One
thing about the first International Cassette Store Day that bothered me was all
of the releases that were being put out on cassette but had been released
earlier this year only digitally, on CD and on record even.
For me,
a lot of the music I like already comes out on cassette and if it doesn’t then
I don’t necessarily want to hear it on cassette anyway. Bands like Flaming Lips for example, who are
Record Store Day darlings, seem to have their album “The Terror” released on
cassette just for those enthusiasts who are attempting to collect every piece
of music from the band.
I wasn’t
really that excited to see At-The-Drive-In released on cassette either, but in
the end it didn’t matter because neither of these releases were at the shop I
visited. (I’m not complaining either,
because if they were there I wouldn’t have bought them anyway so I’m glad that
they weren’t)
Just
before noon, I arrived at Red Scroll Records in Wallingford, CT and was the first
one in line. (Okay, maybe I was there
closer to twenty minutes early, but let’s pretend otherwise) The tapes available were limited to about
ten different titles and of them the Suicidal Tendencies tape put out by Burger
Records seemed to have the most available copies.
No, I
did not pick up the Suicidal Tendencies tape for the same reasons described
above with bands re-releasing music of sorts.
I did notice one thing that caught me off guard however, and I knew that
I had to act.
There
were two tapes that immediately caught my eye, both of which were the only
copies available, so sorry to everyone else who couldn’t get one that day but you just weren’t as fast
as me or something.
The
first tape that jumped out at me was The Halo Benders’ “God Don’t Make No Junk”
(K Records). Back when I first started writing about music,
I contacted K Records and somehow managed to get a copy of “The Rebels Not In”
on CD to review. So finding this tape
was like running into an old friend I hadn’t seen in a while except, you know,
without all of the social awkwardness.
In the
spirit of International Cassette Day continuing, I would really like to see
albums that came after “God Don’t Make No Junk” released by K Records on
cassette, as I would be more than willing to buy them all. Even though I have the CD, I’d even buy “The
Rebels Not In” on cassette (It’s actually something I’ve been contemplating
wanting since I picked up this tape)
Now,
The Halo Benders are the side project of Calvin Johnson (of Beat Happening
fame) and Doug Martsch (of Built to Spill fame). Though I did not find a Built to Spill
cassette, sitting nicely next to the Halo Benders tape though I did find a copy
of Beat Happening’s “Black Candy” (Which was originally released through K
Records as well, but the tape says Sub Pop, so go figure)
While
this pairing of single tapes was quite a find for me (I’m still giddy from it,
a week later) it makes me hopeful for the future of Cassette Store Day as
well. Perhaps next year I shall find
another Halo Benders album on cassette as well as a Built to Spill tape instead
of Beat Happening. The future is just
so wide open.
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