Last summer was different. I felt like I had something to prove. I lost the co-host that was responsible for the lion’s share of my views, and I wanted to pivot back to music. Grab A Stack of Rock was envisioned as an “easy” show, where I didn’t have to do any prep or homework. I was ready to work hard again and I think we did that. We brought back lists and deep dives and the show was so much better for it.
This year is a little different in another way, which is my old co-hosts are occupied. Harrison is busy focusing on his health. Other co-hosts have their own shows now. Others still are focusing on family. I can’t blame them for that. In a way, my show has been a bit like the Alice Cooper backing band. Just as he launched the careers of Kip Winger and many more, my show has launched others into the Youtube-sphere. That show out of Thunder Bay Ontario wouldn’t exist without my rocket boosters. With that in mind, I think this summer will be something of a slowdown.
This week we’re back at the cottage with John Clauser and Metal Roger. It’ll be their first cottage show.
What will the summer bring? Fewer shows perhaps, but Grab A Stack of Rock will still continue, perhaps with a few different faces that we didn’t have last summer. Some familiar ones as well. Grant from the Rock Warehaus wants to hang out on the front porch again this summer. I’m also thinking of doing a midnight outdoors show. We’ll see what the summer has in store, but one thing I don’t need to do is prove anything to anyone. We did that last year and we’re better off for it.
RECORD STORE TALES #1127: Walter – An Uncle Paul story
My Uncle Paul loved his “spot”. It was a comfy armchair at the cottage, right next to the patio screen door, and right in front of the TV. The phone was on an end table right next to it, and fridge was never far, with a fresh supply of cold beer. It was cool, shaded, comfortable, and perfect. On many days he’d prefer to sit there than come down to the beach, or playing cards. Who could blame him? Though we were often elsewhere while Uncle Paul did his thing, he was never alone.
He had Walter.
In reality, there was probably more than one Walter. Chipmunks typically only live two to three years, yet Walter, in one form or another, returned to his screen door year after year, looking for peanuts. There was also a second chipmunk that he named Fang. Doctor Kathryn recalls, “the other chipmunk he fed, he named Fang. Fang had part of his ear missing, and looked really banged up!” He probably ran afoul of a cat or Schnauzer.
We always had loads of chipmunks at the cottage. They’re not a pest, but they’re timid and not very brave by nature. If you left peanuts out (always shelled, unsalted), then you could gradually condition them to come closer and closer. Still, many would cower afar, especially since there were Schnauzers about, and Schnauzers and chipmunks are natural sworn enemies. This rivalry has been documented through history, most notably in the German children’s fable “The Chipmunk that Stole the Schnauzer’s Hat” (“Der Streifenhörnchen, der den Hut des Schnauzers Gestohlen“).
Through patience and time, Uncle Paul had trained little Walter the Chipmunk to come to his screen door and be rewarded with a peanut. The little brown, black and white creature would approach tentatively with caution, grasp a peanut his two front paws, stuff it in his cheeks, and dart off! He scampered across the deck, down to the ground and off into the unknown trees. But he’d be back, minutes later, ready to stuff another peanut in his cheeks. Uncle would always have an ample stash of nuts ready to serve.
This year, Jen and I have been visited by a new chipmunk friend on the front porch. It’s our first summer there since Uncle Paul passed in November. I’ve decided to name him Walter 2, in honour my uncle’s original friend.
It has been a hell of a week. There’s an untold story here; one that I have elected not to tell. Let’s just say I’m out a lot of money, and other setbacks have caused me to take a step back from social media for a few days. Just too much going on for me to deal with in a calm and cool manner. Better to retreat into the shadows a bit.
As always, the Show Must Go On, and so I was determined to do my best on Friday May 17’s Arkells special on Grab A Stack of Rock. It was the first show I’d done without a co-host (just a special guest) in a long while. I felt unprepared despite a whole week of listening. Things came together at the last minute, and all I needed was the new Arkells album, Disco Loadout Volume One, for the show to go right. I planned to spend the afternoon listening to the CD and hoped to open up the autographed clear splatter vinyl live on the show.
The thing about going live is that it’s a double-edged sword. The plus is you get the rush of live viewer feedback, and that sparks the show to be so much more exciting. The negative is that when things go wrong, there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s live for you.
My record was supposed to arrive on May 15. It didn’t. May 16 came and went. Surely, it would be in my mailbox by May 17, the release date. It had to be.
I arrived home from work early on Friday. I raced with my heart pounding to the mailbox. “It’ll be in there,” I reasoned to myself. “Why wouldn’t it be? It has to be.”
It wasn’t.
Furious, I went right to my computer and called up the tracking.
“Good news!” said Canada Post. “Your parcel was delivered to your locked condo mailbox on May 16!”
Umm, no it wasn’t! I picked up the phone. I searched for a phone number. Do you know how hard it is to call Canada Post on the phone and get a human being on the phone? I was completely unsuccessful.
I went ’round and ’round on phone menus for half an hour. I called my local post office, only to go to voicemail after an agonisingly long wait. I swore up and down, and let out a primal yell that would have frightened the upstairs neighbour, had he been home.
I called Encore Records, and fortunately they had CD copies of the album in stock. I ran downtown, grabbed the album from them (and a few other discs as well). I was greeted there by old pal Chris, and I want to thank Encore for saving the day. Once home, I immediately played the album once-and-a-half times, and began my show prep. (I also picked up three other discs – a 4 CD Faster Pussycast set, the new Beatles single “Now and Then“, and the new Ace Frehley 10,000 Volts.)
I wouldn’t be able to open the signed splatter vinyl live on the show, but I filed a report with Canada Post. It was all I could do. There were no other options available. Showing a CD copy wouldn’t be as exciting, but at least I had it in hand and could read the credits while listening.
The show went incredibly well; far better than I expected. This was due to special guest Nurse Kat and her enthusiasm, and to some excellent notes from D’Arcy Briggs. I’m really happy and proud of the show we did together. I’d never attempted to do a show on a new album, on the day of release before. We were treading new ground in multiple ways, and while it almost didn’t work, it ended up being one of the best shows to date. The passion for the music came through.
Two days later, there was a knock on the door. A tall gentleman from down the hall had a parcel for me. It had been delivered to his unit.
How this happened, I’ll never understand but someone at Canada Post wrote the number “103” on the parcel. Even though my correct unit number was written clearly on the parcel where the address was, this scribbled “103” put my parcel in the tall man’s mailbox. Fortunately he is one of the good ones, and not all of them are. Just this week, an upstairs neighbour had an expensive Amazon parcel opened and stolen. It’s not a good feeling to have mail thieves in our building, but I have been victim twice before. I’m glad this wasn’t the third time.
Even though I didn’t get to unbox it live, Peter Kerr from Rock Daydream Nation was kind enough to join me for a quick look at a beautiful record. It looks as great as it sounds.
And so the week of stress comes to a happy ending. The other bit of good news is that the social media hiatus was a good idea. I went on a writing bender like never before. Expect loads of reviews this spring and summer.
Thank you to the guy down the hall, to Peter Kerr, to D’Arcy Briggs, and to Nurse Kat for turning this potential disaster story into one of triumph!
“I want to do something new this weekend,” goes the eternal complaint. Even with Lake Huron in front of us, and a lush green paradise all around, sometimes I still moan about doing the same things every weekend.
There is so much you can do, but only a couple days to do it all. It’s easy to fall into comfortable habits and just…relax. However, the cottage is too special to just relax. Surely, I’ve had some of the best sleeps of my life there, but you don’t want to sleep your day away, as easy as it can be.
As always, we started the trip on the front porch. We always like to listen to music on our night of arrival, as the sun sets. This time, we chose Prince’s Purple Rain, which I didn’t own last year. This music was new to the cottage, and it was an absolutely incredible experience. I danced around the porch to “Computer Blue”, but the sun was setting just as Prince began singing about the “Purple Rain”. It was a surreal experience hearing Prince sing “Ooo, ooo, ooo,” as the orange and pink clouds slowly let the sun sink beneath the horizon. It felt like Prince was there in the forest somewhere, just out of sight.
New thing #1 achieved: “Purple Rain” at sunset.
We always like to experiment with food. Believe it or not, we have not made homemade burgers at the lake in decades. Why? My dad used to hate cooking them, as they’d fall to pieces on the grill. Not anymore. Thanks to a tip from my good buddy Thuss, we now are making our own homemade burgers. The secret: Freeze them. Once frozen, those patties stay together and do no break apart. For our first batch, this was our successful blend:
Lean beef (Jen wanted extra lean but I said no)
Ground thick cut bacon
1 egg
Bread Crumbs
Parmesan flakes
Salt
Pepper
Paprika
Chili flakes
Minced fresh garlic
Minced fresh onion
Ketchup
Mustard
Olive oil
I don’t know how much of that we could actually taste, but it was fun and the result was juicy and perfect. And then next batch is already in the freezer waiting to be cooked up, with a new set of ingredients including local beef.
New thing #2 achieved: Perfect homemade burgers on the grill.
But wait, there’s more! Thanks to a new, deep cast iron frying pan, we also fried our own french fries. No more oven baked fries, or air fries! Only the real deal. They were crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and perfect all around.
New thing #3 achieved: Golden brown french fries.
To quote ZZ Top: I AM your burger man.
“My charcoal’s getting red hot, Put your order in my hand, Won’t you let me show you what I got, Sizzling in the pan.”
I woke up on the Saturday morning as I often do, bright and early. It was damp and cold with not a single human to be seen, myself excluded. It’s a good time to spot wildlife. There have been bears in the area, but I did not see one. Instead, I saw a red canid coming up the path from the beach. A fox? I had not seen our local fox up there in at least a year. This animal had the gait of a fox, but not the bushy red and white tail. This animal had a thin, bony tail, and its frame was larger than a fox.
It was a coyote. My first coyote sighting, ever. I’ve heard them at night, but never seen one in the fur before.
New thing #4 achieved: Coyote sighting!
I knew there was no way I’d be able to grab my phone in time. I simply watched the confident, unafraid animal stroll down our little dirt road as if he was the only one in the world.
Of course, all of this would pale in comparison to the Aurora Borealis. I’d never seen the Northern Lights before. I did my best to describe the experience, but words and pictures do not capture the awe. It felts as if we were all under a huge electric dome. It is something I’ll never forget even if I never see it again. It began suddenly and dimly, before the lights were all you could see anywhere, in every direction. The lights reflected off the waters, and created beautiful patterns in the ripples.
New thing #5 achieved: Aurora Borealis
New experiences are not always possible at the lake, nor are they always necessary. Sometimes it’s enough to just sit on the porch and watch the days go by. After 52 years of coming to the exact same location, to have so many new sights, sounds and flavours in one weekend was unexpected.
The cottage is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get!
52 years of coming to the cottage, since my very birth, and there are still new things to see.
I used to think I was too far south to ever see the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis). Certainly it has never happened before. However, we are heading into a Solar Maximum, which means a high point in the sun’s 11 year cycle of activity. The sun’s magnetic field is a twisty turny-thing, and every 11 years, it gets twisted up into an increasingly excited state, and the sun ejects massive eruptions of particles into the surrounding space. When our Earth eventually collides with the charged particles, they create brilliant shows of light in the sky. There are both northern and southern borealis, and in northern Canada, people can see the lights easily. Where I live in the southern tip, we never see the lights!
May 10, around 10:15 PM, the lights came to visit the shores of Lake Huron.
Jen and I headed down to the beach, as the Boston Bruins were getting mauled by the Florida Panthers. I kept my eyes north, assuming that was where I would see the lights. Disappointed, I shouted back at Jen, “There’s nothing yet.”
I noticed something as I looked back at her. The sky was “hazy”,
“Is that it?” I asked Jen as I looked straight up. There was a cloudy streak across the sky.
Then I looked south and saw the horizon glowing green. The northern lights were not coming from the north! They were all around us, in every direction, like a glowing curtain! It was not at all what I expected to see.
The light show peaked for about 15 minutes, on a very cold night. The lights shifted and changed, ever so slowly, so that you barely noticed. You could stare at a band of green until it faded and was suddenly replaced by swirls of red. The moon was a sharp crescent and it cut a hole through a band of green, as did a handful of bright stars.
Photographs and videos, of course, only tell part of the story, and only insofar as technology can capture. The real colours and the subtle wispy cloudy bands we saw are lost in photos.
Directly overhead appeared to be the center of it all. Radiating out from a central point were bands of cloudy white, like a celestial starfish. Jen and I pondered this and wondered if the solar particles were hitting at that point.
I wish I had been listening to “Purple Rain” at that moment. It did almost look like purple rain at times.
Jen and I had a moment on the previous night, listening to “Purple Rain” during sunset. It was an uplifting, somewhat surreal moment to hear Prince soloing and singing over the sight of the glowing sky. Imagine if we had it playing during the borealis!
The bone-chilling cold of the Kincardine night cut our visit short, but I can now say I’ve seen the Northern Lights.
I never say this, but this time it’s true: Our first weekend at the cottage was absolutely perfect. Without a hitch. Exactly as planned, right down to the last detail. And loaded with new music!
The road trip began at 5:15 on Thursday night, April 25. Traffic was heavy, but not as heavy as the music! (We may need to look for another route out of town next time, as it took us almost half an hour just to escape Kitchener.) I had decided early in the week that the first road album of 2024 had to be Invincible Shield by Judas Priest! I had no doubt it would be one of the best road albums of the year. So confident was I, that I packed up my copy for Friday night’s Grab A Stack of Rock – Top 11 Albums to Play with the Windows Down. And I was right. “Crown of Horns” was the singalong track, though there were no duds. The album comes to a natural close on “Giants in the Sky” which has a classic Priest ending, but it’s not over yet! The bonus tracks give you a little extra road play, with a second ending in “The Lodger”. Brilliant album that kept us energized for the drive.
Priest couldn’t take us the whole way. When the Invincible Shield had ended, we moved onto Bruce Dickinson’s Mandrake Project. I haven’t had the time to absorb it yet, but Jen really enjoyed the album as we pulled down our little dirt road and into the driveway.
Everything was exactly as I left it back in October.
Taking my speakers out of storage, and making myself comfortable on the cool front deck, I chose the first porch album of the season. I didn’t want something as heavy rocking. Nor did I want something mellow and acoustic. This calls for the Arkells!
“We got gas in the tank to go all night,” sang Max Kerman from my porch. I danced away to this perfect evening. Rally Cry is the album I connected with the least last summer, being more political and less personal. This time it hit all the right spots, scratched all the itches, and began the season on the right note.
Jen noticed that I was joking around and more giddy than usual.
“Because I’m happy,” I said. “I feel alive again. This is what I had been waiting for.”
Friday was forecast as a summery, sunny day. We started early by picking up the first steaks of the season at the Beefway. We chose one porterhouse and one ribeye. This is our place to buy meat. There’s nobody better around. We stocked up on fish, pies, bacon and cooking oil. I had duck for lunch, and hot dogs and hamburgers in the evening.
For now, it was time for the main event: the first Grab A Stack of Rock from the cottage! It was a 3 PM afternoon show, and Jex was on board with his Top 11 Road Songs, in contrast to my album picks. Once again, everything went really well! Though Jex was late with work (the only unscripted thing about it), it will go down as one of my favourite shows ever. The roaring fire in the background was something new. I love playing with my visual setting, on Grab A Stack of Rock, at the cottage. Thank you Jex for an amazing start to the year. I hope we can do more, but even if we can’t, I got to do the fireside show that I had hoped for. Scratch that off the list.
The rain began Saturday, but it only got warmer. Another day on the front porch was in order, but first we went into town to see what was new.
We hit up a thrift store. I keep seeing all these guys on Facebook buying everything they can at thrift stores. I don’t know what they do with the CDs afterwards. Do their play their new Trisha Yearwood albums? Do they try and flip them? I found nothing in the gospel and country that they had, except for one signed CD by an unknown artist. The Facebook people would have bought them all; I chose none. I don’t buy for investment and I don’t really need a lot of music “on spec” when I barely have time to enjoy what I own.
Saturday was a weird day. It’s hard to explain exactly what happened, but as the day went on the feeling got more intense. I was having Deja Vu feelings every few minutes. It wasn’t specific memories, just…overall feelings. They were usually centered around people from my childhood, but I don’t know why. I would be cooking steaks in the back yard, and having Deja Vu feelings from grade school, but I was unable to nail down any specific memories. It was just a weird feeling like, “I have done this before,” but unable to identify a specific memory. I just felt like it was childhood. It intensified at dinner time. Perhaps the aromas of the cooking brought me back to Saturday dinners at the table, with steak and corn. Our steaks were perfect.
I mentioned earlier that everything went down without a hitch. That is not entirely true….
The Toronto Maple Leafs shit the bed. We shall not discuss this. It is not a good subject.
Otherwise, everything went perfect. I was starting to feel sad on Sunday morning, as I did the dishes and packed my bags up. Deciding what to bring back home and what to leave behind, I felt sad.
“Not this time,” I said, and I fought it back.
We played Kiss on the way home. Unmasked, Rock and Roll Over, and Asylum. These albums of childhood happiness drove the sadness away, and I woke up Monday morning feeling good.
This year’s first weekend at the cottage was a diametric contrast to 2023, which ended prematurely when I decided to go home early.
2023’s first weekend began with anxiety, as my former co-host was focused only on her solo show, and did not seem to care at all what I was doing. That weekend was not just supposed to be my return to the lake, but also hers. This is where we met (online) and bonded. I could not wait to return and do it again. She couldn’t seem more disinterested. She began stripping online that weekend, and I knew the friendship was all but over. I knew that was a road I could not follow, and I knew she wanted me to, even though she refused to come right out and say it. The writing was on the wall, that cold and rainy weekend. Within seven days, the friendship had ended, as I knew it would. She would never join me at the cottage again, even though we had spent six months planning it.
Not this time.
2024 is off to the right start. Even if Jex can’t do as many summer shows with me this year, we accomplished what we set out to do. An amazing weekend was had. The music we road tested passed the gauntlet, and we are ready to get on with the summer.
Rediscovering music can be just as good, if not better, than discovering it in the first place.
I’m not sure why I segregated these records from my collection. When we brought “Mum’s” music home with us after she passed, I stuffed these nine albums in my closet, without assimilating them into my proper collection. I’m sure there were reasons, but today I welcome them with open arms.
Mum liked Canadian music, soundtracks, and the classics. Not so much classical, but classics like…well, you’ll see.
I made this video instead of writing a story, because I wanted the camera to capture the emotions of seeing these records. I went in unspoiled. I didn’t look at the records in advance, because I did not want to spoil the surprise. It has been years since I looked at or played any of these albums. These not were the only albums of Mum’s that we kept. Elsewhere, mixed into my collection properly, are the Beatles, Gordon Lightfoot, and The Buddy Holly Story.
Please enjoy this emotional look at Debbie’s Records.
As the Klingons (and Stooges) say: Qa’pla! (Success!)
I’ve been checking out the weather forecasts for weeks. There hasn’t been a clear, beautiful Saturday to go to the lake. Even this week, the forecast was for flurries and cloudy skies. That all changed Thursday, when the weather was looking like sun and cloud. When Saturday finally rolled around, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Jen, my dad and I bundled up and headed to the lake for the first time in over five months.
Now I’m not saying everything was perfect; that’s not how it goes in cottage country. Winter always does some damage, it’s just a matter of how much. One lady across the road had a cedar tree down. That wasn’t our issue; ours was pest related! There is an animal living under the shed, perhaps a skunk? There was a drowned mouse in the toilet, and the mice had gotten into the spice cabinet. Virtually everything has to be tossed. They really seem to like the smell of garlic. My garlic olive oil had its cap gnawed clean off. My sister had it even worse. She bought a dozen mouse traps, and every one was full.
There was also an issue with the internet. It should have been connected, but we fiddled and fiddled around with no success. It turns out, Rogers cancelled the service by mistake! My dad was trying to cancel his home service, but without success. Now we know why. Rogers cancelled the cottage service by mistake! I phoned home to tell my mom, who quickly sussed out the problem. By the time we left the cottage, internet was restored.
The stage is now set for my favourite thing ever: cottage episodes of Grab A Stack of Rock! Though nothing is planned yet, it’s definitely happening.
Road tunes – April 6 2024:
Alice Cooper – Goes to Hell
Alice Cooper – School’s Out
Alice Cooper – Greatest Hits (miscellaneous tracks)
RECORD STORE TALES #1120: Coming Soon: Opening Season…
Opening weekend rarely goes as planned!
Soon we will be returning to open up the cottage for another season of sun, sand, swimming, and Grab A Stack of Rock! We hope this season’s opening day goes without a hitch. The last two didn’t! Shall we recap?
2022
2022’s trip up was serenaded by John Williams’ soundtrack to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. This was appropriate because we first saw that film in 1989 at the cottage.
It was a lovely opening day. The drive up (just my dad and I) was uneventful. Our arrival was marked by peace and quiet. Sunny, warm, and a perfect morning to spend outdoors.
I never accompanied the family to open the cottage in my Record Store days. Usually I was working. If I wasn’t working, I was spending my free time going on dates with girls. That was pretty much it. Work and dating. The cottage wasn’t interesting to me in those days. It’s a different story today. Now I spend my whole winter dreaming of opening day.
In 2022, we made good progress and by late morning, I started burning up old scrub and branches that had fallen during the winter. I gleefully wandered around, scooping armfuls of pine needles and twigs into a roaring fire.
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There was only one issue, and it was one I should have dealt with long before. My glasses were loose. I had them adjusted once, and they slowly loosened again over time. They were prone to falling right off my face if I looked down. I should have had them fixed long before, and I should have been more careful about what happened next.
I scooped into my arms another pile of pine needles for the fire. My glasses dropped into my arms as I tossed the flammables into the fire. My glasses went with them. They melted in seconds, though I frantically searching the ground in futile hope for several minutes before giving up.
The panic set in shortly thereafter!
I phoned Jen at home to see if she could locate my old pair. No luck. I sulked on the couch for a while, dreading the coming days with no glasses. Then I thought to check my car’s glovebox.
Behold! An old pair of glasses were still in the glovebox, thank God. I was able to drive home, and continue to live my life relatively normally.
Dad and I drove to the sounds of Jon Lord, with his Concerto for Group and Orchestra, featuring Bruce Dickinson singing the second movement. After this, I selected Johnny Cash’s American III: Solitary Man. My dad could have driven in total silence, though I never could.
I had a bad feeling this time. @MarriedandHeels from California had promised to be my support over winter, as I dealt with seasonal affective disorder (S.A.D.). She had a “Ragnar” marathon from April 14-16 2023. In the weeks preceding, video and audio messages from her all but dried up, even though I was still creating them daily for her. She sent a video message from the marathon on the Saturday, but there were a number of red flags. There was something wrong with the video message she sent, and the two that followed. None of them began with her customary “Hi Mike!”
“Is she sending these video messages to everyone?” I asked myself. Things began falling apart from that point. My spider senses would not stop tingling, and even though she had promised to show up for the Grab A Stack of Rock shows from the cottage, she didn’t attend or even watch one of them. Not even one. This shadow loomed heavy over the season as it began in 2023.
The bad vibes continued as we drove home. I almost got a speeding ticket, my first in over a decade. As he was pulling us over, the cop got a call for an urgent accident. He told me I got lucky, as he returned my license to me and drove off. I switched up the music, first to Gordon Lightfoot – Complete Greatest Hits. I had no way to know that Gordon would be gone a mere two weeks later. I followed Gord with the Goo Goo Dolls – A Boy Named Goo.
Fortunately these bad omens did not impact the incoming cottage season. 2023 was as good as ever.
2024
And now, we we plan our return in 2024, we have plenty of new music from Judas Priest, Bruce Dickinson, John Williams, the Arkells, and much more to enjoy at the cottage. What will the first album be as we drive up again? We’ll see soon enough!
RECORD STORE TALES #1117: I Admit It: I Miss My Cassettes
Hey, it’s me, the guy who has talked about how much he hates cassettes, again and again ad nauseum. I don’t know why, but I’m feeling a lot of nostalgia for tapes these days. While CD remains my go-to format, with vinyl in second, I am now on the lookout for old 80s metal cassettes that still play well. What the hell happened to me?
It’s true that I have a lot of bad memories about cassettes, to go with the good. I have my own system and language when it comes to my collection, but I abandoned cassette back in 1995 because the sound quality wasn’t there and got noticeably worse the more you played the tape. I considered cassette to be a “soft copy”, with the longer-lasting CD and vinyl being “hard copies”. You simply have more control in keeping those two formats in good shape. Cassettes are another story. It’s just magnetic particles stuck to a ribbon, and every time you play it, those particles wear off bit by bit. In effect, you wreck your favourite tapes fastest because you simply love listening to them! There were other complications. Different decks played at different speeds, with my “ghetto blaster” playing the slowest and most warbly. I had two Sanyos and then a Sony, and the Sanyos were by far the worst. Only my Sony Walkman was able to play almost every tape in my collection at something close to the right speed. Once I learned to drive, I found that the car deck could play pretty much anything, but it did eat a few tapes too. It was like every time you wanted to listen to music, you had to pick the right equipment and cross your fingers. I remember wrecking a copy of Black Sabbath Tyr by accidentally pushing two buttons at once on my Sanyo. This created a loud squeal right during the start of “Anno Mundi” that was impossible to ignore. Playing tapes was like walking a minefield sometimes! I always prayed that nothing would go wrong.
CD solved most of the problems I had with cassettes. Heck, even the artwork was back to being a square! Cassette cover art was either cropped or “pan-and-scanned” (to coin a phrase) to make a square fit into a rectangle. Everything about CD was better. Bonus tracks, better sound, longer life, larger (and square!) artwork…even the ability to skip through songs in an instant. What wasn’t there to prefer? And why the hell do I miss cassettes right now?
It’s all nostalgia. There was something about buying a new album on cassette, and being basically forced to listen to the whole thing. There was a certain appreciation for the album, with an actual side break, that connected us to the vinyl age in a way that CD did not. Or, maybe it was just the glory time of our youths that made it feel that way. The act of closing the door, pressing “play” on a new tape, and laying on your bed to listen with intent. How often is music just background noise in our modern lives now? How frequently do we sit and spend time just listening to the music while staring at the packaging today? Are we listening, or are we multitasking? I’m multitasking right now, listening to Trilogy by Yngwie J. Malmsteen on my speakers.
I picked that recording for a reason. I got on cassette from my grandma in 1987. It was on Capitol Records and it played for shit out of the box. Many Capitol tapes did around 1986-87. my W.A.S.P. and Iron Maiden all had similar problems, which them priorities to upgrade on CD when the time came. I know not everybody likes Yngwie. Some find him grating. He does take some adjustment, but imagine listening to your first Yngwie on a slow, warbly cassette.
I do miss some things though.
I miss opening up a new tape and seeing what colour or design the shell was. Usually they were black, but as the 90s progressed they were frequently clear. Some were white, and my Helix was glow-in-the dark! With CD there was the occasional thrill when we got a picture disc, but soon that became the standard. The clunky cassette, with its little wheels and windows, was physically just cooler than a CD and you didn’t have to be as careful.
The lyric sheets were easier to read. All you had to do was unfold the J-card and lay it out. CDs often had pages stapled into a little booklet that you had to hold open. Cassettes may have had smaller print, but the paradox was that the format made it physically easier to read!
Cassettes were perfect for the pocket. You could easily slide a couple (maybe even three) into a jacket pocket. CDs never fit right and if you got one in your pocket, it was a tight fit. And jewel cases were easy to crack and break.
That’s another thing! Cassette cases had their weaknesses too. They could crack like a CD case, and the little arms could snap off. However this is far more common on the CD case, which also have those annoyingly fragile teeth that hold the disc in place. Cassette cases were just slightly more sturdy than their CD counterparts.
Finally, cassette spines were wider and easier to read. Period!
I do miss cassettes. I have better equipment today, and though not an audiophile setup, I get by. There are some releases I’d like to have on cassette again, or for the first time. I guess I’m a changed man. I’m not the format snob I used to be. However, if they start jacking up the prices of cassettes the way vinyl is today, we’ll have to talk again.
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