Entertainment For Lively Minds
Thrown together by a C90
Posted by AndyPage on 6 August 2011 - 12:32pm.
As everyone knows, back in the olden days a C90 cassette was perfect for two sub-45 minute albums.
But a by-product of this is that certain non-related albums are now thrown together for ever in my mind, by mere virtue of the fact that they shared a tape together many years ago.
For instance, the unlikely bedfellows of Propaganda's 'A Secret Wish' and Spear Of Destiny's 'World Service'. Then there is the less unlikely coupling of The Pogues' 'Rum, Sodomy and the Lash' and The Waterboys' 'This Is The Sea'.
Perhaps the most unlikely of all of my pre-digital age double acts though was Les Mystere Des Voix Bulgares and New Model Army's 'Peel Sessions'. Album.
Any that are linked in a similar way in The Massive's mind?
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I had a C90
With Ziggy Stardust on one side, & Sgt Pepper on ther other.
Also Queens "Night at the opera" & Hunky Dory.
I'm just a sentimental fool.
You know what, I really do miss the C90 (I was fond of the TDK variety). I made tapes for friends since the late 70's. You get all the records and tapes out, arranging the order as you go along, (I was a bit relieved when high-speed dubbing came along to be honest), writing the card out, sticking the label on. I was making up a CD comp for a friend last year and another friend said 'why don't you just e-mail them the MP3's'. I think this was the most unromantic remark I had ever heard. It's just not the same, *sobs into his Absinthe*..
I'm with you Mr Taylor
You could do so many things with tape: tape the record at the wrong speed; drop in random bits of Monty Python; easily record just the bits of songs you liked - eg Tubular Bells; fade stuff in and out ...
You can probably do that somehow with digital and i-tunes and stuff - but for some reason I have never bothered to find out. It's just not the same ...*clinks Absinthe filled glasses*
You can still buy them
£3.20 for a 5 Pack
http://www.amazon.co.uk/TDK-Audio-Cassette-Tape-90min/dp/B00007K6NK
Also. When making your own compilations
the C90 provides you with two beginnnings and two endings (I actually favoured two C60s - four beginnings, four endings). CDs: a kick off track, a great lump of stuff too long to have a narrative and one ending...
And no-one under 30 could believe the amount of fun I had trying to fill every second of the tape with only the naked eye to judge the time left. "3:35 free" - they don't know they're born!
My main Gripe With CDs
is exactly that. A great vinyl album (or cassette) kicks off with something with the Wow Factor, follows it with something just as good and holds your interest right to the last track on side 1 which is something that leaves you wanting to hear side 2. You turn over and it's still got you so you listen on. Somewhere on side 2 there might be a smidgeon (or two) of filler but the final track on the album is a stonker. Play it again!
As already discussed here, short albums are often the best. 10 or 12 3 minute(-ish) tracks, 5 or 6 per side. Soar, glide, dip,(turn over), soar again, more gliding (maybe some turbulence) and back to earth having had a thrilling ride. If you want to, you can have two totally different moods/rides. One on each side.
On a CD it's soar, a lo-o-o-o-ong wobbly glide and all too often a bumpy landing that makes you reluctant to fly translove airways ever again. No second ride on a CD release unless you make it a double.
Just because you can get almost 80 minutes of material on a CD, it doesn't mean you should pack it out with crap to "Give the punters more". A good album is only as long as the good music on it. After that, to quote a well known phrase: "Cut The Crap!"
Oh yes!
Recording a song at the end based on a visual judgement of how much was on the spool was a delicate art. The satisfaction of the song ending and the tape machine going "clang!" a moment later was immense.
Because many songs were taped off the radio, "my" versions in my head still have the DJ's voice. Stiff Little Fingers' Nobody Heroes still has David "Kid!" Jensen saying "heroooes" at the beginning. The Smiths Shakespear's Sister still has Tommy Vance saying "short, but very, very sweet" at the end.
Rummages in dusty box from top of wardrobe...
Otis Redding - "Remembering" + The Rolling Stones - "Let It Bleed"
The Dinosaurs - "The Dinosaurs" + Terry Riley - "A Rainbow In Curved Air"
Television - "Adventure" + The Only Ones - "The Only Ones"
Marvin Gaye - "Midnight Love" + Orange Juice - "Rip It Up"
Van Morrison - "Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart" + China Crisis - "Difficult Shapes & Passive Rhythms"
The Band - "The Band" + Van Morrison - "Astral Weeks"
Little Feat - "Time Loves A Hero" + Bob Marley & The Wailers - "Burnin'"
Little Feat - "Little Feat" + Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - "Damn The Torpedoes"
And there's more.
**
Somebody up there ^ mentioned cassettes as ideal for inserting bits & bobs between tracks, editing out unwanted intros/outros etc. on compilations. They were certainly good for playing around in this way but I found minidiscs even better.
If you change your mind about the running order of an existing cassette mix or want to later insert a bit of something between other tracks, you have to pretty much start again from scratch. With minidiscs you can cut and paste, move tracks around, join bits together, delete unwanted bits etc. as often as you like until you're satisfied or bored and record the finished result to another format, should you need to, in the same way you would with a cassette.
Obvious maybe...
But I had a C90 of Pet Sounds on one side and Revolver on the other. Played it to death so I did.
The Icicle Works
"The Icicle Works" side one and Lloyd Cole "Rattelesnakes" side two.
My memory's not as good as these obv
But I definitely had an Echo and the Bunnymen comp paired with Low Life by New Order, because I borrowed them from the library on the same day
Further investigation reveals
that I've chucked out most of my old cassettes.
But I did rediscover greatest cassette compilation segue ever (unless you know otherwise...) from The Orb's Little Fluffy Clouds into Arab Strap's The First Big Weekend. I got the first note of the latter to follow perfectly.
this thread is great
Achtung baby and blue lines
Pet sounds and peoples instinctive rhythms by A Tribe Called Quest
The queen is dead and le mystere de voix bulgares
Quareeb by Najma Aktah and Songs Of The Humpback Whale
It wasn't mine, but I had a friend who had doolittle backed with the stone roses, and I felt then that she must have been one of thousands.
just remembered...
...I once found a battered tape in the middle of the road (?) with Diamond Dogs on one side, and Hunky Dory on the other. I was 12. How brilliant was that?
The C90's of the great 1992 heartbreak....
Tom Petty's Into The Great Wide Open backed by rem's Out of Time.
Either that or Nick The Knife backed with Mighty Like a Rose.
Wow, flutter and wobbly synths defined my first C90 ...
Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Angel Station
Boomtown Rats - The Fine Art of Surfacing
I used to try and theme them
Tom Waits with Warren Zevon, say. But my weirdest one - and I'm not entirely sure why I went ahead with it, was:
Side A: Madonna's Like a Prayer.
Side B: Ted hughes reads from 'Crow', and other poems.
Summer of 1988
remains the best summer matchup on cassettes:
Side A: Prefab Sprout's Steve McQueen
Side B: Aztec Camera's Love
And I remember filling out the space at the end of tape sides with 12" singles to maximise music carried when I headed off to University, unable to take all my vinyl and having to settle for a selection of the tapes as I was sharing a room with an unknown personage.
What a brilliant thread.
What a brilliant thread.
Ones I can remember of top of my head (all thrown out or replaced many years ago)
Beastie Boys Licensed to Ill/Run DMC Raising Hell
Tribe Called Quest People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm / Stooges Funhouse
Throwing Muses - Real Ramona / Mudhoney Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge.
The oddest bedfellows in my memory (Thanks, Andy!):
Sinatra at the Movies (High Hopes, Three Coins etc) / Revolting Cocks Beers, Steers & Queers