Home Tapers

I started making home tape recordings on a Grundig portable reel-to-reel that took 3 inch reels sometime approximately between 1967 & 1969 when I was aged 13 to 16. I'd play the piano (&, perhaps, harmonica) & record it & then listen to it back. I acidentally threaded the tape wrong & 'discovered' backwards playback. That was an important moment for me. Here's the info about a movie I made 'reenacting' that time:

674. "Reenactment"

- 1080p HD 29.97p, Stereo

- 18:54

- on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/jjm80p5d6cY

- on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/reenactment

I didn't get a mono cassette recorder until around 1973. My family didn't have much money so such things were luxuries even tho I think the very-bottom-of-the-line K7 recorder I got at the time cost somewhere between $20 & $40.

My friend Chris Mason started an audio tape publishing label in later 1978 or early 1979 called Widemouth ( WdmUindex.html ). The 1st tape he published was called "duo O accident" & was by his collaborators Kirby Malone & Marshall Reese. It was probably released in January of 1979. I wrote a review of it that was published in the periodical of the Maryland Writers Council, Hard Crabs, in February, 1979.

Chris published the 1st 8 tapes & then encouraged me to publish what turned out to be the next 4: "Testes-3 Broadcast Tapes", documentation of an underground telephone network that I had cofounded. Around the same time, in 1980, I self-published my 1st sampler tape of my own work called "Usic - 1". Chris had committed himself to publishing 6 specific other tapes but had never done so. In 1981, he moved from BalTimOre to Amsterdam & handed over the tape label to myself & Patty Karl.

Patty & I published the 6 that Chris had planned & another 8 of our choosing. That made a total of 26 tapes in the 1st series. Patty left & I continued the label under the new series name of demo tapes. There were 28 releases in that series.

I moved on to a new series that I call WIdemoUth tapes. There've been 29 releases under that name so far. In the meantime, I've also published records, CD-Rs, VHS tapes, DVD-Rs, CDs, & 16mm films, etc. These days, I tend to think of all of my publications as being under the umbrella of Wide. Whether I ever get around to organizing their public presence under that name is a different story.

I've produced such a plethora that even trying to keep track of it all is highly time-consuming. My "Audiography" is here: Audiography.html , my "Bibliography" is here: Bibliography.html .

Since 1980, I've corresponded with many other people who make home recordings & put some effort into trying to find the folks whose work has interested me the most & to trade recordings with them. I still find cassettes to be an excellent medium.

The heyday of tape trading was the 1980s, before the internet & higher postal rates shifted what was convenient & affordable for people. During that decade I corresponded with as many as 1,400 people, almost all of whom I'm currently out-of-touch with.

The purpose of this website is to provide at least a minimal historic record of this lively community. The ethos of trading recordings & other home-made product has largely disappeared from my dealings w/ other people. While I have hundreds of publications, most people I know have few or none. As such, trading isn't usually much of a possibility anymore.

Given that I'm an extremely busy person in many disciplines & that I have to work for a living & that I live slightly above & sometimes dramatically below the 'poverty line' how much time I'll devote to this project is questionable. After all, I might drop dead any time now. In the meantime, below's a list of the tapes that I've gotten in trade, organized in the order that I have them filed under in the cardboard boxes I keep them in. If & when there's a link, clicking on the name may take you to a webpage with an image of the K7 packaging or other relevant info.

In some rare cases the tapes are just mix tapes, the lowest common denominator of some tape trading & the ones of the least interest to me. I may choose to eventually highlight the work of the people that I find most exceptional. A large part of what I got (& still get) out of trading is the personal contact. I much prefer that to simply being a consumer of products of people that I have no connection with. Then again, I also want to love the music so I access recordings based ultimately on the criteria of my enthusiasm for them.

I don't endorse the standarization of much home taping, especially as practiced today. I don't think that basic J-card designs are interesting, I don't think that nth generation Industrial Music is very interesting, etc. The people that I'm the most impressed by think outside the cassette case both in packaging & in the audio product.

- January 16, 2016E.V. notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

 

A.1. Archive - "A Trawl Through the A.1. Archive Feb. '99 "Radio" Songs"

A.O.T. - "H.T.A.T.B. (Hitler's trousers after the blast)"

Agog - "Final Myth of the Jesus Underwear"

Altres - "Angel Chords & Devil Chords"

Altres / Jeremy Bryning - "A. Altres; B. Darkside / Jeremy Bryning"

Asbestos Rockpile - "Hated and Despised"

ATU - "Muralla Show"

Audiozine II - "Diary of a Young Punk #10"

"Aural Fixation" - Dreamhouse; Savage Republic; Schlafengarten; Haters; Sleepless Knights; The Psychological Warfare Branch; Theatre of Ice; Smersh; Girls on Fire; F/i; Chris Gross; Abstract Belief; Youth Hostel

AVPM - "a Highly Polished Sate of Paranoia V. 1"

Backyard Mechanics for Language (Kristen Ban Tepper & Luigi-Bob Drake) - "2Live4Words"

"the Backyard Mechanics for Language"

"i am a baglady and the world is a bag of numbers"

Vittore Baroni - "Meet the Psychotic Professor & his Surf Guitar / on the Loose"

bbr/njr - "a reau...gare"

(Benedetti) Mike's Tape Club - "Merry Christmas, Dear Friends! Christmas 1999"

(Benedetti) Mike's Tape Club - "Happy Holidays from New York!" X-Mas 2000

(Benedetti) Mike's Tape Club - "Coal for your Stocking" XMAS 2001

Ben Bennett - "Feb 2013"

Ben Bennett - "May 8, 2014"

John M. Bennett - "Drill"

John M. Bennett - "Live Chains"

John M. Bennett - "Sleeping the Loaf"

John M. Bennett & C. Mehrl Bennett - "A Hamster in Your Sandwich"

Static (John Berndt & Jimmy Hedges) "AS MATERIAL"

John Berndt

Nervegang (John Berndt) - "In My Dead Sister's Memory"

No Controlled Show (John Berndt)

Monty Cantsin / White Colors (John Berndt) - "Volume 1: "Akademgorod" to "Ulteriorism"

Monty Cantsin & White Colours (John Berndt) - "The Eggs in the Gauntlet"

Monty Cantsin's White Colors (John Berndt)

Truth (John Berndt)

"NEO USIC" (John Berndt)

"Fast But Boring Tangents" (John Berndt)

"Ruined Psychotic Mind at its Least Coherent" (John Berndt)

"First Generation Not A Dupe or Mix of Anything" (John Berndt)

John Berndt Sampler - '87

"Music of the Fountains" (John Berndt)

(Studies and Experiments) (John Berndt)

"edges, not edits" - Western Cell Divison (John Berndt)

"Recordings of Instrument Playing" - Volunteers Collective (John Berndt +)

"'An Eye Toward' Improvisation and Instrument Playing...." (John Berndt)

"Representative Works: 1985-1990 of No One In Particular" (John Berndt)

"Why Own Another K7 Of Improvisation?" - Group (John Berndt +)

DATA CELL: DATA 8/12/94+ (John Berndt)

"A Taste of March Hairs" (John Berndt +, THUS)

Soundtrack Elements for "Satanic Liposuction, Neoism?!, & YOU!!" (John Berndt)

The Recordings <<Recordings>> (John Berndt)

Jake Berry - "Diaspora"

"Beware the Blunted Needle"

Philippe Bezy - "Worknotes & Cyberjazz Exp. I & II 84-88"

Philippe Bezy - "Cyberjazz Experiment, Worknotes 82->86"

Big If - "Pirate Practice"

Big If - "III"

Damian Bisciglia + Friend - "Various Improvs 1989"

"Black Rabbit"

Blankey Toss - "Law Merchant into Marten Indian Club"

Blister Freak Circus - "Flaming Poet Roadside Pisshole"

Bob Boilen - "Music for Unitards"

Bollerman - "Sensations"

Box O' Laffs - "Dogbook"

"Boys from Joecity"

Steve Boyle - "Record Skippin'"

Steve Boyle - "On Radio"

Steve Bradley - "Ocular Menin X 1998"

Sarmad Brody - "Selected Works"

Sarmad Brody & Jane Henry - "Free Improvisations"

Brody - "Intersect"

Abraham Sarmad Brody - "7-1-7..."

Brazen Brothers - "All Our Best"

Ryan Broughman - "Flying into Myself" (version published by Illuminated Paths)

Ryan Broughman - untitled

'BRS Wackage - "the Compilation"

Ray Brunelle - "Jethros + Misc"

Craig Burk Group - "Shrug"

BurnOut WarCry - "At Night"

Warren Burt - "Aardvarks IV (1975)"

Warren Burt - "Fatty Acid in New York 1979 b/w "D" (1977)"

Warren Burt & Chris Mann - "Anyway you can always put language down to experience of course"

 

 

tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

idioideo at verizon dot net

 

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Anti-Neoism page

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Audiography page

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Bibliography page

to my "Blaster" Al Ackerman index

to the site that lists the Books that tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE has something in or is mentioned in

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE BYOC page

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Censored or Rejected page

to tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's Collaborations website

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE (d) compositions page

to Amir-ul Kafirs' Facebook page

to the "FLICKER" home-page for the alternative cinematic experience

to Gifs made by Ryan Broughman

to tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's GoodReads profile

to Graffiti index

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Home Tapers

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE index page

to tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE'S minimal International Union of Mail Artists page

to a listing of tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's manifestations on the Internet Archive

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE as Interviewee index

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE as Interviewer index

to tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE'S Linked-In profile

for A Mere Outline for One Aspect of a Book on Mystery Catalysts, Guerrilla Playfare, booed usic, Mad Scientist Didactions, Acts of As-Beenism, So-Called Whatevers, Psychopathfinding, Uncerts, Air Dressing, Practicing Promotextuality, Imp Activism, etc..

to the mm index

to see an underdeveloped site re the N.A.A.M.C.P. (National Association for the Advancement of Multi-Colored Peoples)

to tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's Neoism page

to the DEFINITIVE Neoism/Anti-Neoism website

to the Philosopher's Union website

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE movie-making "Press: Criticism, Interviews, Reviews" home-page

to tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE as Reviewer page(s)

to tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's Score Movies

to SMILE

to find out more about why the S.P.C.S.M.E.F. (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Sea Monkeys by Experimental Filmmakers) is so important

to the "tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - Sprocket Scientist" home-page

to the Tattoos index

to Psychic Weed's Twitter page

to tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's Vimeo index

to Vine movies relevant to tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE made by Ryan Broughman

to tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's presence in the Visual Music Village

for info on tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's tape/CD publishing label: WIdémoUTH

to a very small selection of tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's Writing

to the onesownthoughts YouTube channel