In the late 80s/early 90s, there was a mailing list dedicated to the record label 4AD. It was called *drum roll* 4ad-l.
Lots of fannish activity happened on the list — there were various fanzines (the one with the largest reach was probably Dewdrops) and there was even a CD of 4AD covers called Thurtene.
I used to have a recurring dream about going home and looking in the drawers of my desk and finding letters intended for my 4AD fanzine, so that I could put the fanzine together and publish it — even though it’s now years later.
But that never happened! I never had a fanzine on the go! A fake dream! Who has heard of such a thing!
(At least I think so… but writing this now, I’m starting to wonder. If anybody remembers, let me know!)
I did, however, arrange several tape chains. That is, people sent me tapes with various rarities, and I edited them down to one tape “master”, and then I made a copy of that, printed out a list of everybody on the chain, and finally sent it out to the first person on the list.
Who was then supposed to make a copy of the tape, and then send it on to the next person on the list.
I even made a sheaf of covers, where each person would take only one.
I think only two of these tape chains happened — because the first one stalled after a dozen people got the tape, and the second one stalled even earlier, if I remember correctly.
Man! People! So unreliable!
I mean, I understand it — most people had a tape player back then, but to make a copy you need two players, so you plan on borrowing one, but then that takes a lot of time, and then you get embarrassed about taking so much time, so you just pretend to forget about it all, and live with the shame the rest of your life.
Probably!
I just happened onto the drawer where my “master tapes” live today, so I thought — why not just finally make these bootlegs of 4AD rarities available? If you were on that tape chain and never got the tape, here’s what you were waiting for! Only 35 (?) years late!
While you’re listening to the tape, you can admire my tape design:
Sleek, huh? (Oh, and the front is, of course, a stolen Beto Hernandez drawing.)
Yes, and a summary on the flip thing…
And here’s all the info about what’s on the tape. Click to embiggen.
I have no recollection of what I used to make this design, but it sure looks like LaTeX, so it’s probably that.
So this tape contains mostly alternate versions of tracks sourced from many different places. Some live versions, but mostly demos and remixes from non-4AD compilations stuff, I guess.
OK, that’s the first one — I’ll post the remaining three ones over the next few days.