Tabs Out

cassette podcast focusing on noise & experimental sounds
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Tabs Out | Ten Tweets About Cassette Store Day

Ten Tweets About Cassette Store Day
7.15.13 by Mike Haley

tweets_thumbI’m sure by now most people have heard about Cassette Store Day which will take place this coming September. Personally, I think its fucking stupid on multiple levels. But a day to celebrate cassette stores (whatever those are?) or cassettes in general is obviously nothing to get bent out of shape about, right? In fact, when I brought up my beyond First World grievance about it to Dave at Tabs Out his exact response, and I’m quoting him here, was “WHOCARE”. So I’ll spare you my diatribe. Even though I live for getting into irrational frenzies over inconsequential bullshittery, my oddly shaped frame boiling over with toddler-like fussiness akin to Francis Buxton from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. I’ll refrain. I wont poo-poo about good labels that actually LIKE cassettes having their projects pushed aside so At The Drive-In and The Flaming Lips can have some novelty knickknacks made. Hell, NAC’s turnaround is almost TOO FAST as it is, so this may be a good thing. I wont bring up anything about the lameness of manufactured rarities (though I would highly recommend reading The Wire’s Collateral Damage: Numero Group on the vinyl bubble article from last month). Dude, I wont even bring up how much I hate the whole “cassettes are fun, kooky, and retro! Look at my iPhone. The case makes it look like a cassette!!!” crew. Nope, none of that Gloomy Gus style from me. Instead, here are my ten favorite tweets from today about Cassette Store Day.

1
https://twitter.com/totalvibration/status/356804321553301505

2

3

4

5
https://twitter.com/dogdazetapes/status/356868235741757440

6
https://twitter.com/billmartin/status/356920194452570112

7
https://twitter.com/frenchbloke/status/356873335331753984

8

9
https://twitter.com/RanoRanoRano_/status/356814847041748994

10
https://twitter.com/Marcissist/status/356879839866798081

and a self serving bonus

 

There will be tons of releases and worldwide events for CSD. You can check out their site for info.

 

update (7/16): Oh, and just for the record, Volcanic Tongue invented Cassette Store Day.

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mugenseries_thumb7.15.13: Hausu Mountain’s “Mugen Series” Preview

Next week Hausu Mountain will release the first four volumes of their open ended Mugen cassette series and we put together a little preview. [Check It Out]

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7.15.13: Hausu Mountain’s “Mugen Series” Preview
mugenpng

I’m a big fan of a good series. I grew up getting Sub Pop Singles Club records in the mail, and even though there was A LOT of clunkers in the bunch, something about the idea of a complete collection intrigued me and I kept signing up for another year. By the time Not Not Fun issued their “Bored Fortress” series a handful of years back, I didn’t even really like 7″s anymore, but I still signed up for that, too (with much better results I should add). It’s especially appealing to my senses when a series goes that extra mile and places certain rules, regulations, and/or themes on the artists involved. It can range from the extremely simple, like region (ie: the “New England”, “Michigan”, “California” etc… box sets from RRR and friends), to something a bit more involved. In the early 2000’s a label called Chrome Peeler issued a set of compilations called “You’ve Got Your Orders” where song titles were assigned to musicians who then had to write and record a song with said title (only two were released, so I’m not sure if that constitutes a series, but…). And of course you got your classics like Star Wars, and who isn’t a Jar Jar fanatic, am i right??? Moving on…

On July 22nd Chicago-based label Hausu Mountain will begin releasing the “Mugen Series”. Split cassettes featuring solo performances, recorded in single takes with absolutely no overdubs or edits, of loop-based improv on the noise/drone spectrum. Each artists tackles the task in their own way, with the instruments and non-instruments of their choosing.

mugencovers

The first gripful of Mugens will play out like this:

Volume 1 will feature Hausu Mountain label-heads Max Allison and Doug Kaplan under their monikers Mukqs and MrDougDoug. Both sampled and manipulated audio formats, cassettes and vinyl respectively, to start the series off.

Volume 2 will highlight the ambient looping of TALsounds (Natalie Chami) and Greyghost (Brian Griffith) who debuted his project on Constellation Tatsu earlier this year.

Volume 3 has the caustic laptop processing of Mike Sugarman on the A side and Aeron Small (aka: Ron Tubman) working the guitar and modular synths on the B.

Volume 4 sees the Grasshopper duo splitting up, with Jesse DeRosa performing as Shingles and Josh Millrod, who does solo work under the name Dads Against Vietnam, appearing here under the name his moms gave him. Both doing ungodly things with a trumpet.

Hausu Mountain plans to keep the series open indefinitely adding a tape to it every couple of months. Splits with Plankton Wat, Steven Hess from Locrian, and others are already planned after the initial roll out of the first four.

The artwork for the Jcards is eye shattering. They sort of look like covers for 90’s RPGs, and that’s not by coincidence. Most of the images are screenshots of the game EarthBound knit together in Photoshop. My favorite part is definitely the characters on each cover that represent the jammers on the tape. Lanky, boxy depictions made by Dannielle Del Rosario who was given Chrono Trigger and Sword & Sworcery screenshots as touchstones. She did some excellent work. Tight side note: Coincidentally, there was a MS-DOS/Linux based 2D fighting game called M.U.G.E.N.

These Mugen mugs are $7ppd (US) / $8ppd (CAN) / $10ppd (WORLD) or you can grab the first four together for $21/$26/$33. This can be done right now, preorder style, by clicking here.

Check out a sample of some of the material:

posted by Mike Haley