Cassette culture

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Cassettes of varying tape quality and playing time.

Cassette culture (or the cassette underground[1]) refers to the practices
surrounding amateur production and distribution of recorded music that emerged in
the late 1970s via home-made audio cassettes.[2] It is characterized by the
adoption of home recording by independent artists, and involvement in ad-hoc self-
distribution and promotion networks�primarily conducted through mail (though there
were a few retail outlets, such as Rough Trade and Falling A in the UK) and
fanzines.[3] The culture was in part an offshoot of the mail art movement of the
1970s and 1980s,[4] and participants engaged in tape trading in addition to
traditional sales. The culture is related to the DIY ethic of punk, and encouraged
musical eclecticism and diversity.[5]

Contents
1 Initiating factors
2 United Kingdom
3 United States
4 Creative packaging
5 21st century
6 Notes
7 External links
8 References
9 See also
Initiating factors
Several factors led to the rise of cassette culture. The development of the
cassette tape recording format was important - the improvement of tape formulations
and availability of sophisticated cassette decks in the late 1970s allowed
participants to produce high-quality copies of their music inexpensively.[6] Also
significant was the fact that bands did not need to go into expensive recording
studios any longer. Multi-track recording equipment was becoming affordable,
portable and of fairly high quality during the early 1980s. 4-track cassette
recorders developed by Tascam and Fostex allowed artists to record and get a
reasonable sound at home.[7] As well, electronic instruments, such as drum machines
and synthesizers, became more compact and inexpensive.[7] Therefore, it became
increasingly feasible to construct home-recording studios, giving rise to an
increase of recording artists. Add to this the fact that college radio was coming
into its own. For many years there were non-commercial college radio stations but
now they had a newfound freedom in format - giving rise to regular cassette-only
radio shows that showcased and promoted the work of home recording artists.[8] With
the influx of new music from sources other than the major record companies�and the
quasi-major medium of college radio to lend support�the audio boom was on.

United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom cassette culture was at its peak in what is known as the
post-punk period, 1978�1984. UK cassette culture was championed by marginal
musicians and performers such as Tronics,[9] the Instant Automatons,[10] Storm
Bugs,[11] Sean T Wright,[12] the insane picnic, the Cleaners from Venus and Final
Program, anarcho-punk groups such as the APF Brigade, the Apostles and Chumbawamba,
and many of the purveyors of Industrial music, e.g. Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret
Voltaire, and Clock DVA. Artists self-releasing would often copy their music in
exchange for "a blank tape plus self-addressed envelope". But there also existed
many small 'tape labels' such as Falling A Records, Sterile Records and Third Mind
Records that operated in opposition to the capitalistic aim of maximizing profit.
There was great diversity amongst such labels, some were entirely 'bedroom based',
utilising new home tape copying technologies (see below) whilst others were more
organised, functioning in a similar way to more established record labels. Some
also did vinyl releases, or later developed into vinyl labels. Many compilation
albums were released, presenting samples of work from various artists. It was not
uncommon for artists who had a vinyl contract to release on cassette compilations,
or to continue to do cassette-only album releases (of live recordings, work-in-
progress material, etc.) after they had started releasing records. In September
1982 the NME acknowledged the band Tronics for releasing in 1980 the first
independent cassette album, entitled Tronics, to be nationally distributed.[9]

Cassette culture received something of a mainstream boost when acknowledged by the

major music press. Both the New Musical Express (NME) and Sounds, the main weekly
music papers of the time in the UK, launched their own 'cassette culture' features,
in which new releases would be briefly reviewed and ordering information given. In
the U.S. magazines such as Op Magazine, Factsheet Five and Unsound rose to fill the
void.

The October 2011 edition of Record Collector magazine published an article about
the significance of cassette culture in the UK and listing 21 rare but sought after
cassette releases.

United States

R. Stevie Moore (pictured 2011) was one of the most famous artists associated with
cassette culture.[13]
In the US, cassette culture activity extended through the late 1980s and into the
1990s. Although larger operators made use of commercial copying services, anybody
who had access to copying equipment (such as the portable tape to tape cassette
players that first became common around the early 1980s) could release a tape, and
publicize it in the network of fanzines and newsletters that existed around this
scene. Therefore cassette culture was an ideal and very democratic method for
making available music that was never likely to have mainstream appeal. Many found
in cassette-culture music that was more imaginative, challenging, beautiful, and
groundbreaking than output released on vinyl.

In the United States, Cassette Culture was associated with DIY sound collage, riot
grrrl, and punk music and blossomed across the country on cassette labels like
Ladd-Frith, Psyclones, Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine, Swinging Axe, Pass the Buck,
E.F. Tapes, Mindkill, Happiest Tapes on Earth, Apraxia Music Research, and Sound of
Pig (which released over 300 titles), Portland's label From the Wheelchair to the
Pulpit, Walls of Genius (which released over 30 titles, including their own,
Architects Office and The Miracle)[14]and in Olympia, Washington on labels like K
Records and brown interior music. Artists such as PBK, Big City Orchestra, Alien
Planetscapes, Don Campau, Ken Clinger, Dino DiMuro, Tom Furgas, The Haters, Zan
Hoffman, If, Bwana, Hal McGee, Min�y, Dave Prescott, Dan Fioretti, dk, Jim Shelley,
Suburban Campers, The Silly Pillows, Atlanta's Saboteur, and hundreds of others
recorded numerous albums available only on cassette throughout the late '80s and
well into the '90s.[citation needed]

The Grateful Dead allowed their fans to record their shows. For many years the
tapers set up their microphones wherever they could. The eventual forest of
microphones became a problem for the official sound crew. Eventually this was
solved by having a dedicated taping section located behind the soundboard, which
required a special "tapers" ticket. The band allowed sharing of tapes of their
shows, as long as no profits were made on the sale of their show tapes.[15]
Sometimes the sound crew would allow the tapers to connect directly to the
soundboard, which created exceptional concert recordings. Taping and trading became
a Grateful Dead sub-culture.[16]

Creative packaging
The packaging of cassette releases, whilst sometimes amateurish, was also an aspect
of the format in which a high degree of creativity and originality could be found.
For the most part packaging relied on traditional plastic shells with a photocopied
"J-card" insert, but some labels made more of an effort. The Chocolate Monk-
released album "Anusol" by the A Band, for instance, came packaged with a
"suppository" unique to each copy - one of which was a used condom wrapped in
tissue.[citation needed] BWCD released a cassette by Japanese noise artist Aube
that came tied to a blue plastic ashtray shaped like a fish. EEtapes of Belgium
release of This Window's (UK) "Extraction 2" was packaged with an X-ray of a broken
limb in 1995. The Barry Douglas Lamb album "Ludi Funebres" had the cassette box
buried in some earth contained in a larger outer tin and covered in leaves. Walls
Of Genius went to great lengths, spray-painting abstract art cassette labels,
affixing hand-made "authentic" labels, painting cassette boxes (the "white"
cassette, 1984), creating one-of-a-kind pinup covers ("The Mysterious Case of Pussy
Lust", 1985) and issuing Certificates of Genius to anybody who purchased a title.

21st century
Though in the mid-'90s cassette culture seemed to decline with the appearance of
new technologies and methods of distribution such as the Internet, MP3 files, file
sharing, and CD-Rs, in recent years it has once again seen a revival, with the rise
of partly or wholly tape-based labels such as Burger Records, POST/POP, Memorials
of Distinction, Tuff Enuff Records, First Base Tapes[17] and Gnar Tapes.[18] An
exhibition was held at Printed Matter in New York City devoted to current American
cassette culture entitled "Leaderless: Underground Cassette Culture Now" (May
12�26, 2007).

Notes
Jones 1992, p.6
Staub 2010, p.4
McGee 1992, p.vii-viii
Minoy 1992, p.61-62
James 1992, p.ix-x.
Produce 1992, p.4-5.
Jones, 1992, p.9.
Pareles, 1987
NME 11 September 1982
"Dusted Reviews: The Instant Automatons - Not So Deep As a Well".
www.dustedmagazine.com.
"The Living Archive of Underground Music: Sean T. Wright". The Living Archive of
Underground Music.
Reynolds, Simon (24 April 2005). "Vision on". the Guardian.
Unterberger, Richie (1999). "Cassette Culture". AllMusic.
"Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-07-28. Retrieved 2014-07-19.
"Internet Archive: Grateful Dead". Archive.org. Retrieved 2011-07-16.
Epstein, Jonathon S. (1998). Youth Culture: Identity in a Postmodern World,
Blackwell Publishing. p 127. ISBN 1-55786-851-4
Perry, Adam (18 May 2016). "First Base Tapes Forges a Young Boulder Scene in Old-
School Style".
"Rhizome". Rhizome. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
External links
2016 article on cassette label art
2015 article on US cassette labels
Tape-Mag.com Launched at the beginning of 2018, a very large online archive of
cassette-culture and related material.
References
Thomas Bey William Bailey, Unofficial Release: Self-Released And Handmade Audio In
Post-Industrial Society, Belsona Books Ltd., 2012
James, Robin, 1992. Introduction. In Robin James (Ed.) Cassette mythos. Brooklyn,
NY: Autonomedia.
Jones, Steve, 1992. The Cassette Underground. In Robin James (Ed.) Cassette mythos.
Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia.
McGee 1992. Cause and Effect. In Robin James (Ed.) Cassette mythos. Brooklyn, NY:
Autonomedia.
Minoy 1992. Mail Art and Mail Music. In Robin James (Ed.) Cassette mythos.
Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia.
Palmer, Robert, Pop Life: Electric Guitars, New York Times, September 25, 1985.
Pareles, Jon, Record-it-yourself Music On Cassette, New York Times, May 11, 1987.
Produce, A., A short History of the Cassette. In Robin James (Ed.) Cassette mythos.
Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia.
Staub, Ian Matthew, Redubbing the Underground: Cassette Culture in Transition
(2010). Honors Theses - All. Paper 418.
http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/etd_hon_theses/418
Marvin @ Freealbums Various Artists - Tellus 1 & 2
Goldsmith, Kenneth, Poetry Foundation Podcast: The Tellus cassettes
Walls of Genius 1998. In Richie Unterberger's "Unknown Legends of Rock'n'Roll:
Psychedelic Unknowns, Mad Geniuses, Punk Pioneers, Lo-Fi Mavericks & More".
Backbeat Books, San Francisco, also in Robin James (Ed.) Cassette Mythos. Brooklyn,
NY: Autonomedia
Weidenbaum, Marc, Classic Tellus Noise
See also
Bullshit Detector
Bootleg recording
C86
Demo tape
DIY punk ethic, Punk ideology
Industrial music
Lo-fi music
Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture
Mix tape
Noise music
Punk rock, anarcho-punk, post punk
Richard Youngs
Scratch Video
Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine
vte
Independent production
Reading
Alternative comics Alternative manga Fanzine Webcomic business Webtoon Minicomic
Co-ops Dojinshi conventions printers shops Self publishing Small press Amateur
press association
Audio
Independent music Record label Netlabel Open-source label Radio Station Pirate
radio Cassette culture Dojin music Lo-fi music Tracker (MOD) music Podsafe
Musical instruments
Circuit bending Experimental musical instrument
Video
Amateur
Home movies Amateur film Amateur pornography Fan film Machinima
Professional
Independent animation Cinema of Transgression Independent film Exploitation film
Guerrilla filmmaking B movie Golden Age 50s 60s�70s 80s�present Z movie Midnight
movie Low-budget film No budget film No Wave Cinema Double feature
Software
Cowboy coding Demoscene Free software Open-source software Software cracking
Unofficial patch Warez scene
Video games
Indie games-development-developers Homebrew Fangame Dojin soft Mod Open-source
video game ROM hack
FoodDrinks
Independent soft drink Homebrewing Microbrewery
Other
Indie art Amateur photography Mail art Na�ve art Outsider art Visionary environment
Indie RPG Independent circuit (wrestling) Independent TV station
General
Indie design Do it yourself (DIY ethic) Dojin Make (magazine) Maker Faire Social
peer-to-peer processes