Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Lives In The Archives; The history of music on a cassette tape -
I found this great article, (somehow through my network on myspace) by Steven Rosen. He discusses the importance of his tape collection as it has pertained to his work as a journalist.
Sometimes the content of cassette tapes is not music. In fact, the blankness of the media allowed the public free expression of recording and it was often used for discussion, interviews, personal letters, etc. As it was his profession, Steves interviews (with some of rocks all time greats) were being held secret protected from public access, but I think he has changed his mind about the use of this content.
It wasn’t like I experienced a moment of epiphany and thought, “OK, world, now I’ll let you into the inner sanctum.” Nothing so grand or glorious. I just, in all honesty, saw how much my buddy dug it, and I thought maybe other people might get off on the interviews as well.Because I knew, as hard as I tried to recreate those events, extracting from my head and heart the exact words and the perfect adjectives, you would never hear what truly transpired. You would never know what Keith really sounded like, how he adopted this crisp and proper English vernacular when making a serious point; how, drunk beyond all human understanding as he downed drink after drink, he was able to speak in a voice that only barely registered as intoxicated, but overflowed with true joy and open honesty in revealing his undying love of the band.
And that’s what this archive represents to me and I believe, will mean to you.
Coming soon. I will post samples of 'letter tapes', I have had in my family for over 30 years.
subscribe