Having endured the trauma of having many a cassette
‘chewed up’ and spat out by various tape players over the years (oh the horror)...plus
wasting many an hour trying to find particular tracks by having to fast
forward/rewind through the damn things I’m amazed that they seem to be making a
hip comeback. Whatever next? Dial up internet connections? Wax cylinders?
Rickets? Still, anything that gets more people going into their local record
store and buying music is fine by me and this afternoon’s event was hosted by
Swordfish Records which, since its move to a new location a few months back, happily
seems to be enjoying a new lease of life. Five bands / artists had pitched up
to show some love for the old cassette and each played two or three tracks (hence the less than comprehensive review)...enough
for a ‘cassingle’...ahem...as we called them back in the day.
Oliver Rudge was up first. He’s picking up some
decent press right now and it’s not hard to hear why. There’s an easy going
feel to his vocal and songs and Blue Neon’s build from fragile skeletal sketch
to soaring climax impressed.
After the breakup of folk hopefuls The Young
Runaways some of the band has regrouped as Drakelow. Swallowing Diamonds is one
of their first releases and this afternoon, stripped back to just guitar, violin
and vocals, it still shone. I’ve long since given up predicting success for
particular songs or bands (my success rate was woeful...either down to my lousy
taste or that of the ‘public’...you be the judge) but, hell, it doesn’t take
much of a leap to imagine this track going down a storm at Glasto one day. Top
marks for their cover of The Wonderstuff’s Here Comes Everyone too. Miles’
would have been proud of that one.
Next up Tom Peel...every home should have
one. Ring Ring Ring takes that annoying modern phenomenon of the mobile phone
ringtone and transforms it into a love song. Genius. He’s got dozens of songs
like this though...all queuing up to find a home in your ears. Bonus points for
using a vintage Tascam tape player in one of his songs too (hurrah), but points
deducted for not bringing along some cassettes to flog (boooo!), something that
Cannon Street had happily covered. In fact they’d gone beyond the call of duty
by recording 5 unique tapes featuring two different songs on each plus a
personal message on the B side...all for £3. Bless ‘em. To paraphrase pasty
Masterchef scoff bucket and bar room brawler Greg Wallace, country folk tinged
singing siblings don’t get much better than this.
Last up Midnight Bonfires,
another new-ish folk-ish band making waves in B-Town. I’d not seen them before
but the lead singer’s voice (think the offspring of Devendra Banhart and
Anthony...of ‘and the Johnsons’ fame) is a strangely beguiling thing. Opening
number Darkness Falls was like being rocked to sleep by a hairy angel whilst the
last number of their set sounded like Nirvana having a jam with The Faces round
a campfire (no idea what it was called...answers on a postcard please).
Whether National Cassette Store Day will be cherished
by music fans as passionately as its vinyl big brother remains to be seen.
Despite my best intentions I found myself getting strangely nostalgic for those
little plastic boxes though and left with 7 of ‘em...I know...I need therapy.
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