hell is music! Here the world is going to hell. the police are taking over and the meanest people are getting fat and bossey, the nicest people are worrying the most, going crazy shooting drugs, killing themselves, going to prison AND PEOPLE ARE STILL FILLING UP TAPES WITH MUSIC!! What good is music? We need to be talking about things! We need to stay up all night and get this straightened out! And along comes some chubby misogynist begging for support in a public forum so he can croon and strut, snag some fresh babes some anesthetics, and a sleek new machine that kills. Music! Phooey! I have no use for such music. It does not belong in my world. Tapes filled with this kind of music are better than records because I can record over tapes. But sometimes I hear a recording by someone and I can tell just by listening, and just by hearing and seeing the choices they made about the recording that they are my friend. I am glad they are on tape. I listen to them and it sounds like they know something about the world and people and the danger beauty suffers by being beautiful but they want to try to live anyway and share something with me I feel so grateful. And then I want to return the favor.
I still think that the "Day of Music" is a project worth doing, 24 c-60's in a handsome presentation case. I still might do it, but I think I'll wait until I get a digital sampling keyboard!
Mail Art Computer Central Address Bank: Send your name together with details of your computer(s) to the VEC. Add a brief statement on what you do with the computer and include a short example of your programming style You will be sent a list of M/Artists with computers compatible to yours. VEC computer: Acorn BBCMicro; OS 1.20 / VIEW Another 'exchange only' project
Musique Concrete
A couple of years after the second World War, Pierre Schaeffer in Paris revived the Italian futurists attempt to find applications in music for mechanical and everyday noise. He started out using gramophone recordings of various noises and musical sounds, manipulating them in different ways so that the character of the sound was changed. He found that he could produce many interesting musical effects by using two or three gramophones at once. A 78 rpm recording of train noises when played at 33 rpm sounds like a blast furnace. A cough on an abortive recording by Sacha Guity was combined by Schaeffer with the rhythm of a motorboat engine, an American accordion record, and a priest's song from Bali. Such collages--now classics--were broadcast on French Radio on October as a "concert de byuits." The public was alarmed.
Only when tape recording was introduced in 1950, did genuinely productive and diversified work become possible. Schaeffer christened his brand new art form "musique concrete." Along with Schaeffer, musicians Pierre Henry and Dr. Herbert Eiment (who in 1950 began to work with electronic music in his studios in Cologne) began experimenting in this new form.
The range of acoustic materials available to musique concrete has virtually no limit. It comprises all the vast amount of noises as well as instrumental and vocal musical sounds. When manipulated, the sounds and noises are altered so completely that their origins can no longer be recognized. Eiment came up with twelve tehniques that musique concrete and electronic music have in common: 1) sounds can be superimposed; 2) identical tapes can be played in succession (canon); 3) tapes can be cut and spliced (rassembled) in any chosen order; 4) dynamic intensities can be regulated; 5) rhythm patterns can be created by translating durations into tape lengths; 6) speeds can be changed; 7) retrograde forms are available; 8) tape loops (ostinato) can be used; 9) sound tape and blank tape can be used in any chosen order; 10) sounds can be made to wander by distributing them through several loudspeakers.
The whole notion of doing it yourself brings about a degree of satisfaction. You have either 1) recorded it 2) packaged it 3) reproduced it 4) distributed it or all 4!! Therefore having the main input into your project can mean the end product is one you are happy with rather than having no say in the matter.
The chances are others will be interested in your ideas too so on a "do it yourself" scale its up to you to promote your product and make sure people know about it.
funny ideas & don't do's
Use as Dental Floss.
Again, it's hard to point to one or two examples. On the whole, the most prosaic response to cassettes is to treat them as substitute records. Most boring is the "demo tape" approach to cassettes. In other words, that unwieldy beast, the band, gets its 5 or 6 songs down pat and then lumbers off to a studio to freeze them on tape.
Carola Von Hoffmannstahl recording with Solomonov and Von Hoffmannstahl can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
There are Japanese toys, a cassette player and tape that transform into robots that kill.
There is no such thing as a bad idea for cassette uses.
Sue Ann Harkey recording with the Kitchen Table Ensemble can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
Never toast one...the smell is awful.
Prerecorded cassettes (ROIR cassettes are actually not very well made, folks) and cassettes for computer data storage.
The worst ideas are taxing blank tapes and cooking with them.
John Wiggins can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
Jan 1984: Tucson Arizona. There is an ad on tv. A toll free number on the screen. People with sour faces turn into people with happy faces by playing a rainbow colored cassette on little walkman players, blasters, car players, and home systems. Lots of happy people. Lots of different rooms and places. A new cassette from the Church of the Latter Day Saints. It's free.
The worst thing one can do with a cassette is throw it away instead of erasing and re-using it. I've actually found discarded cassettes here and there, Rolling Stones, Prince, Eddie Money, and Phil collins. All quite erasable, though I can't quite bring myself to do it to them just yet. (Hey, they cost 8-9 dollars when new, maybe I should listen and see if there's anything good about them. I'll let you know).
In late 1983, the Vanderbilt University radio station, 91 ROCK/WRVU, decided to release a cassette feature eleven local bands entitled "Local Heros." Since I had beeen involved with most of the bands around town I was appointed executive producer. One of the main problems we faced was including information about each of the bands with the cassette. We finally produced, with donated artwork I might add, a six-panel insert printed in two colors front and back. The amusing part is after we finally got this monster printed and folded, partly by hand, and manually inserted them into the cassette packages were too thick to be shrink-wrapped. It seems the shrink-wrap machine totally demolished about 10 cassettes (according to one witness they literally exploded!) before they could shut it off!
In hindsight, we should have explored our alternatives a little longer. It seems we could have packaged the cassette in an album type format with information on both front and back, and shrink-wrapped for a less expensive price.
We sorta think there are a lot of dumb prejudices around.. Like independent music people are just would-be pop stars who can't make it. Or people who put out cassettes wish they could get a record deal but can't so they put out cassettes (undoubtedly second-class citizens in anyone's book...). We receive dozens of cassettes a month and a lot of them are very good, very well-done and we usually end up distributing these. But at the same time I must admit I find a lot of these cassettes not quite "up to scratch".
Mediocrity problems with indie cassettes lie in three areas:
1) Packaging and presentation. I understand that the attraction to releasing indie cassettes is because of the affordibility of it all, but this is not an excuse for hastily and haphazardly designed cover artwork and packaging. Whether some people want to admit it or not a good cover does count for something in terms of enhancing the listener or purchaser's enjoyment. Bad cover artwork can kill the concept, while good packaging design can really drive home a point, can help to solidify a concept.
2) Sound Quality. Of course no one expects 24-track studio quality from an indie cassette nor is it necessary and of course anybody knows some people can get great sound out of primitive recording equipment, simple stereo cassette decks and today's highly affordable consumer cassette 4-track machines like the Fostex X-15. The point is that of course good sound quality can be achieved with inexpensive equipment if one works hard enough at it. Yet still we receive too many cassettes that sound like they were recorded in a toilet tank and then dubbed onto 19 cent tape (yes we actually received a submission cassette recorded onto 19 cent tape).
3) Concept and Content. I as much as anyone appreciate the homemade do-it-yourself flavor of most indie music. People with no musical training or knowledge whatsoever (at least in the conventional sense) are picking up guitars, synthesizers, drum machines, pieces of scrap metal, etc. or just using their own voice and forging highly individual personal musics and tonal/atonal evocations. And at Cause and Effect we salute this spirit but again this free-wheeling, free-thinking spirit is not an excuse for laziness! It seems some people's conceptual ideas for their music aren't given as much thought and consideration as updating their indie music pen & music pals.
I guess my point in all this is that we find it disappointing that so many people in indie music have the attitude that excellence is not a necessity or even necessarily to be desired. They too often confuse "being an individual"/ being an independent artist and thus living outside the rules of commercial music with sloppiness, coarseness and mediocrity.
Hearing loss will occur when k7s are played at high volumes for long durations. Especially if the k7 contains music comprised of a narrow speactrum of high notes - wailing guitars - played in small, bare enclosed rooms or with headphones on. She's said more than once that she was killing one headache (me) with another (music).
Loud noises damage inner ear cells which transmit vibrations through the acoustic nerve which transports the impulse to the brain where they're converted to music or noise.
the legal issues
I think it all depends on the intent of the home taper. The more money is to be made, the more important I guess. I enjoy the undergroundness of it very much. But I'm also interested in selling my services as a composer, musician, environment maker.
I'm all in favor of creative non-greedy illegality.
tENTATIVELY, A cONVENIENCE can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
You should be able to get the copyright for your own recording for an acceptable amount of money, because otherwise the whole thing goes out of control.
Anti-copyright - I make tapes and magazines to communicate to people, they are not commodities to me. I have no ambition to make a profit or even break even off my efforts, that is not my goal. Serious stealing is not the goal of most people, only the idea of copyright makes the word theft real. You know that every one person is a part of a small community of friends, I want them to share my tapes or graphics with them, which they have bought or obtained somehow. There are millions of individuals out there each with their own community and the work gets known more with out the intimidation of a copyright, which is possessive and capitalistic. I am going to be really pissed off if they start taxing blank tapes and the copyright will be the culprit of that exploitation on us independents.
Sue Ann Harkey recording with the Kitchen Table Ensemble can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
I do tape friends albums and don't feel terribly guilty about it. I don't think I'd feel too bad about someone doing it with my stuff. The key is if it's for personal use. If you're making money off it then it's just like bootleg albums are. I usually tape or trade my own tapes for tapes of concerts or unavailable albums. I don't' feel that it hurt the artist since they couldn't make money off material that's not available anyway. I also tape a ot of albums that I own so they don't' get destroyed or worn out. Tapes wear a lot better than LP's.
Not really worried about the legalities. If people think independent cassettes or records are worth dubbing, maybe they can write to the artists and comment on their work.
HAHAHAHA! Legality of taping? If someone wants to listen to this "work" whatever it may be I feel I have every right to record it. Too many egos running around wanting to own "things" that nobody can own. I support the Recording Rights Coalition and all they stand for. I created the name Stolen Art Productions for the very reason that most of the sounds I originally start with have been ripped off, or what I call "Appropriation." As Franklin P. Jones says "originality is the art of concealing ones source." I love that one.
Artists have always borrowed from other artists. The shared use of melodic material was common practice for centuries. The crucial aspect is whether an artist borrows to steal or borrows to transform. This standard is difficult to define and set the limits on paper. The difference, however, is more obvious when the results are before one. Also, it's possible decentralized culture can simply not be owned in the ways we envision now. The mis-use of this freedom does occur, but the alternatives would seem to involve restricting cassette activities.
Carola Von Hoffmannstahl recording with Solomonov and Von Hoffmannstahl can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
Tape copying, for just one person as a one-shot copy is not serious...chances are the person copying would not but the authorized copy if such copying were not available, so no harm is done. Bootlegging in great numbers for personal greed and profit is is pure rip-off and not at all nice.
I feel you should not tape records / tapes unless you have bought them. I do tape records sometimes that I don't own mainly to give them a few more listens to see if I really like them, or I might record only one or two songs that I like off an album. As for taping other people's cassette releases this would depend on availability i.e. is it easy / very hard, reasonable / expensive to get your own copy and does it seem if the artist would mind if you copied the tape? Some people want to make money or break even others are happy to have people listen to their music.
Pirating is stealing by making copies of a released work, this should be looked down upon. Personal recording of concerts and the like is fine for personal enjoyment and trading only - as soon as money changes hands bad bad bad.
I don't think about laws and legalities when it comes to music. It's a gift. That's why I'm so poor - hapless romantic - I give my tapes away. Sometimes I send them to friends who may dub them and give them to friends, or I hand them to people I meet on my travels. Sometimes I trade them for art or haircuts or socks. Haven't sent any to magazines, nope. No distributor, nope.
Don't tape records. Records are records. They should be listened to as such. Tape other peoples tapes if they want you to, or say it's okay to. Distribution is a bitch, the health of independent music is directly proportional to the quality/quantity of distribution. Copyright tapes not only to prevent people from ripping you off (because if they want to rip you off they will, and you're gonna have to be pretty damn rich to do anything about it, like take 'em to court) but so that the Library of Congress will have a copy of your work.
The movie DIVA is all about a cassette.
distribution
So far I haven't used distributors because I want any person to have direct access to me & the possibility of trading - rather than to try to force them into buying the material if they're curious - however, this may change as I get more financially desperate (as if I haven't been enough so already) & as I get more & more disgusted with the time that I waste responding to the unimaginative who I try to act as a direct catalyst to...
tENTATIVELY, A cONVENIENCE can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
I do mostly mail order and trades. I have them in a couple local stores, but no real distribution except for a guy that I trade with in Holland, he has about 30 live Tangerine Dream tapes in his catalog. I send out a lot of promos, but I have to slow down because it's killing me financially. I put out ads occasionally. (OPtion, Sound Choice, Alternative Rhythms, Syne)
Personal contact between artists and listener.
Publishing addresses and descriptions and whether or not they trade. Also playing music on radio and making compilation tapes.
I get my tapes around by trading, sending to ALL the Indy mags for review and I have distributors in USA, Canada, Belgium, France and Germany.
John Wiggins can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
I have had bad luck with distributors, many uncompleted deals with them. Yet on the other hand they are a means to reach more people an d so I keep trying. I have even sent my masters of my tapes with a supply of booklets to Terminal Kalidiscope in England for distributing just to get my work around.
I would like a more responsible response from distributors, but I know that they have a hard job and the market is very questionable. But it angers me to be treated with such a lack of consideration and non-information of the progress of my tapes and their whereabouts. Now I take for granted that once I participate with a distributor that that will be the last I hear from them and so I proceed with caution.
Sue Ann Harkey recording with the Kitchen Table Ensemble can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
The term "networking' conjures up images of corporate careerism. We prefer to think in terms of decentralized culture; that is, the direct distribution and reception of art with little or no reliance on intermediate, centralized structures.
Carola Von Hoffmannstahl recording with Solomonov and Von Hoffmannstahl can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
My cassettes stay at my house. If you would like to house your cassettes away from your tape box, please send them to 1429 S. W 14th #208 Portland OR 97201 USA.
I love sending them behind the iron curtain.
I wish it were cheaper.
We boost them among our colleagues, We sell them a little bit over price cost. We distribute by ourselves. Meanwhile we sent cassettes to about 40 radio stations over the world, but unfortunately without much resonance.
I have a collection of Computer/Electronic Music Radio Broadcast form Finland I Seppo Sepanian) that I love - I traded with a guy who told me all my music was shit and sent me a cassettes of what sound like outside his house at noon, it's beautiful - All Musicworks -
John Wiggins can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
Thru the mails, selling tapes at concerts is fine if neatly done you wont sell many but often those will be the most dedicated of fans. There are also many fine distributors, we deal more and sell more to the cassette exclusive outfits. Places like Rough Trade don't care and take a long time to make their payments.
I traded a shitload with "Cassetteria" - but maybe 1/2 of the people came thru - disappointing. And they ALL were listed as "WILL TRADE."
I of course trade my tapes, selling a few here and there. I occasionally send out some freebies to magazines for review, I do not have a distributor as yet, though I might think about it if I could get a good one that didn't have such a huge catalogue as to be impossible to choose from (some have this problem, sad to say.)
networking
Networking is, I think, simply the establishment of contacts between interested parties. It is a shame that it is as necessary as it is, that is, that people can't just get together without the need for this vague concept called "networking." Networking is not something that should take a lot of time away from what you really want to do (unless networking is what you really want to do, but then, what are you networking for? The sake of Networking?) but it is certainly necessary (especially since good distribution is not easy to come by).
Networking to me is making friends, self-distribution, mail orders, and correspondence, radio stations and musicians, For me it is very personal because most of the people who have my tapes got them directly from me through the mail. CLEM is an excellent source for contacts, the bi-monthly magazines are more updated and very good resources, but I tend to use CLEM like a directory, I have met several of my mail correspondences personally in my travels, just recently I went to Spain and met two people who I wrote to from their listings in CLEM, they turned out to be very good people and a valuable resources for exposure in Barcelona and comrades in many musical and political ideologies. On an earlier trip I met Alain and Nadine of Insane Music Contact and Ludo Engles and Hans Hendrickx of Sex on Sunday tapes in Belgium. I also met Attrition and Alan of Adventures in Realities in London all through my correspondence with them through networking and they have started to come to the States with somewhere to go and someone to meet. Ask Steve Peters about it, before traveling across the country he sets up meetings with people from his Op contacts.
Sue Ann Harkey recording with the Kitchen Table Ensemble can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
super stars ( favored recordings)
Minoy, Jeff Greinke, Johnny Larssen - my current favorite network music. Kubus, 3RIO, CLAS (stitching small tears) have made very good compilation. - Compilations are wonderful and very efficient I think. I love getting them occasionally.
ROIR - A company that has successfully blended mail-order and cassette-only releases to reach new heights of grooviness! On the other hand, this friend of mine runs an imaginary show. He runs (and has for several years) a purely imaginary radio station on cassettes through a mailing network. All participants contribute "shows" to the chain-letter-like network on a scheduled basis. Also I'm sure there are hundreds of great projects going on I have yet to learn about.
Japanese cassette artists are the most consistently innovative in their approach to the medium. Their work tends to be more experimental and less record oriented. Also, the many European compilations put together by various people have been invaluable in connecting artist from different parts of the world.
Carola Von Hoffmannstahl recording with Solomonov and Von Hoffmannstahl can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
Too many to mention, I really don't listen to any but music on cassettes and there are dozens that have great music, but most of them make cheap xeroxed covers which I think detracts. Some don't even do covers.
ROIR. Legitimized cassette releases. Other people.
ZAN HOFFMAN to me is the Cassette King. He has taken the idea of simply communicating and used CASSETTES as the perfect medium. He combines all sorts of people's music/sounds together and re-gerges it back onto a cassette as a new thing. Also the Canadian magazine/cassette MUSICWORKS I think is a great idea.
John Wiggins can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
Hmmmm, outstanding? I think Jimmy Levines work (Croiners) is quite good. Richard Franecki and Minoy stand out too. AMK of Banned Productions I love the sound that Levine creates, the same with Franecki. AMK has got some good packaging ideas as well as sound ideas. I am personally working on a tape that will self-destruct after being played once.
Ask me today, I'll tell you one thing, ask tomorrow and I'll tell you another. Not because my tastes are so variable, but because I listen to a lot of different things and get in a lot of different moods. No chance with this question.
This friend of mine runs an imaginary show. He runs (and has for several years) a purely imaginary radio station on cassettes through a mailing network. All participants contribute "shows" to the chain-letter-like network on a scheduled basis. Also I'm sure there are hundreds of great projects going on I have yet to learn about.
Some of my favorite items I have on tape include: Jack Kerouac talking about Neal Cassidy meeting the 3 Stooges in Times Square, "Swing Low Sweet Cadillac" by Charlie Parker, "I Cover The Waterfront" by John Lee Hooker, "I'm Sorry" by the Inflatable Boy Clams, "Scratch Party Death Mix" by Scot T. La Rock, "Letter To Dan Fogelberg" by Walls of Genius, The Vanilla Bean talks to a southern bell hooker, the brain of Nostradamus speaks, "Theres Alot You Don't Know" a rare 45 by Flipper, "Last Song" by Bertold Brecht himself as recorded right off the jukebox in Tin Pan Alley. I have hidden these and others the way one must live ammo.
Everything from dictation, instruction, stories, letters (my brother did that when he was in Vietnam) to, of course, the cost effective distribution of music. The stuff that the Radio Art Foundation is doing seems like the most innovative to me. Recording rehearsals (bands, theater, etc) is also very useful, as is recording lectures at school.
KLEM (a Dutch acronym for Club of Lovers of Electronic Music) is a Dutch language publication which is put together by Frits Couwnberg in Culemborg. This publication started out as a Klaus Schulze Fan Club in the Netherlands to form the present organization. In addition to publishing the magazine, KLEM organizes a get-together called the KLEM-dag once a year, as well as administering all sorts of sub-organizations, phone chains, concert stuff, and so on. The 70 page publication appears irregularly 6 times a year, and represents probably the oldest publication of its kind in the world. Recently, to celebrate their 10th anniversary, KLEM put out a limited-edition CD with ALL ORIGINAL MATERIAL by people like Bernd Kistenmacher, Klaus Schulze, Tangerine dream and others. If you can read Dutch, this publication should not be missed. Even if you don't read Dutch, but are willing to put in a bit of an effort with a dictionary, it would still be well worth your while.
international perspectives
In southern countries the cassettes are used mostly because records can't stand big heat. From our own experience we know the sound quality of Arabian cassettes is rather bad.
Over here in Germany, the whole situation is quite frustrating. Radio stations don't play cassettes for legal reasons, there isn't any magazine of any sort of information about a cassette culture and of course there's hardly anyone who sells or distributes cassettes. People rather buy records than tapes and anybody who wants make a start has to face the fact that there seems to be no demand at all for self-made tapes.
Comment about technology/legalities/artistic possibilities for citizens of the world. May I comment by Japanese? O.K. Sometime I feel that the evolution of technology doesn't take us to the better world. Already it gives us too convenience life by money. And TV kills the possibilities of aRt. Everybody think as same as everybody think. The best aRt will never born. But many aRt will born.
Naofumi Ishimaru recording as Yximalloo can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
Australian cassette movement seems to have lost momentum since its heyday of a year or so ago. No outstanding recent releases, as far as I'm concerned. Lots seems to be happening in Europe.
In some parts of the world folks are accustomed to singing out the latest family news. I have heard of folks in Asia singing songs into cassettes and mailing them to relatives across the oceans.
Hard to say. It seems the people who do something different are more in Europe (or at least outside the US) like Radio Art Foundation. My international dealings are pretty limited due to finances.
Only in East Berlin have I heard cassettes are more expensive than LPs and they prize them, other than that I have no observations on this question.
John Wiggins can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
While I was at Naropa one summer I studied West African Drumming and dancing. The Ghanian woman held private classes with pre-recorded tapes of the drums. Live drummers would have been bored with the repetition for these non-native dancers trying to catch on, but a tape recorder has no brain, and the Africans make good use of it. In the Cuban and Hatian drumming class we taped individual parts and words to all the songs, exchanged tapes of our own rhythms to share with drumming groups all over the country.
The international compilations and collaborative ventures are very helpful in terms of dissemination. The potential for distribution however, is yet to be scratched. As cheap communications technology develops further the possibilities will continue to expand.
Carola Von Hoffmannstahl recording with Solomonov and Von Hoffmannstahl can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
No. Records are totally obsolete and Digital CD's are strictly a developed-nation phenom.
It costs too much to go to Japan, Europe is confusing (a maze of foreign tongues) Australia and South America and those places don't really exist, they are only in atlases.
technology
Cassettes have gotten a lot better and still will for a while, I'm not sure if the advent of digital cassettes will make analog cassettes obsolete or not we'll have to see. (I know I'll sure as hell get a digital, but I'm not throwing out my two Akais.)
The invention of the 4 track cassette machine has made me very happy. That technology gave me a compromise I could live with because by not having the means to put out record it gave me better quality to my tapes. I was not about to be stopped by the quality credentials or restrictions put to us by various sources and I had released two tapes of our work before I got the Tascam with the idea of people listening to the contents, the music itself and not concentrating on the quality standards we have confined ourselves to. The cassette revolution has opened us up to accepting peoples work outside of the mega-star personality. Without being bound to the standardizing medium of a record which is expensive and has spoiled us with high expectations and have gotten us away from the middle class means and access to the music industry. So we created our own, grass roots, so to speak, surroundings. The new folk lore.
Sue Ann Harkey recording with the Kitchen Table Ensemble can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
As consumption devices k7s will never be as spectacular as records or CDs. & conversely, records will never be as personal, alterable, erasable, recordable nor as versitile as k7s. For instance, I can slap a tango tape into my walkman when I need to go out & negotiate the night of the city with a certian flair.
Yes. Video, using higher speeds has brought better video quality to taping while continuing with small formats (ie 1/2 inch and smaller). Audio engineering might look down that avenue. I would like for someone to invent a shotgun mike that is the size and looks like my fountain pen so I can spy on people in restaurants and at Safeway.
Quite often the better sound quality the more overworked and boring the music will be. At least in our area (Santa Cruz) the price of tape has stayed way down so we can afford to use brand name high bias tape.
Advantages of cassettes vs. records: small, recording process is cheap, can be re-used, easy to mail, portable players.
Advantages of records vs. cassettes: easy to cue, can be used as improvisational rhythm instrument via turntable manipulation + scratching, sound is better, big pictures on covers, more fun to look at in stores or on turntables.
It's important not to be come too stuck on the idea of cassettes per se. No doubt the cassette will become obsolete in the near future. The important thing about cassettes is that they help one think in terms of accessible media and direct artistic communication. It's important to remain flexible as regards to the medium.
Carola Von Hoffmannstahl recording with Solomonov and Von Hoffmannstahl can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
Getting better and cheaper - but too many LED's!
It's gotten better since I first discovered them in high school, over ten years ago.
Personally, I hate to divide cassettes from LP's. Music is music as far as I'm concerned; there's bad music on cassette and there's bad music on LP. Music is music. We don't mind cassettes mixed with LPs in a review section of a magazine as long as equal (roughly) time is devoted to both.
I have a Roland SH101 synthesizer and a Roland MC202 Microcomposer, a TEAC A3440 4 track tape recorder and a TEAC M20 mixer and the following effect pedals: A TC programmable phaser which I got second hand (quietest phaser I've heard) this is really a modulated filter rather than a phaser. An Amdek flanger (I was going to voltage control it but I haven't got around to it yet). One setting gives a nice tabla sound/ambience. A cheap analog delay currently being modified for lower noise and I borrow a compressor occasionally to bring interesting things in a patch, that always seem to happen in the background, up forward. This equipment is set up in a corner of my bedroom.
I tend to use the SH101 and the MC202 as a second voice for each ther usually one on a short envelope and not possible on one synth only. The sequencer on the SH101 is good for drum rhythm sequences while the MC202 is best for melodies. I like the delayed L.F.O. available on the MC202. I have yet to use the tape sync on the MC202 but a friend borrowed it and said it works well. One technique that I use is to have every 4th or 5th note in a long (30 note) sequence 2 octaves above or below the notes in the main octave. I then set the filter cut off between these two sets of notes which then have 2 different timbres and sound like two separate lines - all done at one time with one voice, one sequencer and one track on the tape.
As I use mainly electronic sounds and there is not reference point to acoustic instruments or live gigs, I treat the stereo field as a soundscape and often have a sound panning from side to side. I find the stereo movement of a soft background sound makes it easier to hear, as movement makes something easier to see, particularly if there is two sounds of similar timbre or frequency band. When using panning or a stereo sound try to be subtle, you don't have to pan inputs hard left and hard right you could instead pan not full left and not full centre for a subtle moving sound in med. left stereo field.
My compositions usually come from a new sound I find on the synth, which then suggests a melody or rhythm, rather than notes or harmony, my pieces are multi-track improvisations with my self. I use the sound and timbres from traditional electronic music and music concrete with the forms and rhythms of pop african music. I accept the input of chance as a part of the composition process i.e. momentary feedback, accidental eraser or over recording of part of a track, a track from a previous piece on another track; as long as I feel it forms a musically valid part of the piece.
Right now I take a loss on all tape costs unless I get a tape in return...I've started using chrome tape exclusively (except for C30's) and will put a 35 minute tape on a C46 just to have the chrome quality.
Will, The Unnatural Logarithm:
Cassettes are an equalizer because the technology of cassette reproduction limits the sound frequencies that can be recorded and the sound quality that can be achieved. Therefore low budget efforts can sound nearly as good as expensive professional studio recordings.
It's gotten better since I first discovered them in high school, over ten years ago.
What a pity they didn't use 1/4 inch tape which was one of the original ideas. We might now have 8 track cassette decks. Then again we might not it was the poor quality of the narrow tape that lead to noise reduction.
It's important not to be come too stuck on the idea of cassettes per se. No doubt the cassette will become obsolete in the near future. The important thing about cassettes is that they help one think in terms of accessible media and direct artistic communication. It's important to remain flexible as regards to the medium.
Carola Von Hoffmannstahl recording with Solomonov and Von Hoffmannstahl can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
The thing that has always intrigued me about cassettes is that they are like cats - they live multiple lives. Records come and go, cassettes live on in many reincarnations, reflecting the life of its owner/maker and its progression. This month it's entertainment, next month its a travel diary, the next month a letter. Accessible, reusable - that's communication!
making money
You can't make any money, if you mean to get paid for your work. But otherwise, my idea of tape distribution, where there is an archive with a big cataloge and all kinds of music, should be a possibility if enough people are interested. Instead of trying to get some cassettes reading small ads in obscure papers, here and there. I don't know, really.
We sell ZIP (name of cassette mag) through selected shops, handling our own distribution. We seem to give away as many as we sell. Good response is better than cash, although cash helps. Tried mail order but the response was minimal.
By selling them. How you ask? Put sounds on them that other people like. There are too many suspiciously bad cassettes (by bad I mean the range between incomprehensible to banal). If you want to make money (and I hope for the sake of your virgin art-form you do not) you must give the people what they want (which is probably still Supertramp).
At present cassettes are not the area to get into if your dream is immediate media moguldom. Selling cassettes like little objects is a somewhat limited approach anyway. The financial potential for decentralized culture lies in developments discussed in #7 and #8.
Carola Von Hoffmannstahl recording with Solomonov and Von Hoffmannstahl can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
Very futilely. I use to play flute with a tape deck on the street and made money because it was novel. But it had to be classical music.
You can't MAKE money, you just barely make up your costs as far as I can tell...we play gigs and sell tapes...more money from gigs than tape sales.
Will, The Unnatural Logarithm:
I don't know, I just want to break even.
Money...? I'm still trying to figure that one out. Money scares the hell out of me when it gets close to art. When I go to create or distribute my work I don't want to be thinking about my check-book - although it is something I keep in mind. I don't know - it's a real problem.
Love it. I opposite "popular media" like videos so the "normals" leave it alone - anyone who puts out tapes has got to be a weirdo. No money in it at all.
I honestly don't think you can make money, I mean MONEY with cassettes, but I'm probably wrong.
John Wiggins can be heard here, excerpted from the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7
Lord Litter: Kentuck Fried Royalties
You have to realize that everyday life determines what you do - you have to have a flat, something to eat - so you have to have a job. This leads to a structured life (like it or not .. that's not the point .. this is a fact) - now when you find out about this networking world you have to decide what your part will be. There are uncountable ways to be active and it is sure impossible to do it all because you have to realize that there will be no profit .. so after a solid look at the possibilities you have to specialize somehow. The main point about this network world is to establish an alternative way of producing / living and exchanging culture - so there is almost a need to let this grow without being based on money. In fact I can't think of any antarctic output that is not existing on our level (an exception might be monstrous sculptures .. how to send them with the mail? ..ha ha..) - and it grows permanently - lately quite some "normal" english pop groups join after being rejected by the "official" musicbiz. They were overjoyed to find that they don't need them to spread their music worldwide and there are artists from every direction who do their thing because they want / need to do it .. they are not looking for money .. they are looking for YOU! So very little activity is important to work on the whole thing!!!
To conclude .. you have to find out how much activity is healthy to be added to your "normal" life - it has to be a balanced whole thing. Remember that we are working on something that is opposite to the basic structure leaves to work on something else - all other way so handling it will lead to a disaster.
I'm concentrating bow on spreading the news and on playing my music. All other activities I kinda slowed down to a healthy minimum.
other
Architects Office Archiving
A floating catalog system can function best for musicians that use a variety of sound and instrument configurations. Using this plan, a general numeric or alphabetical catalog system is instituted. Open-ended systems are often best, and can emancipate your organization from a base 10 system (see example A). The concept of a floating catalog system comes in at the first subset level. Here a variety of numeric or alphabetic systems can be employed and thereby allow a great deal of latitude in cataloging pieces which may in fact represent unique configurations.
Example A
122:AOP09 BANDSHELL JUNE 2 122.1"no ice please" 122.2"hymnosis"1 122.3 122.4 max and painters 122.5 122.6 "i chris" 122.7"sym 40" 122.8
The secret to constructing a good archive is to begin immediately cataloging what you have done, and keep it updated. A floating catalog system will relieve you of some of the frustration that sometimes can be created initially by attempting to impose structure on an organic process. The benefits to those involved greatly outweighs the labor involved, and can encourage accurate description and concise identification of your musicworks.
Secondarily, the catalog can be of great use of the music appreciator, providing a historigraphical list of music works of an admired musical group. The inclusion of the catalog number parenthetically on a playlist affords the listener a direct key to the origin of a piece of music, and conceivably eliminate much of the redundancy of information included in sleeve notes
Simple Studio Effects Abuse
Cassettes are pocket-sized, but you can make your music on them sound as big as you like with simple studio-effects abuse. The following production idea makes use of reverb and noise gate.
Gated Reverb: (once I was shown this one, I could not stop using it) the patch: snare drum signal into reverb device, reverb output into gate or kepex (keyable program expander), output of gate into drum mix or whatever is appropriate.
If your gate has a keying or external control input, also patch the dry snare signal in as a control so that you can get cleaner, quicker envelope following.
Adjusting the Patch Levels: Set levels normally for the snare mic and the reverb. with the gate by-passed you will hear "pchshshhhhhh" a wet kind of ambience. Now the fun part. Set the gate so that no signal passes until the snare drum is hit, and so that the gate opens all the way immediately and closes before the reverb dwindles away naturally. Try making the release time quite short, now you should hear a gun-shot like "Pzch!" or at least an entertaining splat.
Further tweaking: Boost 300Hz and 4KHz on the reverb send or return it for additional rudeness, or use a low boost on tom-tom gated reverb and high boost on snare gated reverb on the same drum set. Try this at a live performance and note how many people look for the electronic drums.
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