Part five of a series of posts reflecting on almost a decade
of DIY culture - focusing this time on compilation tapes and recycled releases. For an
introduction to this series, click
here.
Eight:
2008: Whilst
we’re talking about being wary of technology – I made a comp CD for myself
today. What a shitty experience that was, shuffling around MP3s on the PC so
that I could burn them to CD so that I could play it on my stereo upstairs.
Yeah, the end was the same, but the process was sterile and dull. Not like
making a mix tape, where you get to listen to the songs as you record them so
that you know everything’s in the right order and just generally kick back for
two hours, drink tea and listen to music you dig with no interruptions.
Sometimes having fun with the means is as important as getting the right thing
in the end. Do things the hard way once in a while.
2017: I
still entirely agree with this post, but my own commitment to making tapes has
fully waned. Part of this is due to practicalities. Realistically, how portable
is an audio tape? I don’t have a Walkman anymore and what car can play a sweet
mix tape on your 2017 summer road trip? Worse, if you make a tape for someone
as a surprise present, what’s to say they can even play it? It’s the biggest
elephant in the room that although tapes are cool, they’re also a weird retro flyer
that comes when you buy a MP3 download code. Worse still, I found myself with
so many bangers only available as MP3’s that I ended up burning play lists to
CD-R then taping from the CD-R, which is just peak-nonsense.
But... I’m of a generation for whom a lot of the albums that got me
into punk and hardcore came to my attention via tapes made by older mates and I
can remember desperately taking a Gorilla Biscuits / CIV / Better Than A
Thousand tape apart with a tiny screw driver to save the mangled mess inside. I’ve
also a genuine appreciation for the format that goes beyond nostalgia. The
limitations of an audio tape are also its strengths; how many times did a song
that sucked on first listen worm its way into your brain because fasting
forward through it was a pain in the arse? And even the warping, the stretched
tape, the sound of decay is kind of nice if you think about it. That’s not poor
quality; at its best, that’s the sound of how much you’ve enjoyed listening to
it, of how much that music means to you.
I’m not sure there’s a meaningful way to replicate that fragility. It
must be possible to create files that decay, MP3’s where each play triggers a
further process of descending into some sort of pre-programmed warping or
white-noise. But what’s the point? Am I really arguing that a format that
doesn’t corrode with each play should fabricate this out of some sort of
romantic notion that the things I really like should turn to shit? I suspect
I’d just keep master files anyhow and continually make new versions each time
the ones on my player started to sound like arse.
I do sometimes find myself making 45 minute MP3s though, cutting and
pasting songs from a play list in Audacity to make files that replicate C90’s.
On my cheap player, fast forwarding within a file is about as much fun as it
was on the Walkman I took on family holidays, so putting everything together in
a MP3 that replicates the side of a mix tape also recreates that enforced
listening experience. But it’s an unsatisfying way to ensure a new song
sandwiched between two bangers ends up a firm favourite.
Nine:
2008: Whilst
we’re talking about tapes I’ve noticed that since people other than me still
care about them, wouldn’t it be cool to do a limited run of tapes to go with
your CD release? I’ve not tried them but a few kids on Collective Zine have
mentioned Tapeline as a good place to
get custom audio tapes. I read in a zine as well about people reusing old
VHS tapes and dubbing live band footage or art projects on them. If you go
charity shopping, getting a stash should be dirt cheap. Tape over the pushed
out tabs and you’re set.
2010: We did this
with the LIKE GRENADES EP (2017: Note
- ripping off our friends in WHOLE
IN THE HEAD) – it was pretty boring
dubbing them all but it was quite cool to see a pile of 60 recycled tapes, all
with download codes and all unique because I’d left the original recording on
the other side- there was a ANT & DEC split tape, for example.
2017: I’ve
already written about the tape labels as a life line for broke punks elsewhere
on this blog. Around the same time as I was thinking about that earlier post
though, the band I play in discussed releasing our own tape.
Following on from the success of In
On A Secret - where live recordings of the bands that played the show were
released as an online album - and ripping off an earlier 7 inch called ‘Same
Shit Different Day’, the plan was pretty simple: record a small number of
bands in the same studio on the same day and release the outcome as a
compilation tape.
Alan from Hackjob put
together the original compilation and explains the idea we
were planning to brazenly steal:
For
me punk is all about involvement. Right from the very beginning, gathering
like-minded folks together has been a massive part of what gives punk its power
and its longevity – see The Roxy, Dial House, The 121 Club etc for shining
examples.
I
wanted to do something similar on a small scale with ‘Same Shit, Different Day’.
I thought it would be fun to create a snapshot of South Coast (roughly) bands
at an instant in time, and recording everyone in the same place, on the same
day, seemed like the best way of achieving it. The 6 bands on the 7” are very
different musically so it was also a great way of demonstrating a cohesive
scene – no egos, no fathing around, just get in there and blast it out. I was
really pleased with the result...
*
The plan was pretty simple. But like pretty simple plans conceived by
punks the world over, our tape compilation never got off the ground.
Of course, it’s impossible to say if the reality of putting out a tape
would have been as easy we thought. But we’d gotten as far as costing the
release with help from our friends who run Cult Culture and Circle House Records, and
got the hypothetical tape down to about £1.10 a unit. This was 99 pre-dubbed
compilations, each with a card sleeve, an A5 insert, a label
maker strip for the cover, tape stickers stamped with a star to show side A and
19 minutes of the best music that never even got properly discussed...
Component
|
Cost per
unit (99 units)
|
15p
|
|
70p
|
|
A5 tape
insert (b/w copying at the library like a proper punk rocker, 2 to an A4
sheet)
|
5p (10p
an A4 b/w copy)
|
2p
(£1.50 a pack)
|
|
7p
(£6.31)
|
|
10p
|
(You can have this one for free).
*
Incidentally, there was a predictable ending to recording over
pre-dubbed tapes. I eventually accumulated a shoe box full of cassette singles
that I’d periodically picked up whilst charity shopping. This treasure trove of
ancient, shitty music sat quietly rotting in the background through a couple of
abortive bands until eventually the moment came to tape over them. I passed
them to our bassist to do the dubbing duties and it turned out that every one
was warped to fuck. Every last tape. And that was that.
*
Jump to fragment (links added as fragments are posted): Intro // One // Two // Three // Four // Five // Six // Seven // Eight // Nine // Ten // Eleven // Twelve // Thirteen // Fourteen // Fifteen // Sixteen // Seventeen