I don't know that there's a single invention that had more of an impact on my life and the directions it took than the cassette tape. And that's no exaggeration. My love for tapes started in the early '80s with live Dead shows passed on to me by older cats from uptown and my own recordings of DJ Red Alert and Marley Marl's weekend radio shows (as well as my endless quest to capture a complete "Hey Hey What Can I Do" off of WNEW), and the game-changing homemade hardcore and punk mixes that seemingly travelled across the five boroughs in increasingly lower quality. Then came the bootleg hip hop tapes I'd cop in Times Square, and most importantly the mixed tapes I made for friends, pen-pals, and of course, my crushes (I miss the long afternoons in front of the stereo, dropping the needle and hitting record at just the right time, naively thinking about how the songs I chose would change my life ). In the '90s my love of a good mixed-tape was still going strong, with the international punk-rock and 1960s rarities mixes I'd eagerly wait for, obsessively checking the mail. Thanks you Mr. Ottens for your life-changing invention.
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