Cassette culture

Cassette culture was in part an offshoot of the mail art movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In both the United States and the United Kingdom it owed a lot to the DIY ethic of punk. In the UK cassette culture was at its peak in what is known as the post-punk period, 1978–1984; in the US activity extended through the late 80s and into the 90s. It was largely postal-based (though there were a few retail outlets, such as Rough Trade in the UK) with the artists selling or more likely exchanging music on compact audio cassettes via a loose network of other artists and fanzine readers.

Several factors made the "cassette" boom occur. Obviously the recording format of the cassette tape was important. However, it was the fact that bands did not need to go into expensive recording studios any more. Multi-track recording equipment was becoming affordable, portable and of fairly high quality during the early 1980s. For example, one could purchase a "four track" cassette recorder and get a reasonable sound at home.

Therefore, due to inexpensive (or less expensive) recording and the ease of duplicating tape there was an increase of recording artists. Add to this the fact that college radio was coming into its own. For many years there were college radio stations but they had a new found freedom and power. With the influx of new music from sources other than the major record companies and a quasi-major medium of college radio to lend support the boom was on.

On the heels of the punk/DIY movement of the 70's and the stale, over produced, over hyped stars of the 80's it seems there needed to be another outlet for artists. MTV brought the videos and along with that was another layer of "professionalism" that gave us big hair and over produced sounds. The cassette culture was an answer to this.

United Kingdom

In the UK Cassette Culture was championed by marginal musicians and performers such as Storm Bugs, the insane picnic, Instant Automatons, Stripey Zebras, What is Oil?, The APF Brigade, Blyth Power, The Peace & Freedom Band, Academy 23, Cleaners From Venus, Chumbawamba, 5ive Ximes of Dust and many of the purveyors of Industrial music, e.g. Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, and Clock DVA . Artists self-releasing would often copy their music in exchange for "a blank tape plus self-addressed envelope". But there also existed many small 'tape labels' such as Snatch Tapes, Falling A Records, Datenverarbeitung (in Germany), Deleted Records, Fuck Off Records, ISC Compilation Tapes, New Crimes Tapes, Rasquap Products, Sterile Records and Third Mind Records that operated in opposition to the capitalistic aim of maximizing profit. There was great diversity amongst such labels, some were entirely 'bedroom based', utilising new home tape copying technologies (see below) whilst others were more organised, functioning in a similar way to more established record labels. Some also did vinyl releases, or later developed into vinyl labels. Many compilation albums were released, presenting samples of work from various artists. It was not uncommon for artists who had a vinyl contract to release on cassette compilations, or to continue to do cassette-only album releases (of live recordings, work-in-progress material, etc.) after they had started releasing records.

Cassette culture received something of a mainstream boost when acknowledged by the major music press. Both the New Musical Express (NME) and Sounds, the main weekly music papers of the time in the UK, launched their own 'cassette culture' features, in which new releases would be briefly reviewed and ordering information given. In the U.S. magazines such as Op, Factsheet Five and Unsound rose to fill the void.

United States

Although larger operators made use of commercial copying services, anybody who had access to copying equipment (such as the portable tape to tape cassette players that first became common around the early 1980s) could release a tape, and publicise it in the network of fanzines and newsletters that existed around this scene. Therefore cassette culture was an ideal and very democratic method for making available music that was never likely to have mainstream appeal. Arguably, such freedom led to a large output of poor quality and self-indulgent material in the name of 'artistic creativity'. On the other hand, many found in cassette-culture music that was more imaginative, challenging, beautiful, and ground breaking, than output released on vinyl.

In the United States, Cassette Culture was associated with DIY music, and blossomed strongly across the country on labels like Swinging Axe, Sound of Pig which released over 400 titles and in Olympia, Washington on labels like K Records. Artists such as Zan Hoffman, Minoy, The Haters, and scores of others recorded numerous albums available only on cassette throughout the late 80s and well into the 90s.

A notable pioneer of cassette culture and 'outsider' music in the United States is R. Stevie Moore, who, through the 'R. Stevie Moore Cassette Club', has been releasing DIY, home-recorded music steadily since the 1970s. Moore lives in New Jersey and continues to make many releases in the cassette-only format.

While there were several "fanzines" documenting the "cassette culture" there was only one "Radio Show Producer" documenting this movement. His name was Marlon Michaels and he is perhaps the Grandfather of modern podcasting. He produced shows for over ten years from 1984 to 1994. These shows featured words and music from various bands. Among these shows; "London; Summer of '84", "Dead Air & Other Noise", the long running "Bonfire in the Boneyard" and several others. He had attitude and style, attending "legit" radio conventions and letting them know that he "had something better and different". It did little good as "mainstream radio" never accepted him which he deemed to be "probably the best thing as acceptance by these folks would have meant the kiss of death to my style of radio". He headed up various production "companies" including Evios Empire Productions and Burning Circus Productions. He also produced profiles of "Concrete Blond" and "The Godfathers". Marlon Michaels sent his cassette shows to radio stations around the world; pirates, colleges, community stations and anyone who could get them played. (Remember, there was no internet back then). Once there was the chance to record at home it seemed logical that people would also begin to produce radio programs. Unfortunately for Marlon and others, popular radio was very narrow. As he said, (and so did the t-shirts he sold to support production), "Radio is dead and gone and we're just poking it with a stick". He believed in the creativity that could be involved in radio production and he was right, "radio is dead and gone".

Creative packaging

The packaging of cassette releases, whilst often amateurish, was also an aspect of the format in which a high degree of creativity and originality could be found. For the most part packaging relied on traditional plastic shells with a photocopied insert, but some labels made more of an effort. The Chocolate Monk-released album "Anusol" by A-Band for instance came packaged with a "suppository" unique to each copy - one of which was a used condom wrapped in tissue. BWCD released a cassette by Japanese noise artist Aube that came tied to a blue plastic ashtray shaped like a fish. Sometimes these more creative efforts were an attempt to take the cassette release to a higher level. And sometimes it was a blatant attempt to disguise the uncreative nature of the music contained therein.

1990s

In the early 90s, Riot grrrl and other activist punk rock movements, such as Queercore, also spawned their own brand of anti-Capitalist tape distribution. DIY cassette labels marked a new wave of rejecting mainstream production standards and capitalist values in the music business.

21st century

Though, in the mid-'90s cassette culture seemed to decline with the appearance of new technologies and methods of distribution such as the Internet, MP3 files, file sharing, and CD-Rs, in recent years it has once again seen a revival, with the rise of tape labels like American Tapes, Heresee, Object Tapes, Obsolete Audio Formats, and U.S.A. Surpasses All Nazi Genocide Records. Some perceive this as a direct result of the questionable quality and the "anybody can do it" nature of CD-rs. The arrival of this technology may have given everybody the ability to put out a CD-r but in the mind of the underground music collector, this very thing cheapens the CD-r's perceived value. The very easy, but sometimes unwanted transfer of music from CDs and CD-rs to a file sharing network may also be some of the motivation behind a movement back to cassette.

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