Advice sought: I've a boatload of cassettes on shelves in my basement. All are at least twenty years old, most more. I've copied to CD most of those I knew I wanted to carry forward a long time ago, but I was browsing the crates over the weekend and discovered many that I mehhed once but want now - EIEOU, remember them? for instance, Soup Dragons? I put one tape into a player and SNAP! I put a second into a player and SNAP! Am I well and truly fucked? most if not all probably gone? I do have access to a university library's media center and their state of the art equipment. Advice?
- My/My/My.
- The vicious lie is vicious.
- I don't read Ross Douthat and you can't make me, but this guy did and responds and this guy did and responds.
- Obscenely rich fuckers.
- Fuckface Hiatt really wants your retirement money.
- An answer to the anti-anti-war Left.
- Monetary policy and metaphysics.
- Motherfucking Obama.
- Opening our aperture!
- Democracy v Democracy.
- Going up the country.
- Applied anarchy. I remember when Elric, who was two grades behind me in elementary school, was taught to read by an experimental program - ITA, Initial Teaching Alphabet - that spelled words phonetically. Kwak, for instance. I believe the experiment was dropped within a few years, though I'd have to do research to be sure, and fuck that. Elric just called (I'd emailed him to ask what it was called), said it worked wonderfully, he was reading at a 5th grade level in 2nd grade, then they yanked it out from beneath him.
- Book reviews and bleggalgazing!
- Good news! ::wood s lot:: returns.
- There once was a time when there was always a New Order song in my head. It's been a couple of years at least since it stopped, but verily, I never thought I'd reach the day I'd say Fuck New Order.
- New Eels?
- Heard this for the first time last night. HOLYFUCK! I love songs that KILL on first listen. Simple great joy of life.
LINE POEM
Caroline Knox
Long jetty, long shell-racked jetty, cracked warped planks.
Caroline Knox
Long jetty, long shell-racked jetty, cracked warped planks.
Beautiful fish, beautiful sea-bass poached with an August
tomato, on
an ironstone plate.
an ironstone plate.
A snake's slough, a snake's spinal cord, a dry-rot stump.
A twill tape measure, an audiotape cassette unspooled and
puckered,
shining.
shining.
Agate prayer beads, kazoos, whistles, rattles.
A bike-chain and a bungy cord. A moebius strip and a broccoli elastic.
Split vanilla pod inset with paltry-looking flat oily brown
seeds.
Egg-and-dart molding of vitreous fake sandstone. Contrails, mares' tails,
mackerel sky.
mackerel sky.
OF COURSE I remember EIEIO. They have gotten back together for a couple of recent shows, matter of fact.
ReplyDeleteBrother of a friend of mine is an archivist and librarian. He says most media are impermanent; magnetic media the worst. I think you're fucked, especially if those tapes were pre-recorded. Cheapest materials available.
FWIW, in archiving, apparently an even more difficult problem is media that were designed for a machine that is obsolete. so not only does the library have to try to keep all these machines on hand, but find somebody to fix them....
Although if sticky poorly spooled tape is your issues, perhaps if you fast forwarded all the way through the tape and then rewound it, perhaps it would be less frictional?
ReplyDeleteSusan of Texas is a guy?
ReplyDeleteThe things one learns on the internets!
~
Someone didn't shell out mad doubloons for the Maxell XL-90s.
ReplyDeleteIn one of my former lives, I was a magnetic tape duplicator - if by SNAP!, one means that the tape has broken off 'cleanly' at the leader, the issue would be with the tape, it having become bonded in some way (usually heat/moisture related) with itself.
ReplyDeleteIf the magnetic tape has stretched somewhat before breaking, that would indicate a tension issue created within the deck that could be remedied (as ZRM mentioned) by a complete fast forward and rewind prior to playback, balancing the tape to the machine. I would recommend doing this to all older recorded media prior to first playback after storage.
;>)
I so shared Richard's fabulous post on my Facebook. What a fabulous reading experience, I was on pins and needles. thought I: Surely, he's not going to NOT mention...and then! The suspense almost killed me. Almost! THANK YOU, RICHARD.
ReplyDeleteOne of my college radio homies played that band on his show the other night and really digs them as well. I'll give it a listen when I'm not where it has to be quiet.
ReplyDeleteI've still got cassettes from the college years, scored at thrift stores in Kent and probably belonging to the same person, and also a box of tapes of mostly goth rock and dream pop and Nick Cave I bought on ebay. Some of them will be hard to replace, though depending on the titles, we might have stuff up at the station that I could copy and mail to you. Shoot me an email with some titles and I'll see if I can work some magic.
Thanks for Kind offer. I'm probably not going to get to monkey much with cassettes this weekend but yes next. I'll let you know.
ReplyDelete