Racks of cassette tapes are found at Burger Records in Fullerton, Calif. Many bands that Burger Records carries intentionally release music on cassette tapes because of their rising popularity. (Photo by Maggie Spear)If you walk into the modest Burger Records store in Fullerton, Calif., at any given moment, you’re essentially guaranteed to find the following: a staggering collection of every record you’ve ever wanted, two shop cats traipsing along the stacks of cardboard record sleeves, and at least two people attending to the record player that supports the shop’s lifeblood. Pretty standard record store fare.
What’s most surprising about Burger Records isn’t the collection or the cats: It’s the cassettes.
It’s hard to not notice the array of tapes that line the entire left wall of the store, and once you take a closer look, it’s hard not to notice that all the cassettes are surprisingly current. We’re not talking about an '80s-centric Goodwill rack; the majority of the tapes were released in the past year to an incredibly warm reception. With over 500 tape releases since the label’s inception in 2007, Burger Records spearheaded the movement to revive the use of an entirely underrated form of media with a gentle ferocity that was relentless in its success. But the question lingers: Why cassette tapes?
Everybody has a different reason for liking tapes, but there are a few points that can be readily agreed upon: They’re cheap to make, they’re quick to make, they’re cheap to buy and they’re wholly physical — somewhat of a mysterious concept in the digital age. But for most, it’s more than just a cheap way to buy and sell new music.
“I think the biggest appeal to tapes is their decay. They are beautiful, but will slowly be erased with time,” said Christian Filardo, an ASU alumnus who started cassette label Holy Page Records in Tempe in early 2011. “They are beautiful art objects and tangible in ways other media aren’t.”
Holy Page releases music from artists all over the country, and if you were to check out its online store, you’d see 56 unique albums, all deliberately released on cassette.
As cassettes began to gain popularity in niche music communities, a disconnect between local and national artists became noticeable. Finding a cassette label wasn’t difficult, but finding a cassette label in your city that solely released local music was nearly impossible; People were making tapes, but not enough people were making tapes together in the same geographical location. In some culturally sparse areas, it may be fair to say there is no tape culture, no community to fill the wants and needs of cassette consumers. But like a good wine or record, Phoenix has only gotten better with time. Maybe we can’t hang with the likes of Los Angeles or New York, but at least we have Rubber Brother Records.
Local DIY tape label Rubber Brother Records was founded earlier this year by ASU alumnus Robbie Pfeffer and his best friend, former coworker and roommate Gage Olesen. Pfeffer and Olesen have been combining their artistic and managerial efforts around Tempe and Phoenix for the past few years. Chances are, if you’ve ever been to a house show in town that left your legs feeling gelatinous or picked up a copy of Tempe Starving Artist at a coffee shop, you’ve experienced the duo’s hard work. And, chances are, you loved it.
“I really like the idea of having a central resource for all the stuff I like in this city,” Pfeffer said. “I’ve known most of the people I’m working with for years, so it feels like a very natural next step for me.”
Rubber Brother Records is an extension of what the pair already does, but with more cohesion. Rubber Brother releases solely local music and solely on tape. So far, they’ve released albums for six bands around town.
“There is a distinct lack of things in Phoenix. They pop up and then they die. So there’s a lot of space to fill, artistically, and a lot of space to fill, musically,” said Olesen said. “Because so little is actually established here, it’s left us with a lot of room to grow, and there’s been such outstanding support.”
From that support, Pfeffer and Olesen have been able to facilitate the growth of a vibrant community that wants nothing more than to do exactly what they’re doing. Simply said, the kids want tapes, and Rubber Brother is not only giving them tapes, but a space and time in which to enjoy them.
Jordan Owen, singer and guitarist of Petty Things, a garage-rock outfit whose debut album “Chasing the Sun” was released by Rubber Brother, said the Tempe tape community is exactly what he wanted.
“Once I started getting into the DIY tape scene, I started to realize that it doesn’t matter how popular your band is. The bands I’ve met are about playing the music they love, having fun doing it and having fun watching their friends do the same thing,” Owen said. “It’s the attitude that matters most, and it’s that attitude that I see over and over again in this community. I can’t really think of a better community to be a part of.”
Olesen said it’s the emphasis on DIY culture and the code of ethics they follow that makes the community so cohesive and supportive.
“The ethic that goes along with DIY and cassettes — cheaply supporting the bands you want to support — accentuates those facets of a scene," Olesen said. "The people who perpetuate that are, from my experience, quality people who care more about putting out music and art they like, as opposed to putting out music and art just to make money."
And despite all of this, there is a natural aversion to cassettes that many seem to share without clear reasoning.
Sean Bohrman, co-founder of Burger Records, has heard all of the arguments as to why cassettes supposedly suck. The two that are the most overused, and coincidentally, the easiest to dispel, are that cassette audio quality is sub-par and that nobody actually ever listens to cassette tapes.
"Cassette sound quality is less about the tapes themselves and more about the starting quality of your recordings," Bohrman said. "If you know what you’re doing, your tapes can sound just about perfect."
Burger Records has released some 200 debut albums by bands and built them into national acts just from one small cassette. Time and time again, when asked about the success of selling their tapes, Bohrman will credit Nobunny, a facially leporine stage garage-punk persona who released a cassette-only limited edition run of a collection of rarities and B-sides that sold out 500 copies through Burger Records in less than a week. For an extra dollar charged to the tape, the label sponsored Katenge Mduduzi Mufuzi, a child from Zambia. In one week of selling Nobunny tapes, Burger was able to increase Mufuzi’s family’s income by 50 percent for two years. That, Bohrman said, was the defining moment of being a cassette label.
And that, the tape community attests, is what makes the culture so great. That a stoned entrepreneur who makes $300,000 a year in cassette revenue can remain so selfless and take the most pride in the artists that make up the label and the good they do in the community through the tapes — instead of the tapes or income themselves — is a sign they’re doing something right.
Maybe that’s the beauty in cassette tapes; they’re not loved for what they are, or what they could be, but simply, for what they do.
Reach the reporter at mmspear@asu.edu
