So here we go.

i have an obsession with cassettes. they were the first format i ever listened to music on. from Run DMC to TSOL, tapes were all i had. when cds came out i remember a friend of mine scoffed at my cd player stating "none of the bands we like will ever put out a cd". i feared he was going to be correct but of course we know how that went. like many people i gladly got rid of all my cassettes and traded them in for cds and vinyl (always had those around thanks to the support of a rad step dad). over fifteen years ago i saw Merzbow and Massonna play live in Seattle. i became hooked to all things noise and that meant exposure to cassettes again. i gladly returned to the fold and i appreciated how they had almost become fetish items. tapes wrapped in wire, covered in spray paint or turned into unplayable scupltures. i liked the act of playing a tape. the obsessive compulsive in me wouldn't allow me to stop a tape halfway, so i had to listen to both sides. forcing myself to be exposed to the whole artist's vision and saying "fuck you" to the short attention spans that cds and later mp3s had given us. they can also be so fragile that just playing them can destroy them. it's kinda awesome. i am doing this blog to share my thoughts about some very new and very old cassettes that i think are worth mentioning. please take a moment to read a review or two. check out a link. enjoy my obsession.