It made me reminisce of the time when I used to make mix tapes. Most kids nowadays don’t even know what a cassette tape is. And this fact makes me feel very, very old.

What I used to do was put a blank tape on the cassette deck, tune in to my favourite radio station and wait for the song I want to come on. And I had to time the recording just right so that I don’t get the DJ recorded on tape. For this reason, 97.1 WLS-FM wasn’t exactly the best radio station to record songs because The Triggerman would start talking right into the part of the song where the words start and right away after the last lyric was sung, sometimes even during the last few lines of the song. And I’d be forced to record him anyway because it was the only way to get the intro and end parts of the song. And if you’re recording something like, say, Patience by Guns ‘N Roses, you just have to get the intro part since it is the ESSENCE of the song.

You must understand that during this era, WLS-FM was the cool radio station to listen to. Monster Radio RX 93.1 didn’t have Chico and Delamar yet; I didn’t even know what NU 107.5 was, in fact I wasn’t even aware of these stations’ existence then.

Back then, my most precious mix tape was that of the GnR/Bon Jovi back-to-back showdown that they had that I recorded. I brought it with me to one of our field trips to listen to on my Walkman during the bus trip. Then tragedy struck. I was skipping on large rocks to cross a little stream, I can’t remember for the life of me why I was doing that, and the cassette tape fell out of my pocket, into the water. My friend behind me was able to save it without falling into the water but alas, it was garbles and gurgles for the most part of “You Give Love A Bad Name” on side A and “Don’t Cry” on the side B. So what I did was, in my opinion, one of the bravest sacrifices I ever made in that period of my life – I cut the ruined portions out and taped the two ends back together. The result was something like: “I play my part, and you play your game. You give love a asdweraasdfgy... arwdgsfy Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty! Oh won’t you pleas take me hooome. Woah woah!” Sigh. Those were the days.

Nowadays, the worst that could happen is you get an mp3 that’s only 64kbps. So you just delete it and download another version. In a way, not having that convenience made all those songs more cherished. And the fact that you had to wait for them to be played on the radio or else buy a tape just adds to the immense satisfaction of hearing them played. Makes you wonder what the old folks thought of the cassette when in their time all they had were vinyls which only had one or two tracks on them.

Oh well. Rakenrol!!

You got to admit it’s getting better. Getting better all the time.
- The Fab Four

Labels: Music, The 90's