Friday, January 18, 2008

Barking


This lot have come up twice in Comments now, so I have taken it as a Sign. You may consider it your Friday bonus.

I still want to hear about the albums you bought only on cassette, and how long the pesky things lasted (see Gazza Numoid below). Any thoughts on coloured lightbulbs in teenage bedrooms also welcome. I tried a blue one once - created a rather morgue-like ambiance.

Bow Wow Wow - 'C30, C60, C90 Go!' (1980)

14 comments:

  1. Had this too - the cassette's yellow isnt it? Do you remember the Smash Hits with special feature on BWW. Had the lovely A - L'win sprawled on mixing desk under a tartan travel blanket I think. I would sometimes buy pirate copy cassettes (3 for £5) from the market of albums like 'Roxy Greatest', 'Off The Wall' which lasted about 2 plays before going on the wobble and would sometimes have the side 1 on both sides.

    *heads toward loft ladder for a rummage*

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  2. Check this link too blank tape retromania - it's a winner

    http://www.tapedeck.org/

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  3. I went for a red light bulb in 1983thinking it would be one for the ladies. I played 'Cafe Blue' by the Style council a lot too.
    In the end, it just looked like a Belizian boudoir from the street.
    A passing MOD Policeman (off duty from his nearby Greenham Common 6 month detachment) knocked on my door asking for a shag.

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  4. Your 60 watter was l'allumette qui portait sa flame, alors.

    Annabella Lu Win in the Smash Hits Mondo describes had a similar effect on me.

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  5. I've got the From Brussels With Love tape on chic Belgian indie label Les Disques du Crepuscule. Pretentious, moi?

    Also BEF Music For Stowaways, another cassette only release (originally anyway).

    In the late 80's I did a lot of commuting between Hampshire and Teeside so I bought the Prefabs Langley Park To Memphis and a Todd Rundgren compilation on tape. Round about that time I had the car broken into and the Radio Cassette stolen but they left my tapes. An unkind friend made the obvious 'joke' the police were looking for a music loving thief.

    As far as I know all these tapes still play OK but I haven't got anything to play them on :(

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  6. There are hi-tec solutions of course. Yet all these memories have come back to me thanks to a £19 cassette player from Tesco x

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  7. When I went away to university I couldn't work out how to get my record player there so I took a cassette only thing and went in for cassettes only in a big way. I could write a long list of stuff I bought only on cassette, basically just about anything I got from 1987 to 1992, including all of the prefabs after Swoon, michelle shocked, billy bragg stuff (which I tended to buy on record as well in an unusual-for-me example of completist lunacy. They all seem to be standing the test of time, although it's rare that I get any of them out for a listen, having generally replaced them with mp3s.

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  8. You are Cassette Boy! 'Snap' on one tape at least then - 'Life's A Riot With Spy vs Spy'(lasted 3 years, went wonky).

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  9. Just bought a Denon cassette deck on Ebay for £10 including delivery. Not sure how good it will be but it's worth a gamble. If it works I've got some interesting stuff on tape.

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  10. I went through a tape phase just prior to buying my first CD player (that lasted for 10 years!) and vividly remember walking down Oxford Street with Bowie's 'Let's Dance' making a suitable soundtrack on my Walkman for the London scene. That night I went to see Rik Mayall in a Chekhov play that I can't recall the title of.
    Happy days.

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  11. Davy - the 60 watter kept me warm after empty hours roaming the streets.

    Mick - Bet you won't be taping the Hit Parade.

    Steve - I think the Chekhov play you mentioned with Rik Mayall was the 'Utter Utter Bastard Cherry Orchard'

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  12. Ah....I've got a BEF LP on tape as well - Music Of Quality & Distinction Vol 1. It has a stunning version of 'It's Over' as covered by Billy Mackenzie.

    Most of the 2,000 odd tapes I've got are home made things anaf magazine giveaways. I did go through a spell of when I had my first walkman of buying new stuff on tape, but mots of it has since been suplemented by the CD version.

    But I will admit that in respect of 'Technique' by New Order and 'Talking To The Taxman' by Billy Bragg, I have them on tape, vinyl and CD (and the latter as part of a recent box-set as well....)

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