People Take Photographs of Things They Can't Forget

Left side of cassette box.

Right side of cassette box.

"Rise of Annihilation" by Magnicide,
re-issue of original Suicidal Tendendies s/t,
HoD discog tape,
4 song EP by Dark Ages

 So I got a real digital camera recently. 3.2 megapixels and 3x zoom, I'm really catching up to the technological world now. First thing I want to use it for is to catalog my physical music collection. All of my vinyl is still boxed away so I broke out my cassette tapes and snapped some pictures. I have maybe a dozen tapes not shown, but they're classic rock or tapes I just don't listen to and still somehow own. These pictures represent tapes I've collected through my time living in Kansas, only a few were bought in Ohio. I got the Death Angel and Misfits tapes for like fifty cents each at a game shop that sold used tapes. I found the Slayer, Metallica and Judas Priest tapes at a yard sale a couple weeks ago, big surprise when I found them. They were in a box with a bunch of country music and bands like Testament, Soundgarden, Accept and Alice In Chains. They tried to sell me Mudvayne CDs when I wanted to pay and leave. Almost all of the others were bought at one of the Lawrence record shops, Love Garden for $1.50 or less. I got a Red Hot Chili Peppers tape, Queen's "Greatest Hits" and a ZZ Top tape all for like two bucks! They even have older music

Three Fugazi tapes, including "13 Songs"
"Hallraker" by the Descendents

related VHS! Too bad I hate Tina Turner.
 I bought the Magnicide tape straight from fucking Malaysia. Took a few weeks to order and a few more weeks to receive in the mail. It was well worth the wait though, that cassette fucking rips! I spent hours playing it on rotation at the bakery I worked at. It's always funny to see co-workers show up at 5 AM to work and you're blasting South-East Asian Grind out of the pastry department. Same with my Hummingbird of Death discography cassette, got it mailed to me from Iowa with the "Goatmeal" 5"(which rules!)  A lot of others were bought when I saw the band play. My Catheter tape was purchased with the same 7", some stickers and fucking awesome night of getting high with Geraldo before going to that 4 AM shift again. I ended up missing all but the last 20 seconds of their set because I woke up

Misfits "Earth A.D",
Catheter/Wojczech split,
Grasseaters 2011 demo

late. I was planning on napping then heading over to the house for the show, but got there late and just spent the night partying. The Grasseaters demo was bought at an outdoor show labeled "All Summer, No Bummer" and it delivered. The clouds were overcast most of the day with very visible lightning and very audible thunder, but it never rained. The weather stayed beautiful, the bands were all good and my friends were all there. Grasseaters are from Omaha, Nebraska so they brought a punch of punks from there with them so it was cool to meet some new crusties.
 I keep all my stuff in a brown tape box a friend gave me, and it was full of tapes! My bro Greg gave me some serious stuff that I listen to all the time. The Suicidal tape and "13 Songs" are the best examples though he gave me some classic thrash that rules (M.O.D. and S.O.D.). Mother fucker even put in an Anni DiFranco tape to throw me off. We had a good laugh and then I sold traded that shit for something good. But I'm super grateful to have the case to utilize as I have some tapes I do not want broken, lost or anything else bad that could happen. Then the obvious fact that I can take lots of tapes with me relatively easy. I wish more cars had tape decks now so I could rock out wherever I go! I could bring mixtapes and shit, and I have tons of tapes not of the fast/loud/short/heavy variety to make everyone happy. And obviously the collection only grows, much like collecting records. Tape collecting is a new thing for me, though I've been buying records for years now, almost a decade. But I know the cassette scene is just as old as DIY music itself. OG punx, grinders, crusties, black metal kvltists and death metal acolytes have all be tape trading and collecting as long as counter culture music has existed. You can't make a mix tape on a 7" unless you're putting out a compilation record, and it's not a mixtape it's a fucking comp your label is selling. Sure, CDs were around in the 80's but they were fucking expensive and no self respecting punk/metal head could afford one. Shit, even Walkman's for tapes were not cheap when first introduced to the market, but whose parents didn't have some sort of audio set up for their old Pink Floyd and Chuck Mangione albums. So it makes sense that tapes became the main food staple of feeding hungry music fans looking for more bands to listen to. What famous band didn't put out demo tapes before stepping up to 7"s?
 In the future I'm going to start taking pictures of my records and posting them with music, and I'm going to go back and add pictures to the records I've already posted. Blog+ has begun.

"Live In Japan" by Judas Priest,
"The Ultra Violence" by Death Angel"
"Live Undead"+ "Season of the Abyss" by Slayer,
"Speak English or Die" by S.O.D.

Obvious tapes are obvious