Cassette Culture Revisited, Part VI

Dada Frolic - excerpts from A Can of Worms, 1984 (.zip archive, 35MB)

Dada Frolic made some wonderfully atmospheric contributions to the pantheon of home-recorded music.  On this tape in particular, the execution is as earnest as the "fi" is low, and most of the tracks have a hallucinatory nighttime feel to them.  Dada Frolic were Dan and Detta Andreana, who were active in the lower east side's 80s noise scene that included bands like Demo Moe and KiLPiG, presenting at venues like ABC No Rio on Rivington Street, in the pre-gentrification era when residents frequently showered glass bottles on the patrons hanging outside the club (ah, the memories!)  Dan was also a regular broadcaster on WFMU from about 1985 through the early 90s.  A highlight of the cassette is "This Is What We Do When," which makes fine use of a typewriter as a musical instrument, reminding us that one of the many charms of home recording was the "whatever's handy" approach to composition.  Dada Frolic also released one of the first Sound of Pig cassettes, 5 Way Music, as well as appearing on several cassette compilations.

Capers - 7 x Musik, 198? (.zip archive, 34.5MB)

The Austrian band Capers are most well known outside of their native Innsbruck for being an early project of Hans Platzgumer and Frank "Pümplandi" Puempel (aka H.P. Zinker; on the insert, Hans and Frank are the two in the middle, and were in their teens when this tape was made.)  Capers' limited discography (pretty much this cassette and a 7-inch e.p.) represents a great unsung chapter of 80s underground pop history, sounding similar to bands on New Zealand's Flying Nun label or perhaps British post-punk, though it's likely that Capers developed in a relative vacuum, unaware of such influences.  Their two most enduring songs, "Jordan" and "Sunshine", are featured on this tape and were both penned by the enigmatic Peter Tolloy (pictured far right on the insert; far left is bandmember Andreas Lettner.)  I was fortunate enough to meet Peter Tolloy when Uncle Wiggly played Innsbruck in 1991; we had more than a few drinks, and Tolloy got to hear pHoaming Edison's recording of "Jordan."  It's likely that any Tirolean over 35 who cares at all about the local music scene has heard these songs, as they are to Innsbruck what "Blank Generation" and "Chinese Rocks" are to New York.  Two of Platzgumer's compositions featured here, "I Don't Want to Work No More!" and "Away From It All" were also released on Hans' now-legendary first album, Tod Der CD!, recorded when he was only 17.  From what I could scare up in an Internet search, Peter Tolloy is still active in the Innsbruck music scene.  Hans Platzgumer, an artistic workaholic who's always juggling multiple projects, is internationally known these days as a composer of electronica and ambient music.  My best guess is that this cassette dates from 1985-86.  (Note: No song titles were provided with the original tape; I tagged files with the proper title where memory served.)

Comments

[Krys O.]

Thanks again for a post that stirs up great memories. Haven't thought about Sound of Pig in a loooooong time.

[marcus]

hi, this is a excellent serie on this blog, there are a lot of good music on tape only, outside and I think some of them should be saved for our descendents :-).
keep up the good work
marcus

[Jared]

Does WFMU have any tapes of the band Kilpig on 109 Records? Most likely they would have been a casette from around 1986... I played with them a few times, but mainly with Dairyland Jubilee and I think you played our single a few times... I lost my copies of what we had and lost track of the membes including Steve Gabe, Nozomi, and I can't remember the drummer's name. Thanks, J