Tapes (5)

It must be a week for revisiting old tropes - here's a further delve back into the archives of what middleman rather colourfully termed the 'Tape Club' (and what's the first rule of Tape Club...?) As far as I'm concerned the first Smiths album (that's Rough Trade release ROUGHC61, fact fans) is probably my own personal Tape Club holy grail. As I recall it didn't actually leave my little portable tape player between it's acquisition and that of 'Hatful of Hollow' about a year later - and during that time it was pretty much on rotation whenever possible (I even used to carry the damn thing round with me.) That said, I've a notoriously rusty memory and I must have listened to something else during the time (which was shorter besides - they both came out during 1984.) Suffice to say it was a key element in my musical development - and it would still be my desert island disc (or desert island small-plastic-box-with-tape-in-it, at least...) That desolate, echoing, bass-heavy sound is still instantly recognisable (the band themselves were never happy with the production on this album, apparently, which is why subsequent releases are brighter and a little rawer - a bit less Factory, perhaps.) The good news for tape listeners at the time was that the cassette version had 'This Charming Man' on it, which you didn't get with vinyl (a bonus that I remember being aware of, despite the fact that I didn't have a record player anyway, I think because even then there was a pretty general appreciation of the way in which the Smiths were going to do things their own way and refuse to play along in the usual record company manner, this being the 80's when being 'indie' was still being meaningful and all.) I notice, however, that I put it away without rewinding it last time I listened to it - didn't I know that you risk the tape going slack if you don't do that...!?

The other two are a bit more random: 'Hunkpapa' by the Throwing Muses was a student favourite and I still like it a great deal (very cool cover too) - in retrospect it was probably their best album though they continued to record for some years more. I'm pretty sure I eventually saw them live (I know for sure it wasn't on the tour they did with the Pixies, mind, as I had a bit of a similar experience with that lot as I did with Nirvana...) and I definitely saw Kristin Hersh solo at Nottingham's Albert Hall, though my abiding memory of that show is Vic Chesnutt's support slot (sorry, Kristin!) The other one is a Monkees compilation, '25 Hits of the Monkees', which not only has a cool cover but is a good example of how some properly concise well-thought-out compilations are better than other, apparently more "comprehensive" ones (the original late sixties Byrds' 'Greatest Hits' for example is much better than some of the more bloated later packages - at just under forty minutes it's like a proper good album with no wastage or excess fat.) There are millions of dodgy Monkees compilations but this was has all the best stuff and is sequenced really well. The only thing that could be annoying about compilations on tape was, conversely, when they were that bit longer and that bit better than their vinyl or CD equivalents - Tom Waits' 'Asylum Years' is one example (if you replace your tape with the CD you can be forgiven for wondering what they've done with the other half of your record!), and I had a really good two-tape import version of the Go-Betweens' '1979-1990' that was very cheap from Selectadisc and had a load of good early stuff that isn't on the CD version.