Look At These Tapes #2
7.1.16 by Tabs Out Crew
Look At These Tapes is a monthly roundup of our favorites in recent cassette artwork and packaging, along with short, stream-of-thought blurbs. Whatever pops into our heads when we look at/hold them. Selections by Dave Doyen, Jesse DeRosa, Mike Haley, and Scott Scholz.
Art by Amazon.com
Amazon prides itself on getting you the shit you want at breakneck speeds. Hell, they got the USPS to work on Sundays, that's how much not-fucking-around they are. James Ferraro, on the other hand, used to rip off tons of folks by selling tapes online that may or may not have existed. So hard to know if this will actually show up in your mailbox or not, and perhaps that's what makes this story so human after all.
Art by Maralie Else
So I think if a ghost, ala the girl from Ring (リング, Ringu), tries to emerge from your smart phone instead of a television, all you have to do is keep raising and lowering the volume to stop it. Hahaha. Stupid ghost. You are so stupid. You're never going to haunt me. I'm not ascared or nothing! Seriously though, I love this artwork. Especially when looked at on a phone. *swoon*
Art by bran(...)pos
On the playground, it was in your best interest to decline any offers of ABC gum. But if San Francisco's sound-designing renegade bran(...)pos offers you some ABC gum, you should totally take that shizz and put it in your ears. b(...)p offers this first of four c10 "Bubblegum Forgeries" in a tinted orange Norelco as hazy as his take on bachelor pad music found inside. And your order may include some non-ABC gum besides. 
Art by Sam Weinberg
Weinberg and Welcome's latest blast of sax/synth is a sound investment. Just ask your local tax professional. They'll say that they probably won't even be able to do their jobs without a copy of W-2. It's that important. They'll probably tell you you should've gotten this earlier in the year, and they're absolutely right. They'll also probably tell you you shouldn't have cut them up into tiny pieces, but what do they know? They probably heard about tapes making a comeback on NPR. Nerds. 
Art by Jake Tobin
Tankorean's rad new tape of one-minute wonders features fine/folk art and plastic instruments on its cover, but it also features its own cassette. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE, Truly Bald?
Art by Layne Garrett
As a kid, those colorblindness tests with the number/letter hidden in a blob of a slightly differing color that you got at the nurse's office always gave me trouble. Ignoring the shame of these childhood experiences, I'm willing to learn to overcome these deficiencies by way of Power Moves Library Power Method for Vision Training and Correction (TM).
Art by Secret Schools
Between time travelers on deadly missions and Columbine, I have no room in my life for trench coat sporting gentleman cloaked in darkness. So no. No it would not be great to see this dude again. BUUUUT The Editor (either of time or the school news paper) appears to be trapped in a VHS having tracking issues, so I feel safe.... For now. Also that triangle vortex is very sweet IMHO.
Art by ?
Classic science fiction depicted the future as a utopian wonderland with little to no pollution or suffering. A world where the robot on the cover of this Body Morph tape would eat smog and shit out protein rich rainbows. In reality, it's 2016 and our robots are used to kill people from a distance, search for oil, and make sweet love to businessmen. Depending on your current brain location you are either horrified or delighted by this metallic being, which looks 101% amazing.
Art by Dan Olsen
Look at Constellation Tatsu with a $5 billion website. I have many websites, many, many websites. They're all over the place. But for $10, okay?
Now everything about that last batch was a lie. It was a filthy lie. And when you think about it, lies, I mean are they prosecuted? Does anyone do anything? And what are National Audio Company doing about it? He lied about the length, he lied about every aspect. You can keep your download code. And you've all heard that hundreds of times. And it's disgraceful. It's a big, fat, horrible lie. Your shipping costs are going through the roof. You're not going to get--unless you're fast, you're not going to get that new batch. And people that had plans that they loved, that they really loved, don't have those plans anymore because the batch is gone. So it's a real, real disaster. And somebody has to do something about it. And they have to do it fast and not just talk about it.
Art by ?
You look at all of the tapes that are bad - - I'll give you an example. And this isn't part of what I was going to say, but I look at my collection and somebody makes those tapes. You know the tapes. The ones that sort of go like this [demonstrates with hand] that are always bent, rusted and horrible. Did you ever see less than like 20 which aren't corroded, or bent or the heat, if it gets too hot, it just crushes. Now they've been selling these things for 25 years. Why doesn't someone stop them and get something that works? Because they don't know; they don't know what's happening. Somebody made a lot of money on that. They don't know what is happening.
Art by Keith Rankin
Budweiser changed their name to "America" for the summer, but this art (and music) from Guerilla Toss vs Giant Claw would make an even more quintessentially modern-American, red white & blue duck-lipping beer label to carry our lagers through at least this election cycle.
Art by Amazon.com
Amazon prides itself on getting you the shit you want at breakneck speeds. Hell, they got the USPS to work on Sundays, that's how much not-fucking-around they are. James Ferraro, on the other hand, used to rip off tons of folks by selling tapes online that may or may not have existed. So hard to know if this will actually show up in your mailbox or not, and perhaps that's what makes this story so human after all.
Art by Maralie Else
So I think if a ghost, ala the girl from Ring (リング, Ringu), tries to emerge from your smart phone instead of a television, all you have to do is keep raising and lowering the volume to stop it. Hahaha. Stupid ghost. You are so stupid. You're never going to haunt me. I'm not ascared or nothing! Seriously though, I love this artwork. Especially when looked at on a phone. *swoon*
Art by bran(...)pos
On the playground, it was in your best interest to decline any offers of ABC gum. But if San Francisco's sound-designing renegade bran(...)pos offers you some ABC gum, you should totally take that shizz and put it in your ears. b(...)p offers this first of four c10 "Bubblegum Forgeries" in a tinted orange Norelco as hazy as his take on bachelor pad music found inside. And your order may include some non-ABC gum besides.
Art by Sam Weinberg
Weinberg and Welcome's latest blast of sax/synth is a sound investment. Just ask your local tax professional. They'll say that they probably won't even be able to do their jobs without a copy of W-2. It's that important. They'll probably tell you you should've gotten this earlier in the year, and they're absolutely right. They'll also probably tell you you shouldn't have cut them up into tiny pieces, but what do they know? They probably heard about tapes making a comeback on NPR. Nerds.
Art by Jake Tobin
Tankorean's rad new tape of one-minute wonders features fine/folk art and plastic instruments on its cover, but it also features its own cassette. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE, Truly Bald?
Art by Layne Garrett
As a kid, those colorblindness tests with the number/letter hidden in a blob of a slightly differing color that you got at the nurse's office always gave me trouble. Ignoring the shame of these childhood experiences, I'm willing to learn to overcome these deficiencies by way of Power Moves Library Power Method for Vision Training and Correction (TM).
Art by Secret Schools
Between time travelers on deadly missions and Columbine, I have no room in my life for trench coat sporting gentleman cloaked in darkness. So no. No it would not be great to see this dude again. BUUUUT The Editor (either of time or the school news paper) appears to be trapped in a VHS having tracking issues, so I feel safe.... For now. Also that triangle vortex is very sweet IMHO.
Art by ?
Classic science fiction depicted the future as a utopian wonderland with little to no pollution or suffering. A world where the robot on the cover of this Body Morph tape would eat smog and shit out protein rich rainbows. In reality, it's 2016 and our robots are used to kill people from a distance, search for oil, and make sweet love to businessmen. Depending on your current brain location you are either horrified or delighted by this metallic being, which looks 101% amazing.
Art by Dan Olsen
Look at Constellation Tatsu with a $5 billion website. I have many websites, many, many websites. They're all over the place. But for $10, okay?
Now everything about that last batch was a lie. It was a filthy lie. And when you think about it, lies, I mean are they prosecuted? Does anyone do anything? And what are National Audio Company doing about it? He lied about the length, he lied about every aspect. You can keep your download code. And you've all heard that hundreds of times. And it's disgraceful. It's a big, fat, horrible lie. Your shipping costs are going through the roof. You're not going to get--unless you're fast, you're not going to get that new batch. And people that had plans that they loved, that they really loved, don't have those plans anymore because the batch is gone. So it's a real, real disaster. And somebody has to do something about it. And they have to do it fast and not just talk about it.
Art by ?
You look at all of the tapes that are bad - - I'll give you an example. And this isn't part of what I was going to say, but I look at my collection and somebody makes those tapes. You know the tapes. The ones that sort of go like this [demonstrates with hand] that are always bent, rusted and horrible. Did you ever see less than like 20 which aren't corroded, or bent or the heat, if it gets too hot, it just crushes. Now they've been selling these things for 25 years. Why doesn't someone stop them and get something that works? Because they don't know; they don't know what's happening. Somebody made a lot of money on that. They don't know what is happening.
Art by Keith Rankin
Budweiser changed their name to "America" for the summer, but this art (and music) from Guerilla Toss vs Giant Claw would make an even more quintessentially modern-American, red white & blue duck-lipping beer label to carry our lagers through at least this election cycle.