Little else evokes memories in the way that sound recordings do.
Currently tied up with adding the finishing touches to the mayhem that is the Cyberia selection of electronica and dance music, the Tape2MP3 project is on pause until next year.
During 2009 we’ll also have to figure out what to do with that whole back catalogue of mixes and pictures and sound bytes that DJ Rufus has collected over the last decade, now that he’s decided to hand over the “trademark” of material of questionable legal status. Ironically, thanks to his generosity and me still poking around discogs, there are some grand ideas of strange and weird compilations forming, consisting mostly of net-label material that I’ve taken a keen interest in lately.
Yes, people, there’s plenty of good stuff to be found on the interwebs… we are not stealing records, much of it is for free!
In the interim, let me straddle the borders of legality by making one of my old tapes available for download (96kbps mono).
Imaginatively titled “Get down on it”, this thing was recorded way back in 1982, with the first few tracks even captured “free-to-air”, from the TV speaker via the Toshiba boom-box’s built-in mike, complete with the clunky sounds of the mechanical tape deck as a loud break between indiviual songs and, in some instances, even badly-erased remnants of the DJ trying not to sing out of tune.
Ah, the days when AM-station Radio 702 still played music and John Berks did more than prank calls…
Astute readers may notice that the front artwork for this tape doesn’t say “1982” on it, and they’d be correct: this is a colour-pencil and felt-pen revision dated 06-05-84 by which time tape recording had become a serious “hobby” and the tape (originally #2 in the collection) got re-catalogued as #12 on a meticulous, hand-written, paper-based list.
Those were the analogue, manual and innocent teenage years, BC.
Image credits: hmvh DOT net
