March 4, 2008
“Same Girl” – Sad and Beautiful, Vol. One
Since I recently moved and only took about 30 cassette tapes with me, this project not only seems not-daunting, but sadly, with an-end-in-sight. But I’ll try to get more tapes sent to me or something. The first tape:
“Same Girl” – Sad and Beautiful, Vol. One.
This starts off not wanting to be sad and beautiful in any other way than in a Tom Waits way. I have not kept up on his records, but I think these songs are all form the same one. Flower’s Grave, Watch Her Disappear, I’m Still Here, and more. Then 3 Lucinda Williams songs, all sadder than ever, especially this one called Minneapolis. I wonder how many people who have had their heart broken in Minneapolis have this engrained in the sad part of their favorite song mind? I wonder how many people just THINK they have had their heart broken in Minneapolis BECAUSE of this song? I wonder what that waitress at Mickey’s Diner, c. 1988 is doing right now?
Someone with the most-likely-misspelled-on-the-cassette cover-name-of Eliza Gilkyson is singing a Bob Dylan song, that one that everyone knows, but if I played it all my life I still wouldn’t know the title. There’s no success like failure, but failure is no success at all. There’s no failure like success. There’s nothing I wouldn’t give to break 5 million session guitarist’s fingers. Next: Greg Brown, who used to play in Iowa City when I lived there, and I never went to see him and made fun of him, I don’t know why, maybe the floppy hat. Now I like him, some of his songs anyway, particularly the one called Oh You—it’s a pretty great song! And also, Ashamed of Our Love.
Side B: American Music Club doing Goodbye to Love, Sonic Youth doing Superstar, Sheryl Crow doing Solitaire—not as good as the Carpenters, but fun for them, I’m sure. Nina Gordon doing Hold On To Me—a little much, Too Slow to Ride is better. Next is my favorite Elliott Smith song, Ballad of Big Nothing. Then Happiness, my second favorite Elliott Smith song. When I hear these songs it makes me really sad that he died.
Next is a fairly slick Leona Naess song, and another (just trying to spell her name right makes me tired) just okay one. Then an excellent song called Wait by Laura Cantrell who might live around here or something. Does anyone know? Then a much better Leona Naess song, Promise to Try. One final song is Same Girl by Randy Newman, which is a really beautiful, sad song, and the song this tape was named after. Overall this is a lovely mix tape. What is lacks in variety it makes up for with some really good songs. Okay, it’s little uneven. But maybe that’s the nature of sad and beautiful.
September 16, 2007
Why am I screwing with cassette tapes?
Just a few years ago, I still knew a few people who listened to cassettes– but no more. Once the last car cassette player broke, that was that. About 15 years ago, I decided I’d more or less skip the CD phase of audio consumerism and wait for whenever I could put my whole record collection on a credit card size format. With these new devices—“Pods”– we are close, but they are still too thick. (The difference between the building security card in my wallet and the thickness of a credit card is profound enough to keep me from comfortably keeping my wallet in my back pocket.)
Anyway, it’s all beside the point, still, because of the superiority of analogue sound. The cassette tape is still an amazing device, in that its sound is so much closer to a phonograph record than a digital file. Also, the durability of cassettes is significant. Most of my tapes will outlive me. For these reasons, I’m not only keeping my cassette tapes, I’m cataloging them for future reference, future generations, and also, and most significantly, for my own pleasure and interest.
Cassette Tapes
What was the greatest invention of the 20th Century? No, not the credit card! Cassette tapes. There’s no point in me trying to argue about it. I’ve got a lot of listening to do.
Dual Cassette Deck
I started listening to tapes in the office on this dual cassette deck (the only kind that exists anymore) and one tape after another was warbly, so I was just throwing them away. Then suddenly it occurred to me to try the other side of the deck with a warbly tape– and no warble! It was the deck that was bad, not the tapes! I was throwing away perfectly good tapes!
