The Cassette Box

Back to the box this week, and it’s another tape recorded for me by David in the summer of 2001. I’m not sure when I heard Radiohead for the first time, it was probably ‘Creep’ on daytime Radio 1 or something. I remember liking The Bends when it came out, but it was really OK Computer that made me sit up and take notice of them. When we were in Year 11, so before the sixth form afforded us the luxury of a common room, we were allowed to use the school hall at lunchtimes, so I remember that album often being played over the PA system not long after release.   In the months immediately before Kid A ’s release anticipation in the music press steadily grew and grew. I vividly remember tuning into Steve Lamacq’s show on the evening that four tracks from the album were being premiered for the first time. I was blown away, it sounded so different to what they had done before, but in a good way. I’ve seen influences cited including electronica artists on the Warp label such as Autechre a...

We stray outside of the main box again this week, with a cover mount cassette courtesy of Vox magazine that I’ve hung on to over the years for whatever reason. I was a big fan of Mark Radcliffe’s late-night Radio 1 show the Graveyard Shift, as to me it was pretty much the perfect radio show. Radcliffe and his sidekick, Marc ‘Lard’ Riley, were basically given free reign to do whatever they fancied. A typical playlist might feature psychedelia and garage rock from the sixties, punk from the seventies, electronica from the eighties, and Britpop and ambient music from the nineties. But it wasn’t just about the music, there were regular guests such as poets Simon Armitage (now, rather wonderfully, the poet laureate), Joolz, Ian McMillan and John Hegley, cult TV reviewer Kim Newman, cult film critic Mark Kermode, broadcasters Stuart Maconie, Andrew Collins and Katie Puckrik, authors Caitlin Moran and Will Self, BMX Bandits frontman Duglas T. Stewart, former Orange Juice drummer Steven Daly, ...

Another tape that David copied for me in the summer of 2001, today’s entry is Bentley Rhythm Ace’s 1997 eponymous debut album. Formed in Birmingham in 1995, BRA consisted of former Pop Will Eat Itself bassist, guitarist, keyboardist and programmer Richard March, and his drinking buddy Mike Stokes. Part of the late nineties big beat scene, the duo were somewhat inevitably signed to Skint records (albeit briefly), before an arrangement was reached that saw them transfer over to Parlophone.   I’m not sure where I first head Bentley Rhythm Ace, I suspect it may just have been hearing ‘Bentleys Gonna Sort You Out!’ on Radio 1, but I immediately liked their everything including the kitchen sink approach to music making.   Artist: Bentley Rhythm Ace Album: Bentley Rhythm Ace UK Record Label: Skint (original issue), Parlophone (re-issue) UK Release Date: 12 th May 1997 (original issue), 8th September 1997 (re-issue) UK Single Releases from Album: ‘Bentleys Gonna Sort You Out!’ (orig...

Back to the box this week and boy do we have a doozy! Yes okay, I admit it, I’m a wrestling fan. These days I don’t really watch that much (though I still enjoyed going to live shows before the virus shut all that down). But back in the nineties and into the 2000s I was a big fan. When I moved away from home for university, I had access to a public library that also loaned out CDs for the first time. I took full advantage of this by borrowing ten at a time and then taping them. I think maybe the novelty of seeing that they had these was more of a factor in me copying them than me actually ever wanting to listen to them as actual music releases. I’m not 100% sure I’ve ever listened to either all the way through, and I’m really not sure what I’ll have to say about a lot of it, but the rules are that I have to listen to everything in the box, so let’s get on with it. Artist: James A. Johnston Album: World Wrestling Federation: The Music, Volume 4 UK Record Label: Koch Records UK Re...

Okay, this is definitely a bit of an oddity in the collection! It’s another one that isn’t from the main box, however I have absolutely no recollection of when or how I acquired it. Back in the summer of 2014 I was in the process of moving house, and whilst packing things up in preparation, I found this tape (along with another, which we’ll get to in due course) hidden away on a bookshelf. I racked my brain at the time but could not of the life of me remember where it came from. I have two theories: 1.       I bought it cheap from a charity shop because it amused me 2.       Someone (possibly David?) bought it cheap in a charity stop and gifted it to me because it amused them For the uninitiated, Holland & Barrett are a chain of health food shops, and the Green Goddess (aka Diana Moran) was the exercise guru on BBC1’s Breakfast Time programme in the 1980s. I can find no mention of this tape online, but have to assume it was s...

This week we take our first trip outside of the main box of cassettes, with a compilation tape my friend Kathy made for me in (I think) the summer of 2001.   Artist: Various Album: Songs from Down Under UK Record Label: N/A UK Release Date: N/A UK Single Releases from Album: N/A   A bit of background then: Back in early 2000, I happened to be listening to James Whale’s show on the recently re-branded talkSPORT (the station had been known as Talk Radio, but switched to a more sports oriented output which included a name change in January 2000, however slightly confusingly they still had some non-sports based content, including Whale’s programme). Now whilst I certainly don’t agree with the man’s politics, he would sometimes have some interesting guests on, and so it proved on this particular night. The guests were a band called My Drug Hell, who I wasn’t previously familiar with, but who performed a song in session called ‘Girl at the Bus Stop’ that even on first listen I ...

  This is another one that David taped for me in the summer of 2001. It’s a compilation of the Beta Band’s first three EPs, released by the Scottish band over the course of 1997 and 1998. Artist: The Beta Band Album: The Three E.P.’s UK Record Label: Regal UK Release Date: 28 th September 1998 UK EP Releases collected: Champion Versions EP , The Patty Patty Sound EP and L os Amigos del Beta Bandidos EP To kick off we have the Champion Versions EP , which opens with the magnificent ‘Dry the Rain’. Featured in a memorable scene in High Fidelity , I’m pretty sure that that is where David heard the band for the first time. I hadn’t long started university, and he came to visit me for the weekend (we were going to a Fairport Convention gig at my local theatre on the Saturday evening, but he came down the afternoon before). In order to occupy us on that first evening, I rented the VHS (youngsters ask your parents) of the film from Blockbuster (youngsters ask your parents) which...