So Apparently This Is A Thing...

And I might just finally succumb to it.  

September 7, 2013 is Cassette Store Day. 

I have not understood the minor resurgence in cassette tapes among the experimental music fringe.  It felt like they were just being contrary for no good reason.  

I mean, you lose on artwork, audio fidelity, collector value; I really can see no upside...and yet...and yet...

Right now cassettes are all that I can rock in my car!  And I am getting a little tired of being stuck at least ten years ago as far as my musical choices. 

Exactly one store in Chicago is participating.  A place I have never heard of prior to this post but is brand new and operating out of an old Currency Exchange/Payday Loan place.  It looks very junk drawer-ish from their FB page. 

So now Cassette Store Day is also an excuse to check out a new record store...enticing...worth considering...

Hold the phone - here comes the 411 to seal the deal.  One of the releases is from Pulled Apart By Horses.   

Dem turned me on to this band a few years back and I like their moxie.  Their very first record was "Live At Leeds" and they even swiped the album cover.  



There is really no other way to close out this post except with this video.  You are welcome. 

Born In Chicago!

Coming home from a beer and potato chip run I happened to have XRT's "Blues Breakers" tuned into the radio dial.

Lonnie Baker Brooks started running through a version of "Born In Chicago" and it made me think of this similar (but different) song of the same name. 

This album came out when I was a senior in high school.  I used to have it on tape but it hasn't yet surfaced during the Great Cassette Excavation.  

At the moment I can't recall a single other song on the tape but I really dug this bratty take on da blooze.  It wasn't angry enough to be punk but it was also too hip to be hair metal.  

A quick search on the Slammin Watusis turned up this article from 1988 when they first signed to CBS Records.  It mentions going on upcoming tours with The Godfathers and then The Replacements.  Both vastly superior bands to be sure, but you can still give it up for the hometown boys with their hometown pride. 

CRUSH

Haven't thought about this cut in probably about fifteen years but today the shoebox full of cassettes lying on my passenger side brought it back something fierce.  

"Crush" by The Oblivious.  Saw them open for Concrete Blonde once and they were tight. 

This song will stick in your head for sure!  

I am also WAY into this look you got going on, Ms. Vincent.   

Strangely this was on a tape was marked HEAVY METAL on one side and the other was originally That Petrol Emotion.  It was clearly a tape over; it also had Sonic Youth, Monster Magnet, Giant Sand and early Luscious Jackson.  

Questions: 

• Was there an intended recipient for this mix or was it just me spending an evening with my music?  
• Why did I feel the urgency to tape over a mix of HEAVY METAL and what was on it? 

I have to admit, I was kind of looking forward to hearing That Petrol Emotion when I popped it in the deck.  They are a Junk Drawer band for sure. 

The Days and Nights of Gary & Flipper

As promised here is my first report from the archealogical dig that is my collection of cassettes. 

This mix tape was made for me by my good buddy CJB and its re-discovery could not be better timed since I am going to see the Afghan Whigs perform at Metro this Friday night. 

There are actually five Whigs tracks on the mix even though only four are listed.  The untitled track that ends Congregation comes directly after "Kiss The Floor" at the end of Side A.  

So I am going to say with five tracks off of that landmark Whigs album that it is likely that this mix tape was compiled sometime late 1992 or early 1993; this tape would have been a "correspondence tape" between two friends.  A way to close the miles apart and share what the current soundtrack to your days sounded like. 

This is a really solid, rocking tape and it holds up very well. The only tracks that feel off to me are the Big Star contributions which are a little too sparse and fragile in comparison to the more muscular sounds of their surroundings.

I like the limited palette of this mix which is surprising because often I consider that a faux pas or at least laziness.

Six of the 14 bands get two cuts or more with the Afghan Whigs being the clear winner.  (Gary?  Flipper?)

CJB did an undergrad stint at downstate University of Illinois.  This is significant because the three tracks attributed to H. are by a band called Honcho Overload that was pretty decent and deserved to make it beyond the local scene but didn't.  I am glad to have some audio record of them. 

 

I also really dig the having such a great example of CJB's precise handwriting.  While there isn't much to say in the way of cover art, you can tell he took his time to transmit the important information with care.  

The inside of the J-card has this quizzical thing on it:

This has to be an inside joke that has been obliterated from my memory bank. 

All in all, "The Days and Nights of Gary & Flipper" is a great mix that is evocative of the Grunge Boom (& its forebears) despite having just one band from Seattle present and accounted for. 

Nice one CJB!

Cassettes are back!

For a limited time anyway.  My iPod isn't working properly so if I want to listen to anything other than radio (gawd) in my '97 Honda Civic - I had to bust out this antiquated format. 

I am trying to get into it as an early development roadmap of my personal musical aesthetic. 

Also, a couple of years ago I inherited like 600 tapes from my good buddy SD.  As the name of this blog suggests, I am a bit of a pack rat collector and definitely a bargain bin scavenger. 

I am going to chart what I find on this blog.

Help Me Jack Pepsi!

So for the past week I have been driving around with a HUGE bottle of Jack Daniels on the floor of my passenger side.  I meant to return it to my brother but forgot (along with a half a box of Fruity Pebbles).  

Today, I fished Tad's "8-Way Santa" out of the shoebox of cassettes sitting on the passenger seat (another story).  On the way home from work I played "Jack Pepsi." 

This is a song that sticks with you.  Both because of the vivid imagery and Tad Doyle's plaintive blood curdling howl.

I used to scream "Help Me, Jack Pepsi!  Help Me, Jack Pepsi!" back in college whenever me and the crew were about to embark on some risky behavior.  It seemed as good a prayer as any. 

I remember that the booklet for the album had a comic strip by Peter Bagge.  It was my introduction to his art. 

  

The song is pretty grim to be sure, but you gotta remember that it is being told in the past tense so somehow the narrator (and hopefully his buddy Jack Helton from Nampa, Idaho) survived right?  

How did they pull through? We are not told.  But it had to have been nothing short of miraculous.  

I did some research on the Patron Saint of Drunks and there are at least seven possibilities.  So again, pleading to Jack Pepsi makes about as much sense as anything.