Save the date because Saturday September 27th, 2014 marks the return of Cassette Store Day to the music loving public!

.

Following on from last year’s (unexpected) runaway success, the event will now be split between the US and UK/EU to ensure that audio cassette fans on both sides of the Atlantic get to snap up some great releases from musicians, new and old alike.

.

In the US, Burger Records in California will co-ordinate the day from their end and in the UK/EU Kissability and Suplex Cassettes will return to run things. Stores wishing to stock releases or put on an event will be able to sign up for free between June 30th and August 15th at cassettestoreday.com where there will be downloadable guides for how to get involved.

.

Labels wishing to release a cassette on the day can also sign up from June 30th - August 15th at the same place for a small admin fee of $10/£10. Anyone outside these territories is welcome to sign up using the UK site.

.

Burger Records said, “Burger Records loves tapes! We’ve built our foundation on the forgotten format and have been preaching the merits of warm analog cassette culture for years. We’re honored to be ambassadors of Cassette Store Day 2014 in the good ol USA! We plan to bring some of our favorite labels to the table and invite everyone to the party and partake in the fun phenomena of releasing top shelf music on cassette tapes in pop culture today!”

.

Jen Long of Kissability said, “When planning this year we really tried to keep cassette labels and fans at the heart of the event. Last year grew far bigger than we had expected so we are thrilled to have Burger involved to help us cover the US side.”

.

Last year’s Cassette Store Day was a huge success with stores participating in over eighty cities worldwide and releases from the likes of The Flaming Lips, At The Drive In, Deerhunter and more!

.

"The Tape Cassette—Is the best bet yet as the go-to medium for medium-rare—or well-done on-the-spot playback or record.” — Van Dyke Parks

.

"Cassette is a cool medium to listen to music on. Warm and fat. Good bottom end. Yeah!" — Bobby Gillespie

www.cassettestoreday.com

Twitter

Billboard Magazine

.

CSD 2014 NORTH AMERICA

Now THIS is fantastic!

I'm upset that the (second-hand) record stores here removed their cassettes.

Cool didn't know they had one. My cassettes were some of the things that didn't get ruined in the storm. I still have a box full on chrome/metal cassettes that are unopened.

Believe it or not, I didn't buy cassettes. I got into CD's when they first came out and copped everything on CD. I might have bought maybe 5 cassettes in my lifetime.

[Edited 8/29/14 6:49am]

thesoulbrother said:

Believe it or not, I didn't buy cassettes. I got into CD's when they first came out and copped everything on CD. I might have bought maybe 5 cassettes in my lifetime.

I had a lot of rainbow cassettes that they sold at Mongomery Ward and Tonemasters from Walgreens. I would play them on my boombox and record stuff off the radio. I didn't buy CDs until the 1990s. The first CD I bought was The Jacksons 1976 Gamble & Huff album, because I didn't have it. I think the first album I had on cassette was called Wings Of Sound by K-Tel. I had one of those church tape recorders at the time. I bought a few cassette singles when they came out, mainly because they had some mix or extra song not on the 45 or maxi single.

MickyDolenz said:

thesoulbrother said:

Believe it or not, I didn't buy cassettes. I got into CD's when they first came out and copped everything on CD. I might have bought maybe 5 cassettes in my lifetime.

I had a lot of rainbow cassettes that they sold at Mongomery Ward and Tonemasters from Walgreens. I would play them on my boombox and record stuff off the radio. I didn't buy CDs until the 1990s. The first CD I bought was The Jacksons 1976 Gamble & Huff album, because I didn't have it. I think the first album I had on cassette was called Wings Of Sound by K-Tel. I had one of those church tape recorders at the time. I bought a few cassette singles when they came out, mainly because they had some mix or extra song not on the 45 or maxi single.

Kinfolk, you're taking me back with the Monkey Ward's reference! I haven't heard that in a hot minute! Then you said K-Tel! Oh snap... how could I forget K-Tel? (LOL) On the cool, I did record stuff off the radio onto a cassette! I can remember waiting for the Top 8 at 8 on Majic 102 just so I could get the Chilly Bill Remix of "It Takes Two" by Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock (God bless the grave). Man... what memories! Young heads got it easy: Hear a joint and just go to iTunes or Amazon and cop it for $1.29! Back in the day sons had to listen to the radio and hope they play it again before it was time to hit the sack! The first CD I copped? I know it was a Janet Jackson album some 5,000+ CDs ago! (smile)

thesoulbrother said:

Young heads got it easy: Hear a joint and just go to iTunes or Amazon and cop it for $1.29!

Honestly. Even cassingles or 45s for one song consistantly cost me more than that, and that was after I searched the store(s)!

Maybe they should start a reel-to-reel day. I've never had any, but a few of my older relatives did. They tended to be jazz listeners.

MickyDolenz said:

Maybe they should start a reel-to-reel day. I've never had any, but a few of my older relatives did. They tended to be jazz listeners.

Wax Cylinder Store Day

Cinny said:

Wax Cylinder Store Day

My grandmother used to have some 78s, but they all broke. The music teacher in elementary school used ot play 78s too for May Day.

MickyDolenz said:

thesoulbrother said:

Believe it or not, I didn't buy cassettes. I got into CD's when they first came out and copped everything on CD. I might have bought maybe 5 cassettes in my lifetime.

I had a lot of rainbow cassettes that they sold at Mongomery Ward and Tonemasters from Walgreens. I would play them on my boombox and record stuff off the radio. I didn't buy CDs until the 1990s. The first CD I bought was The Jacksons 1976 Gamble & Huff album, because I didn't have it. I think the first album I had on cassette was called Wings Of Sound by K-Tel. I had one of those church tape recorders at the time. I bought a few cassette singles when they came out, mainly because they had some mix or extra song not on the 45 or maxi single.

Did you own any 8 tracks? I think the cassettes replaced them, did they?

Beautifulstarr123 said:

Did you own any 8 tracks? I think the cassettes replaced them, did they?

I have some 8-tracks right now, but my player doesn't work and it costs a bit of money to get it fixed, and not a lot of people today know how to fix them anyway or have the parts. I know some people who have working players though. I think cassettes came out in the late 1960s or early 70s. The early cassettes didn't sound that good and had a lot of hiss. 8-tracks could be played in the car, and cassettes couldn't in the beginning. I think the walkman coming out made cassettes popular and brought the downfall of 8-tracks. The sound quality improved on cassettes, and you didn't have songs split in half like on 8-tracks. The songs were also often in a different order than the other formats like the LP & reel-to-reel.

[Edited 8/29/14 17:49pm]

FACT: Some albums by Prince, Duran Duran, and Expose sounds better on cassette tapes.

MickyDolenz said:

Beautifulstarr123 said:

Did you own any 8 tracks? I think the cassettes replaced them, did they?

I have some 8-tracks right now, but my player doesn't work and it costs a bit of money to get it fixed, and not a lot of people today know how to fix them anyway or have the parts. I know some people who have working players though. I think cassettes came out in the late 1960s or early 70s. The early cassettes didn't sound that good and had a lot of hiss. 8-tracks could be played in the car, and cassettes couldn't in the beginning. I think the walkman coming out made cassettes popular and brought the downfall of 8-tracks. The sound quality improved on cassettes, and you didn't have songs split in half like on 8-tracks. The songs were also often in a different order than the other formats like the LP & reel-to-reel.

[Edited 8/29/14 17:49pm]

I didn't know this, about the history of the cassettes. Thanks for the enlightment. I remembered back in the early eighties, my father bought a 8 track/turntable player. No cassettes.

TonyVanDam said:

FACT: Some albums by Prince, Duran Duran, and Expose sounds better on cassette tapes.

MickeyDolenz, correct me if I'm wrong, or Tony if you know, but it was once told to me that when artists record their music with Dolby sound, you would get much better quality music. Is that true?

Beautifulstarr123 said:

TonyVanDam said:

FACT: Some albums by Prince, Duran Duran, and Expose sounds better on cassette tapes.

MickeyDolenz, correct me if I'm wrong, or Tony if you know, but it was once told to me that when artists record their music with Dolby sound, you would get much better quality music. Is that true?

This is a basic explanation of the different Dolby types. http://www.soundonsound.com

TonyVanDam said:

FACT: Some albums by Prince, Duran Duran, and Expose sounds better on cassette tapes.

Yep, they have a more 'bassier' sound too I think. Plus it was usually an analog source to another analog source, rather than it being re-mastered digitally.

In comparison, the early CD releases are underpar. I have Stevie's In Square Circle and you have to turn up the volume really loud to be able to hear it at a decent level. It has I think AAD on the disk which means it was from a analog source. Overtime they've improved the mastering with advancements in technology such as 24-bit mastering etc, but I don't like it when songs are 'brickwalled' either as its a lazy way of mastering.

I just passed a house today which had left some stuff out for people to take and among these things were a load of sealed VHS cassettes of various movies and TV series.
I no longer have a VHS deck but I reall did start to think 'How long before these things become valuable?'
Not long, I suspect.
All that's needed is for some Hipster mag journalist to extoll the virtues of tapes which contain 450 segments of TV programmes (with attendant snow trails between each) and Bob's your not very dead Uncle.

Sure don't miss trying to pry mangled tape out of the jaws of a cassette player...

I remember cassettes well too. Here in New Zealand I had them exclusively until 1995 and my earliest Prince fandom period was tapes and cassingles.

.

The other advantage was their price, whereas in the 1990s a CD cost $33 to $36 new, a cassette album cost between $19 and $22 (I just round all the .99 and .95 prices up to the nearest dollar). Tapes were cheaper and some sounded better,. but usually albums by Black artists were on cheaper tapes (Brown see through with white labels) that chewed quicker and wore out.

.

Cassingles were fairly expensive, the cheapest were $3.99 and most were $5 or $5.50, some cheeky stores charged as much as $6.95 for one. Most were okay, but some were very poor quality and broke after a few plays. The worst were the opaque colored ones with blue reels. They were only popular until about 1996. Cassettes pretty much went out of fashion in the later 90s and by 2002 when the Ipod took over and digital music was all the rage, CD's took the place of the secondary low cost music option. This was the death knell for the Cassette which was now even more obselete.

Cinny said:

I'm upset that the (second-hand) record stores here removed their cassettes.

Damn, I don't have a cassette play any mo'. I have cassettes tho'...

Thanks for the trip down memory lane, with all this cassette talk!

.

I have one case of cassettes still (remember those cassette storage/carrying cases that were like little suitcases?) but I don't have anything to play them on!

TonyVanDam said:

FACT: Some albums by Prince, Duran Duran, and Expose sounds better on cassette tapes.

I found it was true with the Sex Pistols album too. When I got the CD it sounded so weak and tinny - what happenned to the guitars?

It's probably a case of the CDs not being mastered properly. (So yeah - 80s Prince probably does sound WAY better on cassette than CD.) Cassette sound was more compressed, and punchy. Not so much high and low end - just a big flat midrange to smack you in the face.

I do have a fondness for cassettes even though I don't still use them. They had their problems too. How many great tapes do I have that are out of phase for the first three minutes, simply because I played them too often?

purplethunder3121 said:

This always used to happen to me , frigging nightmare cassettes

The pencil in the spool reminds me of rewinding cassettes by hand (with my finger, pencil, etc.) to save batteries in my Walkman!!