My Cassettes

mixx tapes

2007-11-08T15:07:00.001-08:00

mix tape.
Originally uploaded by fun city girl

For music lovers, the mixtape is among the most profound of human expressions and experiences. Although the days of the 'tape' have long passed, there continues to be a great interest in capturing that experience with todays digital devices and on the internet.

The ways for doing so have varied as I have previously posted, but new services continue to launch that attempt to take advantage of the mixtape as a metaphor for listening to and sharing music. Each of them seem to pick up on different affordances the cassette offered which makes you wonder, what exactly was the special part of making and sharing mixes?

Ultimately the distribution of music was one of the most important reasons tapes were made in the first place, so services like The Mixtape Collective or Tiny Mixtapes didn't pick up large audiences since they emphasized the playlist only. Alternately, JWZ mixtapes is in the music distribution game, offering one new mix a week available to be streamed directly from the site. JWZ keeps its mixes limited to 90 minutes, the length of time of old school tapes, and puts together some GREAT mixes.

One of the most exciting services to hit the net recently is the MIXX from donat group. This application was designed specifically for the facebook platform and provides a built in player to listen to the various 'mixxes' directly from your profile page. MIXX has a couple of things going for it that I think is going to make it a popular app. First, the inspiration for the mixx is derived from the title itself. With the prompt, "I want music that..." the user completes the sentence, and can begin uploading files directly from their harddrive to be shared with potential listeners. Like Tiny Mixtapes, this directs the creation of a mix around a theme or story, and is one of the best ways to inspire contributions. The second, and arguably most important feature of this app is that you can send your mix to a select group of friends for their listening pleasure AND for them to add their own songs to. Holy collaborative mixtaping batman, saweet!

Lastly, I recently signed up for an invitations to join Mixaloo.

Mixaloo brings the art of the mix-tape into the digital age. Freely explore our library of over three million songs and arrange unique music mixes that express your complex self. At no cost to you, mixes can be easily embedded on your personal pages (such as Facebook, MySpace and Blogger) to sell and earn cash, along with points toward ubercool Mixaloo merchandise.

So now I can compile mixes, share them with 'friends' AND potentially get paid for the effort?! (assuming I can come up with some popular mixes i suppose) Its almost like... a part-time DJ gig! Something tells me that online music is about to mature another notch or two, this is so going to kickass.

designers have their way with cassettes... and you can too!

2007-09-25T11:18:00.000-07:00

This from designboom.

twenty years on from the hight of their popularity cassettes are all but forgotten by the music industry, but still very much in use in police interview rooms. despite the march of new technology such as digital recording, which makes analysing individual words and phrases much easier, the humble cassette still reigns when it comes to recording evidence. the UK’s police forces, for example, use about 500,000 audio cassettes a year for interviews, half of the estimated one million tapes sold in the UK each year. link

DIY cassette wallet by claire bedard
Instructions on how to make one for yourself

There are many great DIY ideas here using either an actual cassette tape, or merely a representation of one. Personally I like the simplicity of this cassette wallet, something my family may be getting for xmas this year if my budget plans continue the way they have been.

If you are so inclined to follow up on these ideas, I'd also recommend you check out the instructables where are are many tape related projects (with instructions included natch) about how to DIY. Like this one for making Halloween decorations out of your old tapes.

ckas ~ the tape cassette font

2007-09-24T14:20:00.000-07:00

Just got a link from a friend to this sweet free font that is comprised entirley of images of tape cassettes. Not sure it is entirely usable AS a font, and yet I somehow find it quite pleasing nonetheless. This is my name on ckas!

Download the font here http://www.dafont.com/ckas.font

Back from a looong summer vacation

2007-09-12T11:00:00.001-07:00

Well it has been a fabulous summer for me, taking an extended break from any research activities whatsoever. Now that I am 'back to school' (in the sense that I still work at SFU) it's time to consider my academic pursuits, and if I will consider further research (possibly publications?) on this topic. I have been contacted by several journalists over the summer interested in doing stories on cassette tapes which I am always willing to participate in. The most recent one has really got me thinking (excitedly) about my research so I thought I'd use it as an excuse to get back on the blog. The following is an email correspondence. Stay tuned tapeheads!!!

Hi Jason,

I work at CBC Radio in Winnipeg and am thinking about doing a piece on cassette tape collectors. While doing some research, I found your thesis on tape collectors and how the art/design of tape collections can be applied to digital media.

I was hoping to talk to you about it, either by email or phone. I'd like your views on tape collectors and how they differ from vinyl or cd collectors. I'd also like to get your point of view on why tape collections can help with the layout of digital music players.

Last question, I was wondering if you were in touch with some big cassette collectors during your thesis research and if they'd be willing to talk to me.

Take care,

Dan

Hi Daniel

Thanks for your email. I'd be happy to talk to you about cassette tapes anytime, but will try to answer some of your questions in a quick email.

Re. Tape collections vs. other forms of analogue media
Cassettes were a huge breakthrough for the personal recorded music experience on two fronts, their mobility and customizability. My research did not look specifically at the mobility aspects of the technology, but it did reveal how important it was for people to take their music out of the home, and (initially) onto the road in car decks and eventually onto the hip or shoulder via walkmans and portable tape decks.
The customizability aspect was more to the point of the research as I wanted to know more about how people interacted with their entire collection of music how they stored it, organized it and why the KEPT them at all particularly now that the technology is nearly 20 yrs 'obsolete'. Of course it was blank tapes that made the customizing of a personal music experience possible, and the analogue limitations intrinsic to the media meant that great care had to be given when making a a tape because like traditional typewriters, it was almost impossible to go back and change what had previously been recorded. People were willing to spend that time however and the precious objects became known as mixtapes. Turns out, these artifacts are very sentimental for many people and wether people can play them or not they are often held onto because of the nostalgic value.

I argue that tape cassettes gave us the basic kinds of interactions we want with our music collections that have not changed to this day. Digital technology HAS improved the personal recorded music experience in different ways. By making our music collections digital, we are able to increase the size of our collections dramatically, but at the cost of being able make other kinds of searches extremely difficult such as "what kind of music was i listening to in my 20's?" or "what did we listen to on that roadtrip that time?"

In a nutshell, this is one of the characteristics that is lacking in modern digital music players. iTunes (for eg, but all the major ones are very similar) will record your 'last tracks played' or 'most played tracks' etc, but there are no affordances in the user interface for tracking a musical history greater than say several months (possibly years if you are diligent with your software). Tapes are similar to time capsule in the sense that they can be brought out and used to reminisce and share stories about ones (distant) past and this has value for many people.

As for your last questions regarding avid tape collectors, you will probably be interested in talking to Zan Hoffman. http://zhk7.blogspot.com/ He has a crazy amount of tapes, many recordings of his own plus he trades with others. Check out his blog for a glimpse to the extent of his collection, its mad! He is a friendly guy, I think his contact info should be on that site.

Let me know if this helps, or if you would like to discuss further.

Cheers

Jason

Observing Cassette Culture: Thesis now available

2007-05-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

yay for finishing projects!
The above picture was taken about an hour before my final final deadline. I am not even sure how I managed to pull this off, and yet here I am, done my masters degree. Its especially gratifying doing this level of work on a topic that I am so fond of, and has received such little academic inquiry. (these are the kind of things i can say now)

Once again, a big bunch of thanks for all the participants who contributed images to this study. Couldn't have done it with ya. There are plans to continue this research, and perhaps rewrite the thing into something smaller and more interesting to read, so stay tuned for that.

For those who cannot wait, I have posted the thesis which you can download here. enjoy!

vive la cassette!

Observing Cassette Culture

2007-04-19T09:17:00.001-07:00

Title graphic for thesis defense.

Earlier this week, (Monday actually) was the defense for my thesis titled, "Observing Cassette Culture: User Interface Implications for digital Music Libraries". Every thing went off without a hitch, and although I have a little 'housekeeping' to do on the final document before i can publish it, I passed! Today, I thought I would post up the powerpoint presentation I used to deliver the oral part of the defense. It hints at what is to come when i do post the final thesis. Although the outline below is quite abbreviated, it indicates the overall structure and ideas I presented. Thanks to all the participants who agreed to allow their photos to be published, and completed the survey. I am looking forward to continuing this research!

Introduction

People construct their music listening experiences with the technology that is readily available, and the collection of recorded music they keep.

Music collections, Tapes and MP3s
Why cassettes are special
Research questions

This Research Study

This research observed the images of peoples tapes, as posted on the social photo sharing website flickr.

Online Ethnography – User centered design
Bookmarked images on Flickr
Analyzed images and conducted survey

Problems

iTunes and the other music players are not all that bad, I believe however the design of them has been more influenced by the capabilities of the technology, as opposed to the needs of users.

Organization – Tapes could be browsed. iTunes is organized by default but the entire collection cannot be displayed.
Personalization – Tapes embodied memories, relationships events. Could be shared.
Digitization – Physical affordances are lost, such as the musical history.

Results

The analysis of the results showed some behaviors that have not been accounted for in the design of digital music players.

Organization

Images - Showed many examples of “piling”
Survey - Stars rating system not used (over 75% no)

Personalization

Images – Many mixtapes in collections
Survey - People still give and receive “music mixes”

Digitization

Images - Many narratives were documented, (almost every picture has a story)
Survey - Tapes are kept for sentiment and nostalgia and fear the music will be lost

Design Implications

Indeed, many implications for the design of digital music libraries were noted.

Organization

An un-organized view may be desirable
Browsing needs better support – visualization
“Coverflow” does this to some degree

Personalization

Tagging may support better playlists
Playlists should also be customizable
Sharing needs to be expanded

Digitization

Tracking music histories my be useful such personal music charts
Snapshots of the state of the player at a given time may also be useful

Conclusion

Future research

Where does music go to die?
Tension between automation and user control

silvando espero.

2007-04-05T00:07:00.001-07:00

silvando espero.
Originally uploaded by sebastian.ignacio.

Thanks silvando for this sweet shot!

I have been immersered in this topic for months now, and its all about to be come to a conclusion at long last. Im pretty stoked. More results, pics, and the thesis itself will be posted here soon. For now I will will leave you with the abstract which I will be defending in 11 DAYS! :

Many people keep their collections of music on cassette tape even if they rarely listen to them. Images of these collections can be found online on photo sharing websites. What can we learn from such collections and what might they tell us about designing interfaces for new digital music libraries? The author conducts an online ethnographic study of over two hundred cassette tape collections, and over sixty participants with the aim of guiding future design of music collections. The author presents design heuristics and guidelines for interfaces of digital music libraries.

and yes... this is pretty much what I have felt like for the last 6 months. Ironically, as much as I am waiting for this to be done, I am equally looking forward to continue exploring and researching this topic. cassette nation!!!

We still exist

2007-03-20T00:33:00.001-07:00

We still exist
Originally uploaded by neal_b.

A new post, contributed to the My Cassettes Flickr group, makes a bold claim. Its more true than you would imagine, although the downturn in worldwide sales was covered by the bbc coming up on two years ago now.

"Cassette albums have declined quite significantly since their peak in 1989 when they were selling 83 million units in the UK," Matt Phillips of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) told BBC World Service's The Music Biz programme.

"Last year we saw that there were about 900,000 units sold. It's clear to see that cassette sales are dwindling fast." .

link

Cassette tapes still exist in the hearts and minds of the generation that came of age with them however, and a new generation is discovering a new fascination with them as well. In addition to being important objects that can be used to reminisce on past times, I hope they will be able to inform the design of new digital music libraries. We'll just have to see abou that.

mix tapes

2007-03-16T12:31:00.001-07:00

mix tapes
Originally uploaded by newrambler.

Aaahh the mix. Still a powerful medium no matter what format you are using, except perhaps the Internet. I dont know, there are a lot of sites out there trying to give people ways to make' the mix', an interesting networked experience. These are some that come close.

The mixtape collective. Ultimately doomed because there is no actual music on the site, although many music geeks assemble to create, rate and compete for top mix accolades. At least the have cover art.

finetune. This is neat because you can place mix widgets on your blog or website, (I should put one on this blog in fact) but I have found the library a tad limited, and you have to choose 45 songs to create a playlist! Why so many I wonder?

Tiny Mix Tapes. This is a bit more compelling. Submit your idea for a mix via a theme, title or general thought, and see if yours get selected for mix creation by the mixtape robots. Again, no music.

outof5 themed mixes. 10 Songs chosen by 10 individual's. No archives. I haven't found out too much about this one, except that they have weekly mixes you can download as zip files. There is music, but I cant figure out if I can contribute or not.

Last but not least, is this nifty flash animation that looks great and plays music, not to mention is quite funny.

Wouldn't it be cool, if it was a little easier to put something like this together for people? (not to mention have it downloadable to your MP3 player or phone.)

iPod / Walkman - Walkpod

2007-02-19T13:04:00.001-08:00

iPod / Walkman - Walkpod
Originally uploaded by Neil101.

A clever new device! from Neil101

I have been reviewing the contributed images in the My Cassettes flickr group (now over 100 members strong!) as I am in the final stages of completing this research. The defense date has actually been set for April 4th!. yikes!... There has been alot of data to sift through, over 400 images in fact, so I am sure glad I used del.icio.us to bookmark and annotate everything as I went along. It was particularly useful when I was contacting the shortlist of participants and the approvals form my informed consent process were coming in. I would just tag the entries accordingly, and can now sort (for instance) on all the properties of my data that can be published in the final document. More than 70 images out of 113 requests, of which I am very pleased. A big THANKS going out to all the participants =) People were amazingly responsive and interested in this research and I expect a good turn out for the upcoming survey as well.

I have updated this blogs sidebar to provide easier access to the data, and will also be updating the feed shortly. Although you will not need to re-subscribe, It will probably blow away all the old dates of posts and such in your reader... so sorry about that.

And now, for an update on the writing. This thesis documents the affordances of physical musical artifacts, specifically tape cassettes. It is primarily concerned with new ways of understanding these affordances, how people organize and use these artifacts. The author (moi) hopes to inform the design of better interfaces for listening to digital music, specifically the mp3. The image above is a brilliant visual mashup, and represents for me something that is at the core of my work. How do we get the best of both worlds when we are listening to our music. When is it better to have a physical object, or will it ever be again? As tapes are quickly fading in to media history, have we thrown the baby out with the bath water now that we are all consuming "iMusic"?

( I wont be writing like this in the thesis btw, just sketching some of the ideas as I put that beast together)

More found tapes

2007-01-29T20:12:00.000-08:00

An evolving exhibition of cast away sounds

Harold from soundblog.net sent me an email (an atrociously long time ago now), with a link to his 'found tapes exhibition'. This an amazing collection of found audio clips dating back to 2002! It seems these guys comb the streets, thats right the streets, looking for (and apparently finding) old discarded tape, it needn't be in 'cassette' form anymore either. Looking at the index page, it seems there has been no lack of material for them to salvage. Thats the interesting and unique part here to me., they actually DO salvage the tape. Torn and tattered, strewn about, what ever. Each exhibit has an image of the tapes remains, that goes along with the audio they were amazingly able to recover.

This project seems to be an extension of his other work call Sound Chronicles, of which he describes...

Ever since the early eighties, like many, I have a regular companion: a Sony walkman. (It was a stereo one, at first. But already for many years now, I use a mono machine, which in fact is only suitable for use with the 'normal type' cassette tapes.) Unlike most,however, I never ever use my walkman to listen to music. It's my dictaphone. I use it to record. Whichever sounds for whatever reason wherever suddenly make me listen.

Great stuff all around, and I'm sure many great hours of audio strangeness.

Joey Ramone's grave

2006-12-03T16:46:00.001-08:00

Joey Ramone's grave
Originally uploaded by Daily Gusto.

All things must come to an end. And that goes double for this research project. I am collecting data up until the end of the month, and, the year. So if you have been thinking about contributing a photograph, nows your chance! If you are really interested I should let you know there will be an optional survey, that i know some people will enjoy taking. Because some people are like that.

I thought this was a touching photograph. Although it is not of a collection of tapes, it says quite a lot about the intimacy and depth of feeling that can be imbued on any physical object. Is this the same effect that makes some people hang to to their precious collections of mixtapes long after they have lost the ability to play them?

The cassette reads "GOD BLESS YOU JOEY."

a fitting memorial indeed.

To Digital Or Not?

2006-11-13T15:29:00.001-08:00

To Digital Or Not?
Originally uploaded by KarmenRose.

So the project is quickly coming to a close. I'm officially supposed to have my document complete at the beginning of December, but will collecting data until the end of the month. The end of 2006. I've been sort of off the blog for awhile, but may try to do a bit more to stimulate my writing.

Doing a few more searches for cassettes in flickr today I dug up this gem. Very staged, but asking a question that is of great interest to me. As we move so rapidly and completely to digital media formats, are we going to lose the "non-digital media" completely? Will we watch them decay and slowly sift through lives, filtering away more as we go, or will these tangible artifacts remain meaningful parts of our lives?

Will digital media behave any differently? Just because the digital seems immaterial and 'pure' in the sense it will never degrade, will we want to keep such an increasing record of ourselves?

Cassettes for the Car and Walkman

2006-10-21T17:06:00.001-07:00

Cassettes for the Car and Walkman
Originally uploaded by BlazerMan.

It has been noted that not only do music recording formats become obsolete, but so to does the music. I had a major success in my thesis process last week when my ethics review went through with only one stipulation. That is, I will need the photos' original authors to sign off before I can publish them, but thankfully I will not be needing to publish the entire data set meaning I will only need to collect 20 to 50 approvals to have enough material to publish. So I have begun the process of selcting which images I will be using for my thesis, and some of the criteria for choosing them. This image is a good example of the kinds of pics I am looking to use. It has fairly large # of tapes (20 - 100), a variety or pre-recorded store bought and blanks. There is no creative commons liceneses issued on this image and there is a good selection of both notes and comments attched to it. Those will definately be some criteria.

My cassette collection. Definitely some history here. I don't listen to some of this music any more. Growing up and having kids changes you.

Another revelation. Since I will be needing to contact photographers anyway to obtain their permission, I figured why not ask them to go the additional step and complete a short survey to give some detail and depth to my findings. (This is beginning to sound more and more like science all the time!)

Among the many questions I am brainstorming at the moment, are those realted to the content in a persons cassette collection compared to what they listen to now. How much have people replaced the music they listened to on cassettes, with its digital equivilant on either CD or MP3? I am curious if the kinds of music we listen to would have been different had the LP or compact cassette stuck around a little bit longer, which is something else that is likely impossible to track.

New Records/Tapes/CDs

2006-10-05T23:29:00.001-07:00

New Records/Tapes/CDs
Originally uploaded by Lacey_and_Cielle.

One great thing about a music collection is that it can be passed down, given away, lent or otherwise shared with other people. I suppose this is just as much a quality of physical "things" in general, but a signifignat collection has another precious aspect to it, the aspect of time. Seen here, the 70's , 80's and 90's have been represented not only in a musical chronology, but also through three seperate decades where three seperate media formats ruled. (painting with broad storkes here)

Over time, a collection of music matures, and depending on the care of the collector, the final accumulation can represent years or decades of effort on the part of the archivist. Varied musical trends and styles are often represented indicating both cultural and personal growth. In this case the collection also includes several different media formats.

Thinking how digital format music moves from one person to another is a different story. The entire physical aspect of time is lost, leaving the bare content itself, the music, to stand on its own, with its meager and most likely inconsistant metadata to back it up and provide some measure of date. There will be no worn edges, no scratches no muffled sounds or cracked cases in the digital world, and thats a good thing, the thing we all like.

Still, there is something nice in picking up an old album or tape and 'feeling' the age inherent through the physicality of the object. Whats that all about anyway?

artcamp mixtape session

2006-09-22T14:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a couple of good pals and I (photos to follow) did a short 'un'presentation at the first ever artcamp, the 'un'conference part of the new forms festival here in vancouver. Everything went really well, considering the last minuteness of it all. We didn't get a chance to cover all the things we had on the list, which turned out to be just fine. Brian came through with some indepth coverage and commentary (as usual) and did a fine job sharing his interest digging around in the trash bin at Value Village. James dazzled the crowd not only with the fine selection of vintage decks he had on hand, but also a breadth of knowledge about the fineries of cassette culture unsurpassed in this time, and likely previous times as well.

For this topic I have found people are quite interested in sharing their own stories, and many of the participants were eager. One of the unique qualities of cassettes, were just how "in and of the world" they were. Unlike so many of the fancy gadgets seem to be today. I'm not really sure I describe that concept the best, but its a theme I intend to build upon. Its best to let the stories speak for themselves, which is partially why I have chosen this direction in my research

There were many a DJ's at artcamp, and not surprisingly many of these talented folks had their beginnings making music (or sound or whatever) on the early cassettes decks. One such lady (hi Marcy!) described her early 'mixtaping' experience which really struck me. First, for its creative brilliance, and also how clearly it expressed the usability of the cassette. It seems she was born to be a DJ, beginning from the young age of 9 Marcy loved recording, everything. Her own voice, interviews and sounds from her neighborhood as well as music either from the radio, or her folks records or wherever it was, in 'her world'. This audio was all lovingly captured and edited on the fly, usually while she was cruising around on her rollerskates,which I'm sure would have been a sight. Apparently she has several years of these recordings (still on tape) and which her mother later applied photos of her to each of the covers corresponding to the year it was produced. A detail made even more poignant by the fact that her family had had a fire awhile ago, and she thought all of them had been lost forever, but no, the cassettes survived. Each of us got a little glassy eyed by the end of this story.

I have much, much more to process. Artcamp was an excuse for me to draw a few more minds into this reserach area, and as I suspected, an equal number of new dimensions on cassette culture became apparenet. The session stirred up another rich batch of sources for me to follow and for that I am quite thrilled. (update: I should have handed out cards pointing people to the flickr group darn it!)

A tape I found at the thrift store today

2006-09-16T10:32:00.001-07:00

A tape I found at the thrift store today
Originally uploaded by frippy.

On finding tapes. One thing you can say about this format is that it is alot tougher than most digital technologies. I cant really see digging through the bins at value village looking for obscure audio finds on CD or mp3 format. Tapes however still have some 'value' as an object itself, and there is small growing interest in finding special audio artefacts, such as that pictured here.

In fact there is a cool site dedicated to the activity. Tape Findings: Found Home recordings and other cassette deck oddities, posts one a week for you listening pleasure and has been doing it for the past 73 weeks!

This site is an archive of one of a kind cassette tape recordings and other odd sounds that I have discovered throughout my years searching thrift stores and garage sales. I hope you find them as fascinating as I do. Enjoy!

Compro CDs

2006-09-16T10:17:00.001-07:00

Compro CDs
Originally uploaded by RobertFrancis.

I was thinking that the "death of the cassette tape" may be more of a myth and a westernized on at that, than I originally thought. sure there are plenty of new technologies available for the wealthy to consume, but what about poorer people and countries? I will need to find more published information on cassettes sales worldwide, even though I have seen a few pictures in flickr of different markets and shops from around the world of tapes being bought or sold.

This article (2002) from the optical disc industry (?) made the case that

...sales of licensed prerecorded cassettes have sharply declined over the past decade, according to the IFPI. In 1991, music cassette sales were 1.49 billion units, representing 52% of all sales worldwide. By 2000, these figures had fallen to 800.9 million and 23%. The biggest market for music cassettes is Asia, which represents 48% of all sales.

Thea BBC followed with a story (2005) proclaiming "Not long left for cassette tapes", citing

"Cassette albums have declined quite significantly since their peak in 1989 when they were selling 83 million units in the UK," Matt Phillips of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) told BBC World Service's The Music Biz programme.

"Last year we saw that there were about 900,000 units sold. It's clear to see that cassette sales are dwindling fast."

Gaiman Tape

2006-09-11T17:10:00.001-07:00

Gaiman Tape
Originally uploaded by Pete Ashton.

Yay, flickr has got the "blog this" feature up and running for blogger (beta).

Not surprisingly, tapes cassettes were really good at capturing lots of audio around the time they were in existance, approximatley from the 70's to the 90's. This old tape popped up just as a reminder that some of the best content that is not music may still be lying in wait somewhere, in a back room, closet or attic.

This interview with esteemed comic creator neil gaiman, was reposted on a blog by Pete Ashton. He recounts the journey from tape to mp3.

The other day Andy G and I were going through our respective pre-CD music collections and he stumbled across the Gaiman tape. I told him the story and he asked if he could borrow it. Yes, I said, but you mustn't listen to it while I'm in the room. You should digitize it and stick it online, he said, and I scoffed, but only slightly. It lurked on the kitchen table for a while and one afternoon I snatched it up and popped it in the tape deck. My main concern was about myself coming over like a spoddy little teenager who doesn't know what the hell he's talking about but it didn't seem so bad. I guess I'm far enough away from that version of me now.

The content was valuable and prized enough to be digitized and uploaded for free and easy public consumption .

How many tape cassette treasures are still out there, lying in wait till they can be set free with a new digital rebirth?

This is an excellent example of exactly why digital formats win out over their physical counterparts, although would a 17 yr old audio file from that year been able to survive as easily?

del.icio.us / mycassettes /

2006-09-10T14:02:00.000-07:00

I am using the online bookmarking service del.icio.us to collect and annotate my data by setting up a unique account under the name "mycassettes". I have bookmarked all the images that have been added to the flickr group so far (tagging them "added") and will continue doing so. I have also discovered many other images realted to cassette culture by searching the tags and titles on flickr. Some I have requested to be added to the group, but for whatever reason they were not. In these cases I have "favorited " the photographs, and have included them in the set. (tagged "favorited ")

My favorites, are publicly available, but I also save other images that are not related to my research so I needed a way to pull these out and group them all with the "Added" image set. So far this is looking very promising as a means to quickly and comprehensively gather my data and add annotations or structure into sub classes, etc all by using tags. The added bonus is that because these are links from flickr images, the site also saves a thumbnail preview of the image i am referencing.

NoiseK7

2006-09-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

NoiseK7
Originally uploaded by toner.

Tapes could be 'gathered' which perhaps is what makes them worth collecting and saving in the first place. This shot from toner, is of a small collection gathered

From the 804NoiseFest Label Expo.

which is "a two day experimental, noise, avant-garde & multi-media event held each year in Richmond", Virginia. link

The pic is from just last year Oct 2005, so it is interesting that they are still using tapes in the distribution of music at all, although there seemed to be a mix of formats at this event.

It is worthy to note the variety of labelling methods used in just this small sample of tapes. Clearly not everyone took the time to 'mark up' their tapes in ways as sophisticated as this. Some factors that may have determined the lengths people would go to label their music; availability of time/materials, creative/artisitic tendency of the individual, balance between information and aesthetics.

Radio interview about the project

2006-08-31T13:05:00.000-07:00

There is an audio file of the interview i did about the project over on my other blog.

http://blog.jason.elinc.ca/?p=135

This may be helpful for a little further explanation about whats going on with the project, what I am trying to do etc. I messed up a few of the questions. Like there actually is more to it than ONLY uploading or sending in a photo. It would be great to get any stories, memories, notes etc, that pop to mind when you look at your the picture of tapes as well.

I'd also like to say a big thanks to everyone who has contributed photos to the flickr pool so far, or have turned up on the blog for one reason or another. Some really great information has come in about what is happening with our tape collections, whose keeping them, who wishes they did, and those that wish they had taken a picture before they threw them out! PEACE.

http://blog.jason.elinc.ca/?p=135

Diary of a Deadhead

2006-08-26T13:07:00.000-07:00

Diary of a Deadhead
Originally uploaded by e.dward.

Because tapes are now 20 years past their prime, many signifigant collections that have been put away or forgotten, are considerably more valuable and interesting once they have been rediscovered. A lost collection can be sort of a time capsule that when found, reveals a bit of history once forgotten.

e.dward found this groovy collection at a garage sale, I wonder if it would be a good idea to rip these for posterity?

As Rotcoddam says:

A once prized collection. All the cassettes in the world are out there patiently waiting as stray magnetic fields reduce their signals to a quiet mufflled hiss.
Posted 4 weeks ago.

Cintas de Cassettes (QDEP)

2006-08-25T11:14:00.001-07:00

Cintas de Cassettes (QDEP)
Originally uploaded by JairoB.

The aesthetics of the compact cassette now has retro appeal, but there were many avid fans of the form of tapes back in the day. This photo was also used over on the Music Thing for a post called "The strange world of German cassette collectors". Tom comments,

...I was so intrigued to find someone paying over $100 for an old blank cassette tape that I've been looking into this shady network...

Since starting this research, I have been gathering contributions in the flickr group, and also posting some other links and stories here from other blogs etc. I have also now added an email address to which people can submit stories, pictures or what have you. PLease feel free to contact me at this address or to send your photos and stories. It may be a bit easier.

mycassettes@gmail.com

This is an exerpt from a friends email, who had some memories around tape collecting.

I wish I had access to my mix tape collection now, real timepieces.

Funny, about a week before I got your email (below) I was looking at a cassette tape, think it was a Teac or something, but it's grat how they become such a designed item above their own function. Remember when the big window ones came out? WOW, look all that tape. Then the transparent ones after that.....woahza!

thanks evil-e ! =)

Lives In The Archives; The history of music on a cassette tape -

2006-08-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

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.

Picture 355

2006-08-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

Picture 355
Originally uploaded by DwarfMcDougal.

Labelling is an important part of organization and communication. The 'blank' tape cassette could be imprinted with any meaning, message or metaphor of the authors choosing. As well, many different methods could be used from the elaboratly artisitc, to the simply informational.

DwarfMcDougal , pokes fun at the meta labelling that occurs in this photo, with "note on notes". The notes feature in flickr is really handy I have to say, and any effort to include notes (or descriptions, or tags) to contributions to the project is greatly appreciated.

murderers

2006-08-14T13:07:00.000-07:00

murderers
Originally uploaded by ellectric.

This slogan was seen quite a bit in the 80's and this is a great example of its use, stamped on the inside sleeve of a vinyl record. With each new media format, it seems like there is fear from the industry that is built on the older format, and tapes were no exception.

This from wikipedia

...the slogan of a 1980s anti-piracy campaign by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), a British music industry trade group. With the rise in cassette recorder popularity, the BPI feared that home taping would cause a decline in record sales. The logo, consisting of a skull and crossbones formed from the silhouette of a cassette, also included the words And it's illegal.

The logo itself i find fantastic, and of course was 'remixed' onto tshirts by some clever entrepreneurs. via boing boing 2005

Some stats of the media usage over the last 50 years would be useful for me. how the rise of portable media grew from LP'S through 8-track and compact cassette, and finally to CD's, all of the "pre-mp3' formats. Most of the information on it, seems to be focussed on how the new tech drives down sales of the old, no surprise there. But is the technology itself completly responsible for 'music' sales in general as the recording industry has been quick to whine about? This story from the BBC (2004) is a good place to start anyway.

window tapes

2006-08-10T00:39:00.000-07:00

window tapes
Originally uploaded by kempes.

Now that the compacts cassettes "time has passed" as it were, the aesthetic quality they have as a physical object continues to be perpeputed in the arts. As in this brilliant photo of a 'stained glass cassette window'..

Cruising around the the "cassette" tag in fact, I have come across the image of tape cassettes in the most interesting places. Not the least of which are as subjects for artists.

Right now I am looking at this shot of "retro media" from an exhibition in melbourne, a cassette artwork that looks like it was designed to be a poster or wallpaper, and lastly the image of a tape can even adorne the human body. amazing!

The aesthetics of the media itself is a quality lost in the digial environment as all interaction with the technology occurs via the interface, wether in iTunes, or on the iPod. There is no media 'there' any more.

cheesy android music

2006-08-07T21:10:00.000-07:00

post
Originally uploaded by i-shan.

WIth the mixtape, we were for the first time (en masse) able to give a specific mix to another person. This was a new way to express oneself and great care and attention was given to the creation of these media artefacts.

My project isnt really about mixtapes, it is about collecting, archiving, storing and sorting, and how that is expressed in both the physical and digital spaces.

What is interesting about the mixtape in relation to my project however, was just how special an artefact the mixtape became, and how worthy it was of collecting, and saving. That they could be made at all, customized, 'packaged', and presented to another, is a quality of the physical artefact that is difficult to replicate. There are many decent attempts at recreating this experience on the web, and I have set up this flickr discussion to gather more, and see how people feel about the existing ones.

Visit there if you want to look up some good, music mixing websites, or see if your favorite one is already there.

Zan Hoffman's Cassette Obsession

2006-08-06T09:11:00.000-07:00

Zan responded to a post I made on the Yahoo Discussion group, and also set up an account on flickr to join the project image pool. Thanks Zan!

The name of his blog says it all, Zan Hoffman's Cassette Obsession is truely that. His collection is large, and he writes about managing the scale of so many tapes. His blog documents where his collection started, and the shelving he implemented to house the final display.

In the flickr discussions, he says...

I have 900 tapes in the attic that are not home-taping related. The rest of my collection is downstairs in my studio. I recently counted them all: 5470 cassettes.

I am not sure I have that much digital music. The picture above however, contain mostly Zans' and his networks original recordings and those he collects by trading. Zan is a true media 'producer', and has much more than commerical music occupying his collection. In fact as far as the Yahoo group is concerned, it seems to be largley comprised of other such musicians that still use the cassette to document their work. Zan has some unique insights on some of the qualities of this media format.

Heat, moisture and playing them in bad cassette decks will destroy tapes, but in my experience even the crappiest brand tapes from the 60's still hold up as long as you take care of them. Doubt we'll be able to say that about cdrs.

By far this is the most extensive collection I have seen documented on the internet, and I do not think it is going to be 'digitized' anytime soon. Check out Zan's home page.

Retro Media

2006-08-05T13:44:00.000-07:00

Over on ...this thing called life, a post about some retro media turning up while doing some cleaning.

I found this sealed blank tape while looking through some old CD's. And I believe it's at least 16-17 years. I'll be keeping this for memories sake since this is the only one I have. So, do you still have some cassette tapes still laying around?

The nostalgia surrounding tape cassettes is interesting. I will be posting more on this soon, but there is a certain aesthetics associated with this old media. Artists regularly take up this image to exploit for their own purposes.

I still do have some tapes lying around, although no sealed ones like this. And of course there are many more pictures of tapes in the flickr pool.

Cassette Jam '05

2006-08-05T10:11:00.000-07:00

Cassette Jam '05
Originally uploaded by *Rebelo.

Googling around for 'cassettes', there are many references to the Cassette Jam '05 site, which is a massive page chock full of images of peoples cassettes. I cant understand what the project was originally for, but it looks like people submitted pictures of specifi cassette tapes.

The link must have changed however, because everysingle one I have found is broken, which made me very frustrated, until I managed to track down the new page. If you have been looking around for this page this is your lucky day, for the first time this year (I believe) here is the updated link to Cassette Jam '05.

I wonder if there is going to be a Cassette Jam '06?

the mix

2006-08-04T15:58:00.000-07:00

the mix
Originally uploaded by donger.

Two interesting aspects of cassette culture notable in this photo. First of all, the tape is being played in the car. For so many years, tape decks were the standard music technology that came in your vehicle. If you have an older car, you may very well STILL have the old tape deck in there. I have received several references to the fact that people have to hang on to at least SOME part of their old cassette collection, just so they have some tunes for road trips.

Secondly, the theme mix. This is apparently a "break up tape". I have one of those noted on the picture of my collection I have added to the flickr group. Another popular one might be called the "mating ritual" mix as it was the beginnings and endings of relationships, that were so often marked by a mixtape.

All this from some rather generic looking compact cassette.

iPod vs. The Cassette

2006-08-01T15:07:00.000-07:00

No Name No Slogan labs tests this years must-have device against one of the all time great audio formats...

I am not sure when this was posted, but it comes up highly when searching for cassette tapes. Its a hilarious analysis of old media versus new, regardless. Although it is fairly "tongue-in-cheek", some real insights are shown into the nature of cassettes as a media form through the comparitive analysis.

http://homepage.mac.com/danielturek/PhotoAlbum50.html

casetes de mario

2006-08-01T14:57:00.000-07:00

casetes de mario
Originally uploaded by m e r c e n a r i o.

Many peoples cassette collections looks like this, just before they hit the trash. This is one of the reasons I think this research is so interesting, because it examines a technology whose time has past, yet the remnanants still exist in the back of our closets, attics or in boxes under the bed. Some of theses tapes are easy to dispose of, yet others are more difficult to throw away. I am guessing tapes that have more personal signifigance, that have had large investments of time put into them, or that are still awaiting to be updated in a newer technology, have a greater likelihood to be saved.

yesterday once more

2006-07-31T15:50:00.000-07:00

yesterday once more
Originally uploaded by ruSSeLL hiGGs.

Posted last year, this photo probably represents what most of the tapes you have left looks like, assuming you can even find them. Thanks to Russell for also linking to this great article from the bbc.

Not long left for cassette tapes

which states...

However, terms such as fast forward, rewind, record and pause, everyday words bequeathed to us from the tape era, ensure that in the English language at least, the legacy of the cassette will survive.

What other wonders has this old media bestoed upon its several generations of users?

#7 vodka pek

2006-07-30T23:16:00.000-07:00

#7 vodka pek
Originally uploaded by i-shan.

Physical media artefacts such as cassette tapes can be stored alongside other media types such as photographs and books. On our computers we are often forced to put music in one folder(s), photos in another, text files in another. There is no shelf upon which the most important items can be kept close at hand and on display for guests.

cassetten

2006-07-29T11:44:00.000-07:00

cassetten
Originally uploaded by frankai.

This collection has had some real effort put into it. Many mixes, many original covers and detailed typography.

Visible in this shot, I count...

56 tapes
1 storebought
9 with the word "Mix" on the side lable
1 custom cover

Budi's Cassette Collection

2006-07-29T10:52:00.000-07:00

Cassette
Originally uploaded by Budi.

This post turned up while googling "My Cassette Collection". Since I cannot expect everyone to join flickr to contribute to my research project, I will use this blog to link to other sites and collections I find scattered around the internet.

Budi Says...

I've been buying tapes since I was in high school (late 70s). Then I moved to Canada (in 1987). My collection stopped. Now, they are replaced by CDs and MP3s.

http://gbt.blogspot.com/2006/03/my-cassette-collection.html

Cassette Stickie

2006-07-29T10:24:00.000-07:00

Cassette
Originally uploaded by mr_la_rue.

This was one of the earliest pics I found when searching flickr for images of cassettes. It's also the one I am using for the group pool I have created for my research project on collecting and archiving music.

Check it out !

http://www.flickr.com/groups/mycassettes/

Thanks to mr. la rue for the pic.

first post

2006-07-29T10:06:00.000-07:00

test test