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Blank Frank

@blacklight The label that released the cassette with the blank B-side featured in the article is Alternative Tentacles, the label that released my old band's albums. Great folks, then and now. Home taping didn't kill music, it SPREAD music. And you know what? My friends and I ending up buying a lot of the music we'd first heard on each other's mix tapes.

3 comments
M_U

@blankfrank @blacklight Can't really tell this story without the bitter end of SubPop (much much later than AT's glory days, of course)

Fabio Manganiello

@blankfrank I discovered classical music when I was young by recording broadcasts on Italy's Radio3 back in the day, and by today I have a collection of hundreds of cassettes. And later in high school I discovered a lot of bands that influenced my style by recording them from alternative rock radios.

I was raised in a quite poor family who couldn't afford to buy CDs or cassettes for their kid at the snap of the fingers. Recording cassettes allowed me to get a level of exposure to music that I would have never had otherwise. Hadn't been for all those recordings, I probably wouldn't have recorded a single song to this day.

And, just like me, there are many who couldn't afford a wide exposure to art in those days, and eventually managed to afford it only thanks to these forms of "piracy".

@blankfrank I discovered classical music when I was young by recording broadcasts on Italy's Radio3 back in the day, and by today I have a collection of hundreds of cassettes. And later in high school I discovered a lot of bands that influenced my style by recording them from alternative rock radios.

Blank Frank

@blacklight Nice post Fabio. Am I'm glad you did end up making music. Cohiba is a great little song!

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