Thursday, September 05, 2013

Cassette Store Day - Sept 7


From Vintage replay, it's cassette store day (Chicago Sun Times)

"... Cassette Store Day is off to the same organic start of Record Store Day, before Record Store Day got all tangled up in rules and regulations.

“The Record Store Day people sent us something months ago that said they had nothing to do with Cassette Store Day,” said Rick Wojcik, owner of Dusty Groove, 1120 N. Ashland, Chicago, my neighborhood record store. “We had never heard of Cassette Store Day. We thought it was a tounge-in cheek thing a few weeks ago (Cassette Store Day does not have much information) but now we’re looking at some products we’re putting out Saturday. We also have piles of vintage cassettes we’ve tried to sell over the years and don’t have much of a market for. We’re going to give everybody a vintage cassette while supplies last.”

... One of the most compelling markets for cassette came after the death of the 12-inch rhythm and blues single.

“No one knows how to pitch it,” Wojcik said. “Towards the end of the 1980s a lot of distributors were not selling as much vinyl to Mom and Pops. They were not allowing returns on vinyl, but they would allow returns on cassettes. The cassette single was huge in the 1990s, specifically in R&B. I know one Chicago hip-hop producer, pre-Common, who had a great act who didn’t have the money to press it on 12 inch and cassette single. So he decided to put it on cassette single. And it’s a great lost hip-hop track. DJs couldn’t play it.”

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