In this week's blog we thought we would share our memories of the humble cassette tape in honour of Cassette Store Day which happened last weekend.
Cassette Store Day was set up to celebrate 50 years since the launch of the cassette. 28 stores across the UK took part in the day, which featured special cassette releases from the likes of Younghusband, Flaming Lips and Haim.
To celebrate the cassette in our own special way, some of the staff at Folded Wing have shared their fond memories of the much-loved cassette tape!
John - Bio Rhythm - "Dance Music With Bleeps"
"In the summer of 1990 I went on holiday with my folks to Pembrokeshire in Wales. I was 14 at the time and already a bit of a music nerd; reading NME every week and taping shows like John Peel's off the radio. We went to Wales a fair bit when I was a kid and there was this great little record shop in Tenby that I knew about. They'd always have a bargain box of vinyl, so I'd usually pop in, have a rummage and buy a record or two. It was pot luck really, as they didn't have decks to listen through to, so I'd look out for artists or labels that I'd read about, or heard on the radio. On this particular occasion, I went into the shop and started browsing through the tapes. I had a fiver in pocket-money, so I thought I might be able to get something half-decent. One tape in particular caught my eye - Bio Rhythm - "Dance Music With Bleeps" - a compilation on a UK label called Network. It was a Birmingham label that was consistently mentioned in an NME column written by Graham Sherman, the paper's lone dance music journalist. As "Sherman At The Controls", he'd given rave reviews to Network records, citing artists like Derrick May, Juan Atkins and referencing the whole Detroit Techno thing. Having never actually heard any of this music, I was really intrigued and this album looked like a goldmine. But at £6.99 it was out of my limited teenage budget. Bugger! Somewhat annoyed, I ambled over to the bargain box of records, squatted down and started flicking through them to find something more affordable. But to my amazement, just as I started thumbing through the vinyl, I noticed a crisp £20 note just sitting there on top of the records! By this point, I was the only person in the shop, so whoever had dropped it had long since departed. Doing what any good teenager would do in my shoes, I slyly pocketed the money, got a bit paranoid and made a swift exit, heading down to Woolworths to buy something sugary. Half an hour later, having successfully broken the £20 note, I went back to the record shop, bought the tape and made my way to the beach. It was an amazingly sunny day and without sounding overly corny, listening to that album on my Walkman on Tenby Beech was a life changing moment. I still remember it vividly. It felt like I was listening to the future. And that album, more than any other, shaped my musical taste for years to come. Eternal thanks to the person with a leaky wallet for making it happen."
Jim - Paul 'Trouble' Anderson on Kiss 100 FM
"I have hundreds of old cassettes, mainly of old radio shows and I treasure them all very dearly!
It's mainly stuff I recorded off Kiss FM from the early - late 90s.
One of my most treasured is my oldest Kiss tape from 1993, a Paul 'Trouble' Anderson one from his old Saturday night show. A whole C90 tape of 100% killer Disco/Boogie... all mixed like only Trouble could.
It took me many years to find out what all the tunes were and some I still don't know. John Gibbs 'Trinidad', Logg's 'Dancing Into The Stars', Damon Harris 'It's Music', Phreek's 'Weekend'... all the good stuff!
90% of my musical education came from listening to Kiss shows... Trouble, Joey Jay, Gilles P, Bob Jones, Patrick Forge, Fabio, Bukem, R Solution... and I am ever thankful!"
Karen - "Hip Hop and Rapping In The House"
"Aged 10.. One of my first and favourite cassette's I played it so much it is def worn out.. Got me into hip hop & many hours spent dancing around my bedroom to Cookie Crew and Salt 'N' Pepa. I took a picture of my old tape cassette collection.. You can see it on the left....."
Pete - The Stone Roses - "This Is The One"
"If I am totally honest, I don't have many memories of the cassette tape, being born in 1991 by the time I was listening to music the CD had arrived. However I do have a few memories, I remember, as cheesy and lame as this is, making pretend radio shows with my sister on tape and making my parents listen back to them. I also remember kids at primary school selling tapes of songs they had recorded off the radio for 50p, I remember wanting to buy "Stan" by Eminem and "I'm Blue" by Eiffel 65 from my friend but my parents wouldn't let me and I ended up crying.......... Thinking about it now it was probably a wise move from them! On a slightly cooler note, I remember getting my brother's tape player just before I got my first CD player, he only gave me one tape with it, he had put "This Is The One" by The Stone Roses on it..... I must have played it a thousand times."Andrea - Operation Ivy
"I still used a tape walkman for well into 2005 (too long) so all my albums were on tape. The one that got the most usage was the Operation Ivy one - so much so that at some parts where the tape had twisted you could hear the other side being sung backwards through the fuzz. Fond memories of rewinding it with a biro to save on batteries too."
So there you have it those are our memories of the cassette tape! You can share your favourite memories of the cassette with us on Twitter at @FoldedWingUK
For more information on Cassette Store Day visit http://cassettestoreday.com/
