gtaylor@lasspvax.UUCP (Greg Taylor) (02/28/85)
This got written for my weekly column in the paper I write 4 and it seemed like it might be useful to post here, since a fair number of people wondered about getting indie cassette stuff the last time anything was posted on it. Of course, the USENET compilation is not listed here....yet! Isn't the Walkman wonderful? Overnight, it has created an enormous market where nothing existed before...a veritable Harvard Biz School fantasy. It has also created an enormous population of entirely autistic adults, dancing to the beat of a different drummer. I suspect you've had the sensation of standing next to someone in the elevator with those fara- way eyes, and realizing with a start that you can quite clearly hear the Lionel Ritchie tape from the other side of the elevator that must surely be turning their brains to Philly Creme Cheese. Some of the cassette (or K-7 as they're called in France) people even feign normalcy--driving their cars, whizzing around on bikes, and dozing next to us on the train. Insidious stuff. All of this may serve to distract you somewhat from the _i_d_e_a of the cassette: a small, nifty, easily produced bit of cul- ture. Some wily shoppers have even twigged to the fact that recording companies occasionally do things on a tape that don't show up on the records. For example, David Byrne's solo music for Twyla Tharp's "Catherine Wheel" clocks in at an out-of-order 40 something minutes on vinyl. The cassette is a full seventy minutes--the entire ballet score in correct performance order, at the same price. We're sitting through a rather quiet revolution in the cassette industry right now which is less visible if all you ever hear is what the radio tells you to buy. The cassette has caught the attention of a lot of people who make their own music, and a lot of other people who distribute the stuff, and is quietly producing a lot of music of the sort that was once called "the independent revolution" in the late 70's (that's where punk came from, before all the bucks and MTV). The cassette is appealing because it's a satisfy- ingly appropriate technology, and requires less of the mega- buck outlay of a record (and correspondingly less of the pressure to make least-common-denominator product). The trick is finding out what's out there. Since I've been writing for this august paper, by far the most regular com- ment I receive is, " How do you _f_i_n_d this stuff, anyhow?" The quick answer (and the correct one) is: I look for it. I am probably much more normal than most of you reading this paper. Horribly conventional, in fact, save for this interest I have in finding interesting things. And I know where to look, since I'm interested in it. But there's no mystery to that at all. You need to know where to look, and it helps to find a sympathetic partner in the retail busi- ness who may share your interests. Acquiring these things is a little like learning to taste wines. There is as much pleasure in learning as there is in doing once you've learned. There's a caveat here: cassette culture is a lot like the records produced by independent labels. There's a fair amount of junk out there. There is also a fair amount of stuff that you could probably care less about. There is also something lurking out there that you can really wrap you brains around and love. True, it's a crapshoot: but it's either that or a life of solo albums by big rock stars and whoever some chump decides you're gonna like next. Let's begin with _w_h_e_r_e to look. Initially, it's good to have help. The thing to remember is that you're making your way into a whole dfferent way of finding and locating things. This is an alternative distribution network. For this rea- son, it's often best to check with your local record mer- chant when you start the search. If they care at all about any of the same things you do, they'll probably be able to either steer you in the right direction, or know how to get the stuff which will do the steering. Besides, supporting local businesses is good sense anyhow...appropriate technol- ogy, local self-determination and all that. Cassette culture isn't like a big record company with lots of resources to pump into selling the product. Since most of the people who produce the stuff know that, there are a variety of publica- tions out there that cover nothing but independently pro- duced and released music. Not a single mention of Culture Club or Lou Reed or (fill in your current most loathsome media darling here) in an entire issue. Page after page of stuff you have never heard of made by people you have never heard of. Most of you will see this in somewhat the same way that people who stand at the edge of the jungle and look in: there's either too much of something, to something beyond the tangle. The best example of such a publication is/was OP, published by the Lost Music Network in Olympia, Washington. It covered nothing but independent music--both cassettes and LPs...hundreds of them every two months. OP was a project whose purpose was to put out 26 issues, one for each letter of the alphabet. When they got to Z, they stopped. You can find back issues in some local record stores from time to time, and they're worth their weight in gold. The mantle of OP magazine has been taken up by not one, but _t_h_r_e_e publications. Each one of them will run you about a buck or two per issue or $12 per year,and are chock full of articles and reviews that give you a sense of what people are doing out there. You can usually talk any reasonably good record store into finding copies of the stuff in the magazine (since the people distributing this kind of music are usually always mentioned, along with prices and addresses). In fact, they may already know about them, but have been hesitant to get the stuff in the store for fear that no one out there is interested (believe me, it happens). Here's the names and numbers--the rest is up to you: _C_L_E_M is the Contact List of Electronic Music. It comes out twice a year, and is put out by a guy who works in a ski resort north of Vancouver named Alex Douglas. Alex puts out a catalog of recordings, publications, and contacts for peo- ple who do electronic music from all over the world-- literally. It's usually a xerox (the people's publishing) format, and is a truly dizzying batch of listings. Alex charges $12 for a year and a half (3 issues), but you can probably pick up a copy by beating on a local retailer. Alex's address is: CLEM, P.O. Box 86010, N. Vancouver, Brit- ish Columbia, Canada, V7L 4J5. This covers everything from the mainstream to the extreme fringe. _S_o_u_n_d _C_h_o_i_c_e is one of the two inheritors of the OP legacy. Any given issue features both feature articles, irate letters, publication reviews, and lots of reviews of independent stuff. I've seen copies of their first issue at a local record emporium already, so I'm pretty sure you can get it down at the corner. If not, try writing The Audio Evolution Network, P.O. Box 1251, Ojai, CA 93023. _O_P_t_i_o_n is the other post-OP digest of stuff. Their first issue is probably out March 1st, but I'd figure that it's pretty much like OP and Sound Choice, since about half of the old OP review staff went to one publication, and the other half to another. They're also $12 a year, and probably also available here eventually. If you can't find them here, try P.O. Box 491034, Lost Angeles, CA 90049. _C_a_s_s_e_t_t_e_r_a is a new publication that covers _o_n_l_y cassette releases. It functions as a kind of enormous clearinghouse for all of the thousand things out there in the galaxy. Their exclusively cassette format is unusual. Fortunately, they're intending to function as a sort of "Whole Earth Catalog" for the cassette culture. Try to find them locally, or contact them at P.O. Box 893 Boston, MA