why I'll 'burn' when I'm dead, and why my friends all receive Maxell II's, goddammit

"It sounds like the singer is wearing little socks on his teeth." is the best line I've read in ages.

This idea that there was something cool about the mechanics of recording onto tape, that's fine. But it wasn't that cool. It just wasn't cool enough. And I'm into sentimentality.

Remember how it was when you had to think hard about what you wrote cos it was going onto clay tablets that were hard to come by? Remember when every sheet of paper was invaluable?

I get to write this kind of reply as often as I like. I can rewrite a million times. Also, if I choose not to post, it's not a big deal. I've wasted nothing.

I'm sad. But I understand that what I'm sad about isn't important.

And mix CDs work just as well for flirting as mix tapes do. Making mix CDs is a lot more fun, too. Any potential mate who thinks otherwise isn't worth your time anyway.

I am. I've always liked them.

and on tapes you get to do this twice, twice the fun.

then there's the fun of getting the song to end a second before the tape tightens and the side ends.

that said, i always used to put everything on minidisc before putting it on tape, gives you more control... in fact i don't even use tape for videoing things anymore...

andy

I used to make "Hell Tapes" (part audio letter, part compilation tape, part early analogue bootleg) on an almost daily basis. Now I don't even own a cassette recorder. OK, I lie- I own a 4-track that eats cassettes and I have borrowed a handheld tape recorder for interviews. I think the death of mixtaping for me occured when my tape walkman died, to be replaced by a CD-walkman.

Today, I should go and buy a CD/cassette player, and make a mix tape for old times sake.

Seriously .. I have just recently pulled all of my old tapes out of the closet & have been listening to them in the car... Old mix tapes without labels are fun - I've run across a lot of songs I haven't heard in 10 years.. I was thinking about giving them out after I listen to them one more time. Wouldn't that be fun? If ILMers traded old, unlabeled mix tapes?

They were the least loved, the least fetishised, of all formats.
Huh? If you're talking about 8-tracks, this would be true. But if you're talking standard cassettes, then its not.

Maybe the love, the fetishisation, is just beginnining now, as he suggests.
I've been a mixtape fetishist for 2 decades.

i would like to get a cd burner but sadly i am currently trying to save up for japanese lessons instead.

In the eighties there was a pretty strong casette culture. I read a book about it once, of that title, though I don't remember the author/editor. I think it was mostly comprised of old 'zine articles with a few of the author's own essays thrown in. Quite interesting--lots of talk about home-recorded music that often centered in on noise/industrial/sound collage--stuff I would love to hear.

And mix tapes, god, I love mix tapes. I don't have a CD player in my car and the radio is often pretty piss-poor, so they're what I listen to 93% of the time. Be they mix tapes from friends/girlfriends, live shows I've taped (or have just wound up with copies of) or tapes I've made myself from my favorite albums--there are at least two dozen of them sitting there in various places. Between the front seats, in the ash tray (unused), in the sill under the back windshield, on the floor in the back and front.. I've nearly gotten into accidents because I was too busy searching for that tape that had that one special song I wanted to hear RIGHT THEN.

That happens to you too, huh? :-)