yesterday i received a covid booster in preparation for a trek up north that i’m about to embark on. (side note; please everyone mask up and be sure to be up to date on your boosters right now before winter and holiday travelers make the numbers spike up, we can be safe as a community and take care of each other) i am bed ridden for what feels like could be most of the day but am able to put in some work on a mixtape for my travel. as i’m dubbing a few sinai vessel* songs onto a blank tape i am listening to a tape copy of vince guaraldi’s charlie brown christmas sound track that i picked up yesterday at a record store i frequent. i’ve always enjoyed this record and i’m excited to have a copy of it on tape it reminds me of spending christmas eve with my 8 siblings in our grandmothers house on a river in a colder climate. nostalgic. anyways i’m not there, i’m here in bed feeling achy and bogged down. i am dubbing a mix still, i’m adding three reworked tracks that wildflower* recently rereleased. those songs feel special to me already. its cool putting some of these songs not meant for physical media onto my personal physical format that’s just for me. sometimes i wonder if i should ask the artist if they would mind, but tend to listen to bands that i imagine would align with my values when it comes to how anyone should be able to consume music however they want to. my method for making a mix is simple, i just run an aux cable from my laptop to the mix input on a portable cassette player, the sound quality isn’t the best but its good enough for me. the downside of this method is that it only dubs in real time and you have to be attentive of the time stamps of the songs if dubbing from youtube or bandcamp. this specific tape im using is 90 minutes so it feels daunting and tedious to fill it up.
i take a break to walk to the local grocery store to get a seltzer and a treat for my sweetheart. i grab my walkman and put my current favorite tape in, i looked out by greg freeman* as i’m less than a block away from my apartment the tape suddenly stops and won’t rewind or play. i start to panic, i open up the player and it has eaten my favorite tape. there is a good 12 inches of tape pulled from the cassette. i’m devastated. this is the 1st pressing and now obviously out of print since greg is blowing up these day. i start to feel an uncontrollable grief and start crying outside of a dominos pizza joint that is filled with hungry customers looking out at me starting to become noticeably upset. i close the tape player with the cassette still in it and shove it all in my pocket. i continue to the store and get a seltzer and a treat for my sweetheart. i’m still crying as i go through the checkout and can’t even look up at the cashier who is a younger teen who probably thinks i am deranged or just plain terrifying. i get home quick as possible and am able to rewind the tape that has been exited from the cassette with pencil rewinding the tape back in and another pencil guiding the exited tape in a straight line so it won’t go back into the cassette twisted or backwards. everything is okay with just a few seconds of audio effected by this event. i give up on tapes for the day. im sick anyways.
*index
Sinai Vessel was the indie rock band formed by Caleb Cordes out of north carolina. he’s recently hung up the project for now. I hope he continues making music but it feels like sinai vessel has been put to bed
Wildflower is the folk project of Adrian O’barr out of portland maine. he has been releasing music since 2017 and i would love to see him play live with a band or solo someday
Greg Freeman is a indie rocker based out burlington vermont. he has a band and tours frequently. he has one album out i looked out and is out on bud tapes based out portland oregon
until next time.
Abe.
its/it
♒️
I am Abe