A mixtape (of sorts) about mixtapes: Music as intimate communication

“Mixtapes were more than a way to share music in the 1980s and 1990s: They were, in fact, a type of extraverbal language — a vivid, inexpensive form of folk communication.” – Rolf Potts

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf talks about the film Cassette, and reads an informal essay about how mixtapes are a kind of lost language (00:45); then Rolf, Liesl, and Michael talk about how person-to-person connection was essential to sharing music in the 1990s, and the legacy of cassettes (8:00); the era when cassettes were a new technology, and the craft and care that went into creating mixtapes (22:00); how finding new music is different in the era of online algorithms, versus what music curation was like before cassettes (33:00); and how music and music-nostalgia is generationally specific, according to what technology was used when a given generation was young (45:30).

Zack Taylor is an actor and cinematographer, known for Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape (2016).

Notable Links:

• Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape (film)
• Rondo Rolf essay and track listing
• High Fidelity (2000 movie)
• The Fall (English post-punk band)
• Kevin Young (poet and author)
• Gouache (type of paint)
• KROQ-FM (LA “alternative music” radio station)
• Siouxsie and the Banshees (English rock band)
• Fishbone (American rock band)
• Henry Rollins (musician)
• Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (documentary film)
• Cut-up technique (art method popularized by William S. Burroughs)
• Payola (music industry practice)
• “Home Taping Is Killing Music” (1980s slogan)
• “It’s Raining Tacos” (Parry Gripp song)
• Lou Ottens (inventor of the cassette tape)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at [email protected].