Technological rewind keeps classic sounds alive
Cassettes, tape decks and ghetto blasters may not be music to our ears any more, but a Nelson man is keeping an old school music format alive – and sharing it with a top New Zealand DJ.
Jordan Sime still uses other music devices, but his go-to music is all on tapes, which he plays on his stereo in the corner of the lounge.
Sime says his mates think he’s ‘‘mad’’, but in his opinion, tapes are a ‘‘forgotten gem’’ worth holding on to.
And it’s not just the nostalgia that lures him to the space-hogging plastic boxes – it’s the sound quality.
When albums on tape were made in recording studios, ‘‘there was no compression . . . so you’re getting the full recording studio quality on a tape’’, he says.
‘‘A lot of digital music now, because people want to put it on their phones, MP3 players, USBs, it’s compressed right down to a small size, so you lose a lot of music quality out of the file by doing that."
Tapes almost force listeners to sit through an entire album, or at least one side of it – which Sime says is one of the other great things about them.
‘‘You listen to a whole album because it’s too hard to fast forward and rewind. You end up listening to more of the artist’s music.’’
One of his most valuable cassettes is Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, a rare New Zealand release. He’s seen copies going for $280 on a music collector’s website.
‘‘There’s probably tapes that people are actually throwing out, and they don’t realise they’re throwing out something that’s worth so much money.’’
But this child of the 80s isn’t planning on selling any of his collection.
He said millennials might not know what to do with a cassette tape, but he’s raising his little girl, Kenzie Sime, to know what one is.
‘‘I want my daughter to know what real music is.’’
Sime belongs to a few social media sites, allowing him to swap tapes and put calls out to Nelsonians who want to offload their old cassettes. He’ll take anything, including country, pop and alternative, though his usual music of choice is rock.
His online searches led him to New Zealand DJ Charlie Brown, aka Optimus Gryme, who was collecting dubbed tapes for his apparel brand. Sime now offloads dubbed tapes on to Brown.
In 2006, Brown launched his streetwear label, Noise Zealand. Since then, he’s been using cassettes as the swing tag, with various New Zealand artists recorded on them.
He said there was something about the music being tangible. ‘‘I love just the physicality, having to push a button to rewind it.’’
Brown said he was using cassette tapes when he started DJing 25 years ago. Nowadays, DJs used digital players, with a cue button to help them find the point to mix from.
‘‘When I used to DJ, my cue button was my finger. I’d pull this cassette out – you know how it used to have that clear bit at the beginning, then it used to go to the brown tape? I used to get my finger in and turn it till it got to the brown tape, and then I knew it was the start of the song – that was my cue button.’’
Brown is given used dubbed tapes from anyone willing to give them up, including an old church that gave him 100 tapes with old sermons on them.
Customers can opt to have their cassette used as a swing tag, getting $1 off purchases for every one provided.
So what are these guys playing tapes on if shops are barely selling compact disc players now, let alone tape decks? Sime was given his stacked stereo, and Brown says new players with tape decks are still being made. ‘‘I bought one a couple of days ago – it was a CD player with a double cassette,’’ purchased from an overseas website.
‘‘You’re getting the full recording studio quality on a tape.’’