Press play

I’ve started digitising some old cassettes and came across this lovely snippet at the start of what the inlay said was a collection of songs by Madness:

An illustration of why it is (was) important to poke out the tab at the top-left of the cassette so that you didn’t accidentally press play and record when you meant to only press play.

That was probably 1981, so I was about ten and my sister, whose tiny first voice you hear 33 seconds in, was about seven.

I’m surprised how well the cassettes have survived so far — I thought they might break or be somehow unlistenable after 35 years, including a few years sitting on a heated floor by a window. I’ve attached a second-hand Kenwood cassette deck to my MacBook using a Griffin iMic, recording the audio with Amadeus Pro. This seems to work fine, apart from the iMic occasionally getting stuck and playing the same half-second over and over until I unplug it and start again. Technology, eh?

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1 Feb 2016 at Twitter

  • 5:31pm: @iamdanw What do you do?
  • 3:42pm: I’m enjoying @SteedTailors’ tiny movies of drafting and cutting bespoke clothes. e.g. and https://t.co/b1pfb3LfG6
  • 3:36pm: @andyhunti A rare sighting! I saw a woman at the deli counter the other day getting slices of gala pie and nearly queued up behind. Mmmmm.
  • 8:19am: @tomtaylor Totally old skool.

Music listened to most that week

  1. Meilyr Jones (5)
  2. GoGo Penguin (4)
  3. Segilola (2)
  4. Kirin J Callinan (2)
  5. 18+ (2)
  6. Lianne La Havas (2)
  7. New Order (2)
  8. Sophie (2)
  9. Sporting Life (2)
  10. Bullion (2)

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