European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - June 21, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Cashing in on underground cassettes byjoe Pareles new York times recorded music is thriving outside the record business. A new underground of musicians is composing performing and releasing its music on cassettes trading and Selling them in a Loose network that extends across North America and from Australia to Yugoslavia the artistic Freedom Low Cost privacy and spontaneity of cassette recording have encouraged thousands of performers o bypass the music business and do it themselves. Some musicians have used Cas Elle Only releases As a stepping Stone toward making albums such groups As the a cyclones who run heir own Ladd Frith cassette Labet established Strong reputations in he cassette underground before signing with Independent record labels. To Many others working outside established categories cassettes Are a medium unto themselves lovingly packaged and sold to Active cassette collectors who might be As far away As Belgium or Japan two hotbeds of Home recording. Cassette Only releases Range from tax a bands recorded live to sonic snapshots to archival recordings to what devotees Call ambient Industrial music. Cassettes Are now the most popular medium Tor pre recorded music statistics compiled by the recording Industry association of America show that about 60 percent of the prerecorded music in the United states is purchased on cassettes. Because cassettes can be used to record As Well As to play Back however they have helped turn music Consumers into music producers. Flor Date recording technology especially the Advent of inexpensive mul Lillack recorders has made ii possible to turn a bedroom or a Kitchen into a studio for less than $1,000. And unlike up s. Which Are economical Only when pressed in Quantity cassettes can be duplicated on Home equipment one Al a time. Cassette recording is a venue that has never existed said Robin James who plays cassettes on Kaos pm in Olympia Wash and is working on a Book carted the cassette mythos. Wilh a homemade cassette you can get your work heard on International radio and be a citizen of the world in the mainstream music business a homemade cassette is generally regarded As a rough draft an new York Tyml in to h. St Fate Moon the generally cnowfed0f it wrote shrine Rte Oakins underground to Ute studio audition tape or a demo Lapo but Many musicians have begun to treat the Home recorded cassette As a finished product. The stuff that we put out As cassettes is All the same Quality that i d put on a record absolutely said the creative director of endemic music in Denver Bob Drake of the band thinking plague. Instead of saving up our Money to make one record to decided la put out a catalogue of All this music on cassette sales May number Only in the hundreds bul the musicians can Raach a potential audience through radio programs cassette compilations and Lape copying in the tens of thousands. For their musician cassettes Are virtually Art for Art s Sake a non commercial Small scale Enterprise closer in spirit to Small press poetry or experimental film making than to the mainstream entertainment business Many cassette makers offer their own music in Trade for cassettes Tram others so that no Money changes hands. Others As Calvin Johnson of k cassettes in Olympia wash., put it eke out a vague living by Selling cassettes and performing live the cassette underground has its own established companies among them the cassette Only reach out International records in new York Green Light in Euclid Ohio and sound of pig music in great Nock n. A which releases compilations of cassette performers. It has regular cassette Only radio programs including in the new York area Low i on a flu 91.1 pm from 6 to 6 30 . On All Ernale fridays. It has newsletters including such magazines As option and sound Choice. And it has cassette magazines notably the new York based Pettus. The London based touch and the Tokyo based 7ra, which include cassettes and printed matter. It is a huge subculture and one that makes a lot of noise said the executive editor of the los Angeles based option Scott Becker whose publication reviews about 60 cassette Only releases in each Issue. Hare at the office we have a closet overflowing with cassettes and we gel 50 to 75 More every month from All the cassette underground even has stars of a sort among them the California composer minor the guitarist Eugene Chadbourne who also makes occasions albums British pop band called the cleaners from Venus and Tho generally acknowledged father of the Home recording underground r. Stevie Moore of Montclair n j. There Are so Many interesting musicians and poets and artists out there who just Aren t interested in the said Don Campau whose no pigeonholes radio program on Kkulp in Cupertino calif., features Home recorded cassettes. I m trying to give them exposure. It s All about fun and a Little bit of Art this is a True cottage Industry said Hal Mcgee whose Indianapolis based company. Cause & effect has a mail order catalogue of 65 Lapes 35 of them by Mcgee or his partner Debbie Jaffe. The cassette format which can hold up to 90 minutes of music without sacrificing sound Quality encourages some performers Tow rile longer pieces than would fit on an album. And its portability has made it a medium for International collaborations by mail. Al Margosh who runs sound of pig music reported that he collaborated on one cassette Wilh musicians from Germany Japan and Spain some legitimate function that amount to electronic suicide. Some trojans Only scramble or erase the file allocation table the computer s Index of where data Are stored on a hard disk. A computer expert can often or still retrieve the data although with difficulty. Bui l others after erasing the table proceed to instruct the b computer to do a Low level format or erasure of the entire disk so the damage is irreversible unless a duplicate copy of the data exists. Conceivably upwards of Over a year of work could be Newhouse said it you re using the t computer Lor business How do you explain that sort of thing to your Boss As one line of defense against trojans Newhouse maintains a dirty dozen Lisl of the worst ones. He revises the list periodically on his own computer bulletin Board. Like the trojans them solves Tho revisions eventually Are uploaded or added to boards across the country. At first i did the list simply because i Felt it was needed he said. But Ihen people began uploading More trojans onto my bulletin Board. After that the whole thing became sort of a personal crusade for while some Trojan programs Are written from scratch others Are adulterated copies of legitimate programs one computer software company Quicksol of Seattle will pay a $2.500 Reward for the name of the person who i wished a copy of its popular pc write program Inlo a Trojan the company will pay $5.000 for information that leads to a conviction but people who while and distribute trojans enjoy the same anonymity As prank phone Capers. Even if a writer were identified it would be a vexing task to find an applicable state or Federal Law for prosecuting thai person. Computer users Are and using to electronic terrorism by increasing Security. Most bulletin Board operators Are beginning to double Check the identity of people who Call up their boards. And they Are testing suspicious programs. Quite a Lew bulletin boards have closed Down because the sysops ust Don t feel like being policemen anymore Greenberg said. Although no one can accurately assess the extent of damage caused by Trojan horse programs computer experts say that Caulion and common sense Are the two Best tools of Welense Aller you be been bitten once said Charles e. Rawls a Manhattan computer user you look at every software program with a sceptical Eye. But every once in a White one of whom still sneaks by. There was a graphics program called run to that i thought would be neat to run once a said it played the Star spangled Banner and displayed Iho american Flag meanwhile it was worming its Way Inlo my hard disk and erased the Dala in it. The stars and stripes Page 15
