ART58Koen takes us back in time...
Flashback to 1984, traveling overland from the Netherlands to Pakistan and continuing by plane to Sri Lanka, happily (but carefully) snapping away with my little Minox camera, only to receive a letter from my parents much later in Colombo that the last 3 rolls of film I’d sent homewards turned out to be all overexposed… The enormous amounts of dust in the border area of Iran - Pakistan probably screwed up my poor camera, bummer.
Taking photos had lost its charm completely for a while and when I arrived in Singapore (*) I decided to buy - instead of a new camera - a cool metallic-looking Sony Walkman + a bunch of bootleg cassettes. Music kept me going for a long time, all the way through Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and China.
By the time I got home by Trans-Siberian, it didn’t take that long before I started visiting record shops again, talk about addiction…
Most of my purchases were
on vinyl, but just occasionally I bought an original cassette and one of
these was a 1982 EG Records compilation entitled First Edition, which
introduced a whole bunch of intriguing new artists/groups to me: Brian
Eno, Robert Fripp, Jon Hassell, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, etc. This
cassette too often got played on my walkman!
That particular album was never rereleased on CD and doesn’t feature any ‘rarities’, but still holds up pretty well I think. While checking it on https://www.discogs.com/
In the good old tradition of Willard (anyone remember him?) I decided to compile a digital Deluxe Edition with all tracks.
(*) Singapore airport official: “Are you a hippie?” Me: “No, of course not, why would you say that?”
Singapore airport official: “because you look like one…”
Koen will be along with a question when he's finished untangling a cassette that got chewed up by his Walkman...
The joy of Thai bootleg cassettes. And the hippie problem. Lufthansa wouldn't let me on their airplane at Hong kong airport cos they reckoned my hair was too long, and it might cause problems at the Bangkok stopover. Bullet headed Lufthansa Station Manager wouldn't budge on that, and I HAD to be on that plane. Quick trip to the loo with my safty razor, hacked off lots of hair, watched by uncopmprehendng locals. Boarded plane. Have boycotted Lufthansa ever since. And since I worked my entire career in the travel industry, that has cost Lufthansa a LOT of money.
ReplyDeleteSmart move!
DeleteI always regretted buying the "Elton Jack" cassette I saw in Temple St market, Hong Kong.
ReplyDeleteCome on, by now that's a collector's item!
ReplyDeleteOK, I managed to untangle my bloody cassette that got chewed up by my Walkman... To receive this painstakingly compiled special edition tell us a bit about your cassette/walkman experiences.
ReplyDeleteI went on an 18 day bus tour of Europe with my mom the summer after my freshman year of college and mostly just remember passing endless hours listening to a bootleg copy of Umma Gumma while watching the countryside pass by outside the window. This looks like a great collection!
ReplyDeleteThat was the way to go!
Delete... with MrDave's mom, did you mean?
DeleteWalkman/Cassette memories
ReplyDeleteI went through several Walkmans in my running and rollerblading days. Unspooled tapes were best rewound with a hexagonal shaped pencil. I wasn't a big fan of "bootleg" tapes sold on the street or homemade "mix tapes". That said, I was part of a thriving community of Dead Heads trading live shows with very good audio quality. Mostly, I used C-90 cassettes (BASF Metal IV, were my tape of choice) that usually you could fit an album on each side. Also in the early days of Rap/Hip Hop artists like Kurtis Blow, Grandmaster Flash and the Sugarhill Gang were selling cassettes on the street, before they had recording contracts.
Ah, rewinding cassettes with a pencil, simple but effective. I went through several walkmans as well until I switched over to a 2-deck BoomBox. With that machine I could copy tapes as well as make mixes...
ReplyDeleteMy only walkman was a really nice high end imported from Japan. Super lightweight! Incredible sound! But it also went through a set of AA batteries every couple of hours...and ate my tapes regularly, despite my rule of never using FF or RW (which would eat tapes and eat batteries at a high rate). But loved the sound, aesthetic, and just feeling like I was living in the future...
ReplyDeleteThe tape eating issue I encountered only sometimes, although I stuck to C-60 & C-90 cassettes most of the time. C-120 was usually asking for trouble, but often the only way to tape a 1 hour radio live concert without breaks... Portable music and you could make your own mixes (playlists...), amazingly cool stuff!
DeleteI was rockin' those TEAC C90s cassettes. Sounds was fantastic. I still have them, they still sound great. Issue was those super-cool-looking mini-reel-to-reel TEAC cassettes had too much play in the reels and could very easily jam. Especially on FF & RW. On play they were usually ok. On the plus side, I learned to splice tape...which helped get me my first radio jobs :)
DeleteWhilst on the topic of tapes, the greatest compilations bar far (bar those made by our lovers in the early days of the relationship) were those NME tapes. Broadened my tastes hugely.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, I had 3 of those: Tape Worm (NME017), Straight No Chaser (NME018), & All Africa Radio (NME 019), they were fantastic! Incidentally, you can find them here: https://pressplayandrecord.wordpress.com/ or https://nmecassettes.wordpress.com/
DeleteI went through a couple of Walkmans (Walkmen???) always using TDK cassettes of the best quality I could afford. I then went all in to minidisc. I got a MD Sony Walkman and also a player for my hifi. I rarely used it, although I got a nice little stereo microphone which made a great portable set up for recording gigs.
ReplyDeleteThen it was iPod time. I got a 160GB Classic which I still have.
Now, I just use my phone for portable music like everybody else!
I had a few mp3 players as well, the last one was really nice, but when I looked for it a few years ago.., turned out that the battery had exploded! Never experienced that before... Of course nowadays I use my mobile for listening to music.
DeleteDoes anyone remember the pre-recorded cassettes that were on C120s and had a blank side so you could record your own choice of music? I think they were on the Island label, but I could well be wrong.
ReplyDeleteHurrah! My memory works!
Deletehttps://www.discogs.com/release/11186561-Was-Not-Was-Was-Not-Was
Yes, but slightly different, it was indeed on Island, but with the full album on both sides, so not a C-120! I had one of those. The idea was that you could listen to an album without having to take out your tape after side 1, turn it around, etc. It also suggested that you could record something else over it by taping over the gaps on the top.
DeleteAh, yes! I'd forgotten about the album *twice* feature.
DeleteCassettes seem so utterly old school now. I still have a stereo cassette deck. Got it via Ebay. just before we moved hEre in 2010. I bid £5 and won it at that price. I still use it to digitise some cassettes I still have. It's surprising how many cassettes are still playable after all this time!
The last time we moved to another house (& hopefully never again!) my wife asked me correctly 'why do you bother keeping all those cassettes?'... Unlike vinyl & cds I never had the same attachment to my tapes, so we gave them all away to someone. Only later I discovered that I forgot 1 box with a 100 cassettes or so, but I haven't had a tape player in years...
DeleteI have loads of cassettes that I still play regularly, mainly of stuff recorded off the radio. Sadly on the ones from the 70's I would miss out the dj chatter (usually John Peel) because of the price of them. Others are of mate's lps, usually recorded over many times and its great fun trying to identify snippets of stray tracks left on at the end from previous records.
ReplyDeleteIn the 90's I started again and this time recorded complete radio programmes due to increased affluence, so these are great to listen back to now.
I don't have many prerecorded cassettes but I would occasionaly buy one in a sale such as Kevin Coyne's Blame It On The Night. This one always amuses me as it appears to be an absolutely genuine release on Virgin bought from a respectacle department store in Newcastle in the early 70's. However it sounds like a bootleg as you can hear the crackles from the vinyl between tracks. Surely there was more to recording an lp onto cassette than just slapping a record on the turntable and pressing record?
I'd have assumed that cassette duplication would have been conducted using a stereo master tape.
DeleteThat sounds more like it, but I'm left with the intriguing image of Richard Branson poised over ranks of cassette machines all plugged in to the one turntable frantically trying to drop the needle on the record and then running round all the machines trying to press the record and play button at the same time.
DeleteIt's fair to say that record companies, on the whole, weren't too fussy about sound quality in the past. I'm reminded of Donald Fagen of Steely Dan being horrified with the first issues of Steely Dan on CD. IIRC, they'd been taken from a stereo safety copy which wasn't of the best quality.
DeleteI think that's true of Pop/Rock records. Jazz and Classical records always had better fidelity. Also, these days, people don't seem to care about fidelity. Let's face it, if you are listening to MP3s (128kbps or less) on your phone with wireless earbuds, you are missing so much of what's going on.
DeleteIt's a little concerning to think that people are prepared to put up with low quality media. You wouldn't put up with a low quality TV picture, so why do virtually the same thing with your music?
DeleteEven with the cds at times no master tapes were used... Low quality mp3s are best left for interviews only... Another thing I have noticed that so many commuters here in Thailand on (very!) noisy buses, trains, boats, etc., listen to music on headphones, something I gave up long time ago as the only way to actually hear the tracks properly, is by turning the volume up to the max... This will eventually damage your hearing massively...
DeleteHeadphones are great for concentrating on certain aspects of or instruments in the music, but I like to have a bit of air moving and the bass to have some presence.
DeleteCurrently sitting here enjoying "Janie Runaway" by Steely Dan at very high volume!
Just glad we have no neighbours!
When you were brought up listening to mw radio anything's an improvement to me.
DeleteRadio Luxembourg 208...how that signal would fade in and out...
DeleteCurrently, for my daily walk, I use an Astell&Kern DAP Music Player, with Shure earphones. The Shures are sound isolating (not to be confused with noise-cancelling), so once you get the fit right they block 37 dB of outside noise which is good enough for most Manhattan traffic and the subway, so you don't have to blast them. For the most part out on the street, with music not playing, you can't hear any background noise.
DeleteBabs, I have never really gone in for the hifidelity approach to music but due to circumstances beyond my control I am currently re-assessing just about everything in my life. Therefore, why not embrace this as well, especially as music has always been one of my prime obsessions.
DeleteMaybe I need to find out the bits that I am missing from my bluetoothed, mp3 existence!
I have looked up Astell&Kern music players and shure headphones and they both cover a wide range of models. Could I be so impertinent as to ask which ones you would recommend?
Shure headphones... I have had several headphones which always ended up with broken wires somehow after some time. Shure's were the exception, great sound until our cat chewed them to bits! She ignored any other brand...
DeleteThat's interesting, I was sick to death of wires breaking, so went over to jerba bluetooth ones but then I lost one! So yesterday I bought some Bluetooth ones that are wired together so I can't lose them (famous last words).
DeleteMaybe Shure's the way to go, especially as I don't have a cat.
The Shures have detachable/replaceable (MMCX connection) 3.5 mm cable. Also, the carrying case is cat proof.
DeleteNobby - Besides Astell&Kern, Company's such as HiBy, Fiio, iBasso and Shanling all make a quality product. Shy away from their "entry level" (cheapest) and "hi end" (most expensive) models.
Trick is to put them every time back in the Shure carrying case.., I'm afraid I always screwed that up!
DeleteThanks Babs, much appreciated. I like the idea of splashing out on some new audio, as my Great Aunt used to say "there are no pockets in a shroud".
DeleteThe carrying case is where I went wrong with my Bluetooth earphones. Took gloves off, took earphones, off put both in same pocket, had coffee, pulled gloves out of pocket, presumably the left earphone shot out at that point. Didn't realise at time but retraced steps later with torch- not a sign anywhere, the right one still works though but. Ah well worse things happen at sea but should have put them I'm the case.
Nobby, you could always use the one earphone you have left in your final front ear.
DeleteIGMC...
Wasted on me I'm afraid. My closest encounter (apologies for the mixed metaphor) was Spizz Oil or Energi or whatever they were known at the time.
DeleteNow there's a theme for someone to pick up on, multiple band names. Wah! Heat, Shambeko Say Wah! Refills, Revillos... etc....
Refills???, that's a new one - Rezillos
DeleteI just have 1 harmon/kardon speaker and at certain times (when my wife is out) really enjoy blasting away!
ReplyDeleteSo much feedback and fun interaction must be rewarded, so here you are:
ReplyDeletehttps://mega.nz/file/LAUXXDBS#Uxx2zYcFcWIrkxEQTh3rO73RbC1WCwCECfFW4yDaklo
Yes, some excellent comments here covering what might be ancient history to some!
DeleteThank you, Koen.
I used to listen to music on cassettes every day on my walk to work back in the 80s. I ditched a whole load of the tapes about ten years ago - mainly pre recorded ones, that I’d upgraded to CD, but kept a big box to digitise “at some point”.
ReplyDeleteI discovered a compilation I’d made (Jeff Lynne, John Fogerty, Michelle Shocked, Jellyfish etc) a few months ago & wanted to listen for nostalgia reasons - only to discover the glue had gone on the leader tape (it was a cheap no brand) So for the first time in 30 years I performed a “cassette-ectomy”. Taking out the screws, using superglue to stick leader & tape (I mucked it up with sellotape) then re threading the cassette into its case & putting the screws back in. After all that, the affection for them wanes. Timbar.
Yeah, I can imagine...
ReplyDeleteart58, I just wanted to thank you for this great collection. I'd say something profound but it's actually to late at night here.
ReplyDeleteWelcome Steve, I hope the others enjoy it as well!
DeleteWell, it looks like the digital version is making a comeback!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.yugatech.com/news/sony-launches-two-new-walkman-players/