Al Perry
The tape above was the first I traded with him and is a super fine instrumental foray loaded with tasty riffs.
The scan came out blurry but featured myself doing a Ken Clinger song, Al Perry doing a Fred North tune, Dino DiMuro doing covering a tune of mine and also Roberta Eklund’s, Ken Clinger putting his mark on a piece by Nick and others.
Al Perry, 2009, in Berkeley, California.
I don’t remember who it was that got me into the tape trading thing. I only recall being desperate for some way to multi-track, right around the time the 4-track cassette portastudios started coming out. We take home recording for granted these days, but at that time it was a big big deal. I rushed out and got one right away.
And I must have read some reviews in Option or some mag like that about the cassette guys. So it was probably Don Campau, Dino DiMuro, or Ken Clinger who I would have first wrote to. It was always really fun to swap tape releases with these guys, who made consistently good stuff. And they still do, it’s great to still be in touch. Yeah it was some sort of ‘golden age’ and I miss it, I have to admit.
I don’t mean to sound like some old guy talking about the good ol days, but back then you really had to seek this stuff out. It wasn’t just a click away. Just like with records, go on ebay, click, then it’s at your door in a couple days. For all the benefits of the internet I can’t help but feel that there is something lost. I have to say I think that the ease of the internet has ruined certain things, or at least taken some of the fun out.
