My Cassette Pet

Craig Stephen on the cassette tape mini-revival …

Defying logic, there has been something of a cassette revival over the past few years. We even have a Cassette Store Day – the format’s equivalent of Record Store Day, which has done much to revive sales in vinyl.

Its revival is one of the more curious revival movements because for decades the humble cassette effectively disappeared from store shelves. Well, in the west anyway. In some African countries, the Middle East and South Asia the tape has never gone out of fashion.

They’re cheap and don’t take up space so you can see their attraction. With new release vinyl albums now costing $NZ60 and upwards, it’s clear why a far more economical format might gain traction.

I wasn’t entirely convinced about the availability of cassettes so I had a look around. The JB Hi-Fi website has a section for cassettes for sale, and as I write there’s 15 listed. Four of those are reissues by De La Soul and there’s also 72 Seasons by Metallica and Autofiction by Suede. The retailer’s prices vary from $28 up to $49, but generally they are around the same price as the CD.

Marbecks didn’t have a separate tape section but did have a pack of blank cassettes, Southbound in Auckland had the same number as JB Hi-Fi and Real Groovy had 115 listed, which I guess was a mix of new and second hand.

There are even tape-only labels in New Zealand catering to bands that don’t have the money to invest in vinyl. This is a subject to be developed for later.

 In the big music markets, sales are on the up. The British Phonographic Industry says cassette sales have increased for 10 consecutive years – rising from less than 4000 in 2012 to more than 195,000 in 2022. That’s still small fry compared to vinyl and digital, but it’s a massive increase nevertheless. It’s the same for the United States while in Japan there are cassette-only stores and Tower Records, which is still around in the country but not anywhere else, has increased its shelf space of the format.

In the 1980s the cassette was sold at the same price as vinyl. Back then blank tapes abounded and the mixtape was an artform. This was a way of making tapes for your mates, or for yourself from a selection of albums.

You could select whatever songs you wanted, and in a preferred order too. Sod a ballad, I want just fast tracks, or I could rearrange an album whereby the weaker songs are at the start. Furthermore, I could tag on B-sides and unreleased tracks.

Meanwhile, live gigs were easily recorded and issued on cassette, providing a source - the legendary bootleg - for fans that otherwise wasn’t available in the pre-internet age.

While much of the technology we have used in the past has become obsolete (eight-track cartridge, mini-disks etc), cassettes, like vinyl, still have niche value for the music fan.

This mini revival comes as this writer is culling a box of cassettes. I have the ability to play them, I just don’t, so something has to give. I gave three to an op shop: the Stranglers’ No More Heroes because I now have the vinyl version, but the Wedding Present cassingle was a no-brainer: I just don’t like the band anymore.

Here a small selection from my all-time homemade favourite tapes:

The Associates double: Sulk, the American edition, which is slightly different from the UK release, is on one side, and Perhaps, released a couple of years later, is on the opposite. This was one of the first tapes I had and was made by a friend who introduced me to the band and other Scottish delights such as the Jesus and Mary Chain and the Cocteau Twins.

Midnight Oil 1982 to 2003: I’ve got very little Midnight Oil music as they were an oft-erratic band so it made perfect sense to go through half a dozen albums and fill up two sides of their best songs.

 Mix and match Vol 67: Hot Hot Heat – three tracks; Electric Six – three tracks; Maximo Park – nine tracks; and a bunch of tracks by the likes of Wolfmen, Razorlight, The Rapture, Stephen Duffy, and Manic St Preachers. This is quite a varied selection. The Maximo Park tracks are a selection of the B-sides compilation and 2007’s Our Earthly Pleasures.

Reggae Classics Vol 48: Reggae is so wonderful and there’s so many compilations around. I used to get loads of them out of the Napier City library and stick them on tape. This one features Gregory Isaacs, Mikey Dread, Poet and the Roots, Junior Murvin and many others.

Godzone’s Gifts: There are some great acts from New Zealand. This mixtape includes Goldenhorse, The Front Lawn, Collapsing Cities, The Bats, The Clean and Cut off Your Hands. Bands you might be challenged to lump together but it actually melds quite well.

David Bowie 1980-84: Nobody could truthfully say the eighties were a productive era for Bowie so this condenses the best of the early part of the decade, starting with Scary Monsters and Super Creeps, which takes up most of the tape. By 1984 and the Tonight album, he’s lost it, and the quality avoidance would continue until 1993.

And now for some that were commercially available, made in a factory.

Various – C86: The superstar of a long line of New Musical Express cassettes and a legend of compilations. A Nuggets for the 1980s.  Somebody has even written a book about the cassette which was later released on vinyl that same year (and much later on a 3-CD deluxe edition). The timing of the release was crucial. An underground indie scene had been brewing for a couple of years and came to the boil in 1986 with clubs and scores of releases. The twee or jangly scene featured bands that apparently only wore anoraks, had floppy fringes and played guitar music that sounded like the Byrds or Love.

 The first side of C86 included many of those scenesters: Primal Scream, The Pastels, The Bodines, Mighty Mighty, The Shop Assistants, the Soup Dragons and the Wedding Present. If it was only a round-up of all the greatest twee songs of the time it probably wouldn’t have the impact it did. Conversely, an album that showcased a burgeoning scene was in fact a varied, Catholic collection with the inclusion of agit rock-dance band Age of Chance, sarcastic bastards Half Man Half Biscuit, and acts such as Miaow!, Stump and The Mackenzies. It was a deft adventure into a world that had no boundaries.

The The – Soul Mining: Soul Mining is a classic of the time but at seven tracks was deemed to be too short for American tastes even though most of the tracks stretched to more than five minutes and ‘Giant’ clocked in at 9:34. So a version of ‘Perfect’ was added to some versions and the UK cassette version had another five goodies. It’s likely that at least one of these tracks was from the discarded Pornography of Despair album.

The Phoenix Foundation – Trans Fatty Acid: This tape came with initial editions of the band’s Give Up Your Dreams vinyl album released in 2015. Of the four tracks (all great btw), there’s a special cover of Can’s hit single ‘I Want More’. 

The Cure – Standing on a Beach, The Singles (And Unavailable B-sides): Now, isn’t that title a giveaway or what. With the extra space on the tape, there was always the opportunity to expand the track listing, and in this edition the 13 singles were joined by a dozen B-sides. These included the likes of ‘Another Journey By Train’ and ‘The Exploding Boy’. Some tracks were B-sides for a good reason, but some could have been included on a studio album. 

Various – The World At One: Another NME cassette only release available by sending a cheque or postal order and hoping that you received it in a week or so. The World At One was one of the most valuable of the series as it introduced readers to music from Bulgaria to Zambia to the French Antilles. Readers could hear almost certainly for the first time Jali Musa Jawara or Kass Kass. It was issued in 1987 as the term ‘world music’ was becoming a saleable asset.

Orange Juice – The Orange Juice: Over to my OJ-obsessed mate Scouse Neil for this one … “The Orange Juice cassette, which I got from a Woollies sale for the giveaway price of £1.99, had the 10-track album on one side, and a whole side of B-sides and 12-inch mixes on the other. Considering I hadn’t heard some of these versions before, this was like gold dust to an OJ fan. Apparently, the tape version sold more than the vinyl, which is not saying much since it was the only one of their albums not to make the Top 100.” Scouse Neil did perk up a bit at learning that the album reached No.28 in the New Zealand charts in 1984.

Bow Wow Wow – Your Cassette Pet: Released in November 1980 only on cassette, and therefore it was classified as a single for the UK charts. They were musically inept but something of pioneers as a single released a few months earlier ‘C-30,C-60,C-90’ (a nod to the different lengths of tapes) was apparently the world’s first cassette single.

For the record, the first compact cassette, in the format that became million sellers, was first introduced in 1963. The first Walkman appeared in 1979.

Porky Post: 10 Aussie Bands That Don’t Stink (like a decomposing wallaby)

J’accuse an entire nation of musical crimes. Yes, this is you Australia in the dock. In your attempts to prove you have cultural leanings you forced upon us Kylie, Dannii, Guy Sebastian, The Bee Gees, The Wiggles, The Seekers, Powderfinger, Peter Andre, Jessica Mauboy, Rose Tattoo, Tina Arena, Olivia Newton-John, John Farnham, Cold Chisel, Delta Goodrem (okay, okay, we’ve got the point, get on with the bloody article – Ed). 

So, in no particular order, here’s a list of ten acts from Oz that are more than bearable. 

The Go-Betweens: A band in cahoots with the back catalogues of both the Velvet Underground and The Monkees were on a hiding to nothing in the 80s. Yet the Go-Betweens, formed in Brisbane in 1977 around the nucleus of arts students Robert Forster and Grant McLennan, garner little more than a cult appreciation. Up to 1989 the Go-Betweens released six albums, most of which were lavishly praised, but none of which sold. Though revered by critics and fellow musicians, the band remains an acquired taste. They are filed away in the what-could-have-been cabinet. I have a compilation album from the 90s, a glorious double-album that filled me with both joy and melancholy. But mostly joy. They are perhaps a mood band and I haven’t found the right mood to listen to them again in a long time. That day will come however. 

Bad Seeds

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Born out of the ashes of the Birthday Party (see below), Cave and his merry men set forth on a career built on death ballads, rock’n’roll, gloom, happiness, and more gloom. They soon became the goths it is acceptable to like. If such a thing is possible. Undoubted highlights are Abattior Blues/The Lyres of Orpheus, a double album released in 2004 that is one half rock-blues ideal for the bad side of your character, the other half a more sedate affair with a theatrical flair; and Dig !!! Lazarus Dig !!! released in 2008, was about as scuzzy as Cave and his mob would ever get.

Tame Impala: Like The The and Aztec Camera, this Perth act is really a one-man band, centred around one Kevin Parker. Tame Impala embody the sound of The Beatles, Syd-era Pink Floyd, and The Flaming Lips. In 2010 they released the excellent neo-psych album, Innerspeaker, setting the controls for the heart of Sgt. Pepper. The follow-up, 2012’s Lonerism was better arranged, but like many acts that produce a corker of a debut, the second lacks a certain edge. It sounded contrived, but was nevertheless more of a commercial success. Parker has since released Currents (2015) and is no doubt feverishly working on another collection of psych-drone-pop.  

Yothu Yindi: Perhaps this is the most important band of them all. A mixed race band from the Northern Territory which played traditional instruments like the yidaki and bilma, and proudly displayed their aboriginal cultural identity. ‘Treaty’ is the band's most recognised hit. It was written after Prime Minister Bob Hawke had pledged to recognise Indigenous Australians. Yothu Yindi toured the United States with Midnight Oil in the late 1980s, which would have made for a curious evening. 

Radio Birdman

Radio Birdman: Borderline entry perhaps but included because they were the first real punk band in Oz alongside The Saints. The Sydney six-piece formed in 1974 when Stooges and MC5 fanatic Deniz Tek relocated from the States. The police would regularly shut down their gigs because of the noise or raucous behaviour of their fans. The early days featured performance art at the gigs, including poetry readings of pieces by Jim Morrison and the Last Poets. That ended when frontman Rob Younger scooped offal from a skull and spat it into the audience. They produced one of the first punk records – the Burn My Eye EP in October 1976, but only released one album*, Radios Appear.

The Saints: Formed about the same time as Radio Birdman, The Saints beat their rivals to a debut release by a month with the incendiary ‘(I’m) Stranded/ No Time’ on their own Fatal Records label when no other labels wanted to know. Their brand of high octane punk/rock'n'roll first got them a recording deal with EMI Harvest in the UK. The band described themselves as being ".. a punk group before it was fashionable", and their music seemed in tune with the (then) current British punk scene. The problem was that The Saints didn’t put a great deal of emphasis on their image, when punk was an image as much as a sound and an attitude. Comparisons to AC/DC probably didn’t help. Retrospectives are more favourable. In the year of punk, The Saints released the sizzling ‘This Perfect Day’, the Know Your Product EP and the brilliant (I’m) Stranded LP. They were fucking immense. 

The Birthday Party: Born out of The Boys Next Door - a poor excuse for a Melbourne punk band in reality - The Birthday Party were a challenging act, one that people either loathed or wet their pants over. It was rock’n’roll at its edgiest and most unhinged; like the band itself, perhaps. Two albums were recorded for that home of weird bastards, 4AD: Prayers On Fire (1981) and, Junkyard (1982). This was uncompromising music, with Nick Cave ranting and raging about lost souls and the grotesque characters who infested his imagination. 

The Thought Criminals: I knew nothing of this lot till I entered an Adelaide record store a few years back and asked for “something punky and new wavy” and was directed by the owner to a few CDs, one of which was the Peace Love and Under Surveillance EP, released in 2007. They didn’t sound new though and I later discovered they were one of many punk bands that formed in 1977 - in Sydney - but doing well to last till 1981. The Thought Criminals took their name from George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and based some of their songs on the ideals from the book. There were also songs called ‘Hilton Bomber’, ‘I Won’t Pay (For Punk Records)’, and ‘Fuck The Neighbours’. Jangly guitars rather than full on distortion and drums that didn’t puncture the ear, and a sort-of manifesto: “Don’t want no top ten hit/ Don’t want no disco shit/ Just wanna have fun”. 

Midnight Oil

Midnight Oil: Formed, like, forever ago (ie mid-70s) the Oils are a national institution and figures of hate in almost equal measure. While musically their straight-down-the-line-rock’n’roll is hardly earth-shattering we include them for their hard-hitting attitude and defence of the vulnerable. For example, Indigenous Australians on the universal hit ‘Beds Are Burning’. Too many albums since 1978 to detail, and they remain a live circuit favourite, reforming last year for a world tour that included a couple of dates in Newzild.

The Triffids: There were few Velvets/ Stooges/ Eno fans in Perth in the late 70s, and the select few of them ended up in the Triffids. Breaking Australia is a mission in itself with days spent travelling to gigs, but the Triffids built up quite a following. Attempting to replicate that modest success in Europe proved tough, however. “Even the ballads were confrontational”, recalls singer David McComb. A string of low-key, lo-fi releases, some only on cassette, came before a trilogy of fey, and magnificently lovelorn albums arrived in the shape of Born Sandy Devotional (1986), Calenture (1988), and The Black Swan (1989). I have two of them, one bought from an op shop in St Andrews for the price of a bag of lollies. 

The Laughing Clowns: After The Saints’ demise, the band’s guitarist Ed Kuepper formed The Laughing Clowns which strayed a rather different path, integrating jazz influences into their unique take on post-punk. The Clowns released several records between 1980 and 1985, with their debut, a self-titled, six-song EP on Aussie independent Missing Link. In 1982, they moved to London, where they recorded their debut LP, Mr. Uddich Schmuddich Goes to Town. The Law of Nature was released in 1984, and the band's final studio LP, Ghosts of an Ideal Wife, came out in 1985. And then the laughing stopped. 

Everything's A Thread

The John Steel Singers: A six-piece from Brisbane for whom the word obscure was invented for. I know only of them from the illuminating album cover I spotted at Wellington Central Library and took out on the basis of that. Sometimes you can judge an album by its cover and Everything’s A Thread (2013) was incredibly illuminating. They sound like ... ummm ... a bit like ... well ... ah, just go on Bandcamp. Oh, and there is no John Steel. 

Severed Heads: Minimal electronic and synthpop are among the terms bandied about to describe Severed Heads but neither are entirely appropriate. Essentially the life project of sole core member, Tom Ellard, Severed Heads is not a band but more a representation of what a truly creative life can be. Ellard showed touches of self-flagellation when in 1985 they were signed to a major label and flown to the UK for some gigs that were expected to open doors. As The Quietus explains, it didn’t quite go to plan ... “A crowd gathered expecting to hear dance-floor friendly synth pop, and instead Ellard and co treated them to a 30-minute ambient trance piece. The reception was mixed, to say the least.”

Yes, I know there’s 13, I got carried away. 

Also recommended: You Am I, The Church, The Drones, The Scientists, The Primitive Calculators, The Vines, Machine Gun Fellatio, The Hoodoo Gurus, Paul Kelly …

(* I fear Porky has forgotten about a second Radio Birdman album, Living Eyes, which was recorded prior to the band breaking up in 1978, but not released until 1981. There may have been a completely unheralded post-millennium album also - Ed).