Two things happened in the late ’70s: I learned to drive and boomboxes came out. With purchase of a car and a boombox, this meant I could now control my music wherever I went. My brother Lee is a year and a half older than me. So when he got his car I asked what 8-track player he was going to put in. He told me he was going to go with a cassette player.

A cassette player? “It’s kinda like a reel to reel,” he said.

Prior to this, I had decided to focus on collecting vinyl, we called them albums back then. But I had, by then, collected ten or so 8-tracks. I found out that you could record on 8-tracks. My friend Todd Combs had once recorded a Blue Oyster Cult concert from the radio for me. As intriguing as recording my own music was, neither Dave nor I (nor John or Jim) had an 8-track player that could record.

Then I purchased ‘Mr. Radio’. Mr. Radio was a boombox. Purchased from Radioshack, it was not what one would call a ‘state-of-the-art’ electronic device. It was a Realistic model 14-805 and it did play and record cassettes. And it was definitely portable. This worked well with my plan to purchase a cassette player for when I got my car, which turned out to be sooner than I thought – a 1972 Ford Galaxy. Gone would be the days of having to borrow Aunt Joyce’s Dodge Polara.

The purchase of ‘Mr. Radio’ introduced me to the world of cassettes. Cassettes had been around for years – in fact, before 8-tracks. My mom had a cassette recorder we would use to record ourselves and laugh at how funny we sounded. As I mentioned in another article, 8 tracks were developed by the auto industry. Cassette tapes started much earlier.

Quick history lesson: Magnetic tape was invented in 1935 but after World War II, from technology obtained from the Germans, the company Ampex popularized reel-to-reel for dication. By 1958 RCA developed the ‘RCA Tape‘ putting the reels of a reel-to-reel in a plastic case. While they introduced prerecorded music back then, it failed. Phillips took the next step and shrank the cassette case to a ‘compact cassette,’ what we call cassettes now. Transistors allowed the players to get smaller and cheaper. So by the early 70s, many households were getting cassette recorders – as my mom did. The popularity of 8 tracks pushed the quality improvements for cassettes.

Technically, prerecorded cassettes came out in 1966 with just 49 titles, like Nina Simone’s Wild is the Wind, Eartha Kitt’s Love for Sale and Johnny Mathis’s The Shadow of Your Smile. They assumed people could play them on their portable cassette recorders but the quality was terrible – compared to their home Hi-Fi systems. And there were no players for cars then. If you wanted to bring your music with you, the only choice was 8 tracks. Why did it sound so bad? a speed. Professional reel-to-reel’s used a speed of 15 inches/second. For cassettes to compete with the album’s 30-minute sides, Phillips could only hold so much tape so their speed was only 2 inches/second. Here’s a history of magnetic tapes if you would like to know more (probably more than you wanted to know…):

No one wanted crappy music so Phillips literally gave Sony the technology hoping they could sell crappy music. They couldn’t. Luckily Ray Dolby figured out how to improve tape recordings in general with his Dolby Noise Reduction system. Increased magnetic particles also helped to increase the overall quality. So while Ford pushed 8 track players, European and Japanese cars pushed cassettes. As cassette quality increased, their already-known recording capabilities made them a natural choice for people to copy their albums. Also, as hip hop started in the inner city, this recording capability gave the format an inner-city boost as impromptu DJ parties were recorded and passed around.

In 1980 I was happy with Mr. Radio. While I was ‘all in’ on Steve Dahl’s Anti-Disco antics on the Loop a year earlier and still listened to the Loop throughout the day. With Mr. Radio at the side of my bed, I would have Mr. Radio record the album the Loop, and many other radio stations, would play in its entirety, conveniently only interrupting between side one and side two allowing me to flip my cassette tape. I loved my albums and 8 tracks. While the price was right on my pirated albums from the Loop, they weren’t great. Sometimes the end of the album would be cut off because the first side was shorter than the second. I didn’t mind paying for my music, I just need more new music. This led me to a critical problem with Mr. Radio and me – I had no cassettes of the music I really wanted.

Luckily for me, Laurie’s was going to help me solve that with a midnight sale. So Todd Combs and I made plans to take advantage of Laurie’s midnight offer. Luckily the sale was planned during our winter finals. Technically, after our finals, what they called ‘teacher institute days’ at the end of the week. So outside of the pressure of studying for a test that could make up 25% of your grade. Timing was perfect.  I just needed to borrow Aunt Joyce’s Polara to get there. Surely she could understand how much money I would be saving and I had not gotten many albums since my birthday since I had been saving my money for my cassette player. And I was only going to get 2 or 3 tapes, or 4 or 5, (or 6 or 7). I believe the actual words I said were “two or three tapes.”

Once I was able to secure transportation Todd and I could make our plans. Todd was actually Dave and Jim’s age and lived on the corner of Berkley and Carol lanes a few houses away. Besides telling me terrible jokes in junior high he was a great source of music and books. In high school, he recommended Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas introducing me to Hunter S. Thompson after I told him I enjoyed the Doonesbury comic strip. He also recommended Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire to get me off my Stephen King kick. He was a big Rolling Stone advocate – the magazine, not the band.

Todd and I finalized our plans for the Midnight Record Run. Earlier that week we had final exams that lined up with the adjusted bus schedules. So after being dropped off on a cold January afternoon, we talked about what albums we were interested in. This is when he first told me about Pink Floyd. He said they put all these weird sounds on their albums. He went on to explain that at one point you hear them tuning a radio and then the next song would start up. He said it was on the Wish You Were Here album. I needed to get this. Dark Side of the Moon was also on the list, as Todd pointed out, it had been on the charts for almost 500 weeks, ever since it had been released (technically 473 weeks at that time).

We planned on leaving at 11:30. We figured if we got there a little early we could just hang out until they opened. Kids today may not understand we had to preplan things like this. I couldn’t ring the doorbell at 11:30 at night during the week. I couldn’t text Todd to tell him I was leaving or was there. If I wasn’t there or Todd didn’t come out at 11:30 we just waited. We needed contingency plans.

When we pulled into the Common’s parking lot we saw Laurie’s was already full of people. It turned out the police didn’t want a bunch of kids hanging outside the record store just before midnight. It wasn’t a good look for Deerfield. So Laurie’s just started the sale early.

Laurie’s wasn’t a large store, it had 3 sets of record bins, while cassettes lined the outside rim of the store in the back. It was crowded. Todd and I were constantly bumping into people as we looked to see how much we could save. I automatically made my way to the albums out of habit. I looked up the pricing sign to get the specifics on my savings. It looked like I was going to save $2 on everything I bought – sweet!

I needed to make my way to the cassette bins. I was already planning on getting Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here tapes. Getting two albums from the same group at the same time was unheard of for me but I had to hear the tuning of the radio song transition. The cassettes were all kept in plastic cages in an attempt to make them harder to steal. It felt weird ‘clacking’ through the cassettes. There weren’t as many to go through as in the album bins. Luckily they had plenty of Dark Sides of the Moon tapes and they also had a couple of Wish You Were Here tapes.

Todd was looking for his own tapes on the other end of the bins. That was pretty typical went I would go to a record store with a friend. While we may start out looking for music together a fellow music fan would inevitably get lost in their own quest. I was perfectly fine with that. I, on the other hand, could spend way longer than most people just looking at albums so it wasn’t unusual for my friend to beg me to buy what I was going to buy so we could leave.

I was always interested in new music. Actually, it might be better to say ‘fresh music’. To me, an album had more appeal if it was weeks old as opposed to months old. I wandered over to the front of the store to see what they were promoting tonight. They had Gary Numan’s The Pleasure Principle on display. Some guy in a suit (Gary?) sitting behind a desk staring at a red pyramid on the desk. “Featuring the hit single ‘Cars.'” the sticker on the album said. I loved that song! I grabbed one of the conveniently placed cassette tapes (in its plastic cage) and added it to my growing collection.

There were more people coming into the store so I made my way to the back of the store by the cassettes where Todd was. There were still lots of people here. Someone announced that the sale had ‘officially’ started and they would be closing in one hour. Plenty of time.

When I caught up to Todd he didn’t have any tapes in his hands.

“Not getting anything?” I asked.

“Still looking,” he replied. A perfectly fine answer. I wandered back to the beginning of the cassette bins.

I flipped through my old favorites, The Beach Boys. They had really let me down with their ‘Love You’ album. But I should have known better when Aunt Joyce mentioned that she had heard Wally Phillips on WGN say it was a great album. It wasn’t. So I had passed on their ‘M.I.U.’ and ‘L.A.’ albums. Was I outgrowing my first band? maybe. I flipped back the copies of ‘Endless Summer’ and ‘Spirit Of America’. Nope, no Beach Boys tonight.

I wandered back to the wall display. I really am a sucker for promos. Tom Petty – he did “Here Come My Girl, right? I thought to myself. Again I picked up the conveniently placed cassette. One, two, three, four – maybe one more, ignoring the fact I had told Aunt Joyce ‘two or three’.

For Christmas, I had gotten Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Gold and Platinum’ collection – on 8-track for Christmas. I was disappointed that it was on 8-track. Apparently, Aunt Joyce and Uncle Jack had not gotten my memo that I was only getting albums and cassettes now. Hmm, maybe that memo was only in my head. Actually, it was a great album – I was just disappointed in the format. It was currently in Dave’s portable 8-track player in the basement on the cardboard table I had set up to paint my Dungeon and Dragon lead figures. It was a great collection.

I remembered the news report of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane crash a couple of years ago. I was hanging on the door jam of the enclosed porch while Aunt Joyce and Uncle Jack were watching the news. They had called out to me to see if I knew the band. I told them I did but I didn’t have any of their music.

Months later I read an article that the new album ‘Street Survivor‘ was being pulled and re-released. The cover pictured the band members on the cover in flames and the re-release was going to remove the flames in honor of the members that died. Wow, to have one of those original covers – it would be like getting the upside-down airplane stamp or The Beatles ‘butcher cover’ of the ‘Yesterday and Today‘ album.

(As fate played out, my future college roommate, Jay Seiler worked at a record store when the ‘Street Survivors’ album with the flames had been pulled. In fact, it was a prized possession of his when we roomed together. What I didn’t know was he had purchased two copies, the second he presented to me as a wedding present. While Desi did not quite appreciate the old record, I was shocked and honored to receive it.)

I found the Lynyrd Skynyrd section in the cassettes. They had plenty of copies of ‘Gold & Platinum’ and for a second I thought about replacing the 8-track version with a cassette version but I could just hear Uncle Jack yelling at me for such a dumb purchase and waste of money. Funny how your parents worm their way into your head. I put the cassette I was holding back into the bin. Hmm, ‘One More For The Road’, oh – ‘One More From The Road’, they had struck ‘For’ and added ‘From’. There were a few tracks from ‘Gold & Platinum that were taken from this album. I compared the two albums and there were a number of tracks that were not on ‘Gold & Platinum’ and these were live versions of the songs. Done – I slipped the cassette holders around my fingers.

Five cassettes should be good. but just in case it wasn’t, I wandered back to Pink Floyd and wondered about their Animals album. I remembered seeing the album in the Deerfield Record Shop when it was still open. It was an interesting cover but I couldn’t get 3 albums from the same group.

“You should get this,” Todd said handing me a caged tape. Where the hell did he come from? It was actually two cassettes and Lauries had taped two cages together to keep the tape safe (yea, safe from walking away).

“Yessongs? Who’s that?” I asked.

“It’s Yes, they put ‘yes’ in front of all their albums’ names,” Todd explained. “It’s actually a triple album but only a double tape. It’s got all their greatest hits on it.”

Wow, I thought. I could get a triple album for just the cost of a two cassettes. Keep in mind I did not actually look at the price of the album to compare it to the cassette. Besides, look at that artwork. This HAD to be great music.

As I added the sixth (and seventh) cassettes to my quarry of cassettes I noticed Todd didn’t have any cassettes or albums.

“Aren’t you getting anything?” I asked.

“Actually,” he said, “I don’t have any money. I just came along for the ride and to look around.”

It took a few seconds for this to register. Todd had left his house at 11:30 to come to downtown Deerfield to go Midnight Record sale – but came with no money. This made absolutely no sense. So he stayed up late to get out of the house to hang with a friend? Ok, that actually checks out, he’s a kid in high school.

Well, I guess we were done. Wait, I couldn’t leave yet. I had not looked through all the records yet. There must be something I was missing. Queen had a new album coming out. On the way home from snowmobiling a few weeks ago I heard a new Queen song – what was it called?

That’s how I said it – “when I was snowmobiling” – like it was something I did all the time. In the winter I snowmobile on our lake and then I jaunt down to the Caribbean to play on my sailboat. That’s what all of us rich people do.

The reality was Uncle Jack, was a purchasing agent for Allis-Chalmers. It seemed like people would always be giving him things or offering the family something to do. This winter someone had offered to take us boys snowmobiling. And so we dressed in our warmest clothes and Uncle Jack drove us all out to Fox Lake to meet him.

We would occasionally see snowmobilers on Lake Eleanor behind us. I think John or Jim knew some kids that had snowmobiles but I had never been on one before. Uncle Jack’s friend gave us instructions on the throttle and brakes and set us loose on the Fox River with a number of other snowmobilers. He only had two or three machines so we had to take turns going up and down the river. While the speed made me nervous I wasn’t too afraid. After going up and down the river a few times I would turn the snowmobile over to someone else.

As fun, as it was, it wasn’t like I was going to go out to get a snowmobile for myself – like Dave & Jim. By the next winter, both Dave & Jim had their own snowmobiles they could take out on Lake Eleanor. The key difference here was Jim actually saved up the money to buy a snowmobile, Dave needed to borrow $500 from me to purchase his. The family folklore is that Dave never did pay me back, or did he? The answer depended on who you talked to.

What I remember most on that day was the trip home. Somewhere between Fox Lake and Deerfield, the radio station we were listening to played Queen’s new single, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” The strumming guitar with the handclaps immediately pulled me in. It had a 50’s sound, like something from ‘Happy Days’.

The first Queen album I purchased was Jazz and I loved it. Unfortunately, it didn’t do well on the charts. Outside of the double single for ‘Bicycle Race’ and ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ nothing else seemed to connect with people. As much as people now like ‘Don’t Stop Me Now,’ they didn’t then – it peaked at 86 on Billboard. When they released ‘Live Killers‘ I bought that too. But as much as I loved the version of ’39’ included, the rest of the album was okay.

Surely the new Queen album would have gotten Front-Store-Billing, right? Right – “and don’t call me Shirley.” I rechecked the ‘Q’s, which were basically Queen’s cassettes. There was nothing I didn’t recognize.

One of the guys that worked there was playing the dual role of cop and clerk. “Excuse me,” I asked, “is there a new Queen album out?”

“Sorry,” he said, “you gotta wait until spring for that one. It gonna be fantastic!”

Well, I guess I was done. Six albums – cassettes – were enough. I made my way to the only register in the store. There were two people in front of me. Todd tapped me on the shoulder and said he would meet me outside. For Todd, he was done with the Midnight Sale experience. That was OK, I was getting six new albums.

After dropping Todd off has his house I finally got home at about one in the morning. I arrived home to a locked door and the light above the sink on. With the rest of the house dark, this was an indication that I was the last one home. As the last one home, I was to lock the door and turn out the light above the sink.

Before I turned out the light I needed to unwrap my cassettes. This was a first for me. Everything was so small! There were no liner notes for the Pink Floyd cassettes which was disappointing. In fact, there was nothing really nothing in any of the cassettes. Apparently, everything was so small it wasn’t worth putting lyrics in. The fact that I could now bring my music with me – via Mr. Radio. It was a small price to pay.

I had already decided to begin with Yes, my complete impulse buy. I had no idea who Yes was. A live triple album! A few minutes later I was fumbling around in the dark plugging my headphones into Mr. Radio. Hitting the play button I heard the tape hiss turn into applause as the album started. It was quiet and somewhat familiar. Was this an orchestra? As the band started I thought, “What did Todd have me buy?” It turned out they started their shows with a recording of ‘Firebird Suite’. After the three-minute intro, the band actually kicked in with ‘Siberian Khatru’ – I have been a fan ever since. Todd did good, again.

As the snow melted giving way to Spring, a new opportunity presented itself. John had purchased his own car, a ’76 Monte Carlo. It was a long stretch of curves so fitting for the seventies before Detroit reacted to the energy crisis. Uncle Jack’s connection who had a Waukegan scrap metal company where he had gotten the Polara for Aunt Joyce from now had a new car available – a ’72 Ford Galaxy.

For the price of the transmission repair bill – $800 – I could have my own car. It was in pretty good shape except for some rust on the rear fender on the driver’s side. Dave and Jim were eager to work on cars now that they were getting their driver’s licenses. While not exactly a car I would have picked, like a ’68 Mustang, it did keep most of my savings intact. It was a huge step towards independence.

I could now come home from school and get to Franks in time for my shift. I could drive myself to Waconda for my guitar lessons. Maybe I could even drive to school. There were a lot more opportunities for this seventeen-year-old.

Almost immediately I was checking out new car stereos at K-Mart and Venture. After purchasing the car I still had over $1,200 dollars so I could get the best that K-Mart or Venture could offer. Eventually, I found cassette player, a graphic equalizer and new 3-way speakers.

With some persistence and research, I found my radio cassette player. It was a Spark-O-Matic CV-139m or maybe it was a Kraco. I found someone selling one on eBay. They only had it listed as a ‘vintage mobile audio system’ but I remember the thin selector buttons; specifically the ‘st/metal’ button. I never really understood what that was for. But I definitely know the equalizer was a Spark-O-Matic because I found a YouTube video of it. It’s amazing what people put on the internet.

I remember the morning putting everything together. I was home alone so I had the driveway to myself. The speakers were simply just replacing what came with the Galaxy so I didn’t have to run speaker wire. The cassette player was also pretty straightforward using the existing speaker wire and antennae hookup. It was understanding how to hook up the equalizer with all its outputs. I also had to figure out how to mount this underneath the dash. I do remember the front had, what I now realize was a cheesy ‘wave’ to display the EQ. While the cassette/radio player was simple the equalizer was causing some frustration.

This is probably why I cut the shit out of my left ring finger when the phone rang. I was hanging upside down trying to figure things out when I heard the phone ring. I was expecting a call from Greg or Jeff and in my rush to get to the phone my finger caught the edge of the equalizer.

It wasn’t Greg or Jeff but I do remember being shocked at the amount of blood running from my finger when I answered the phone because the person on the phone had to repeat who they wanted. Once I attended to my wound and followed the blood trail back outside I looked to see what was so sharp to cause such a wicked cut. It was just the back edge of the equalizer. Luckily kids heal quickly but I remember wondering if this was deep enough to need stitches. Didn’t matter, I had an equalizer I still needed to finish installing and I would have a scar to remind me of when I installed my first car stereo.

Eventually, I figured everything out. The Galaxy was now equipped with a radio with cassette player and equalizer and new speakers – and it sounded great. My call from Greg or Jeff did come and I remember telling whoever it was that I was done and I would be right over so they could check it out.

To the detriment of the neighbors on Chris Court, I could now blast my cassettes from my car. Aunt Joyce and Uncle Jack warned me of the potential for hearing loss. So like sneaking albums into, I learned to turn the volume down before getting on Chris Court. And I no longer needed to sneak albums into the house, I was now purchasing cassettes and they would remain in the cars – neatly stacked in a new cassette holder.

Later that month I finally purchased Queen’s ‘The Game‘, scratching that itch that started hearing ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ on the way home from snowmobiling. While I probably could have just gone downtown to Laurie’s that was too close. After all, I had a car and looking to get out of the house before supper.

Informing Aunt Joyce I would be right back I pulled out of the driveway. These spur-of-the-moment buying trips were never good ideas for me. I was on my way to Sound Warehouse on Dundee and Sanders. These were the moments Uncle Jack would say my money “was burning a hole in my pocket”. I had been hearing Queen’s latest single ‘The Game’ and knew the album had finally been released.

I was a ‘regular customer’ at Laurie’s. In fact,  I was actually recognizing some of the employees themselves. Thanks to my new car, my ‘regular record stores’ were expanding. But at Sound Warehouse I wasn’t familiar enough to receive a ‘recognition’ head nod.

‘The Game’ was a featured release at the front of the store so I immediately picked up the cassette displayed with the vinyl. Also displayed was Rolling Stone’s new album ‘Emotional Rescue.’ I had not purchased any Rolling Stones albums yet and their last album ‘Some Girls’ was supposed to be very good. So I put ‘Emotional Rescue’ on my mental shortlist.

After 45 minutes I realized an hour no longer qualified for being ‘right back.’ It was amazing how lost I could get flipping through albums in a record store. I think most music enthusiasts have album covers memorized. While I was buying cassettes I would flip through albums like a catalog and then check to see if they had the album in its cassette form. With my time expired I decided on ‘The Game’, ‘Emotional Rescue’ and The Beach Boys’ ‘Keepin’ The Summer Alive,’ their last album.

In the Galaxie, I unwrapped ‘The Game’ and popped it into the player while I was in the parking lot. Eventually, the tape hiss was drowned out by Freddie telling me how to play the game. ‘The Game’ was the first track on the album. I carefully listened as Freddie told me I had to “know the rules” when I realized I had to actually start driving. I pulled out on Dundee and waited for my green arrow to get onto Sanders Road.

There is a quirk about Sanders Road. It goes both under and over Interstate 294 (over south toward Willow, over toward Lake Cook). But as one crosses into Lake County, the name changes to Saunder Road. It’s not a misprint. Apparently, Northbrook and Deerfield could not agree on the name. According to Deerfield’s History Society, in the 1830’s it was unnamed but later was named after a “Cook County man.” This would imply Northbrook is wrong. The bottom line is no one really knows – and apparently doesn’t care.

But seventeen-year-old me, while waiting for my green arrow, was assaulted by John Deacon’s bass. “What was this?” I thought picking up the cassette case – ‘Dragon Attack.’ A beep from behind told me I had gotten my green arrow. As I headed up Sanders Road Freddie started telling me more stuff but nothing in particular. Brian May had joined in by this time but by the time I turned on to Deerfield Road Roger had drummed out an intro to John’s solo. These guys were jamming. By the time I was crossing over 94 Brian was ripping a fantastic guitar solo. Holy shit!

My new cassette player had a great feature that would allow me to ‘auto rewind’. It was a prelude to the skip feature of cd’s but since these were cassettes it took a while for the player to find the blank spot on the tape to begin playing again. I found out that this feature did not work with live albums or continuous albums like The Wall where there was no silence between the tracks. This feature would get me into trouble in a few months.

I sat in the driveway amongst everyone else cars, and rewound ‘Dragon Attack’ for a fourth time when Dave swung out of the back door, “You coming in for supper?”

After supper, I would get through the rest of the tape on Mr. Radio. As much as I also liked ‘Another One Bites The Dust,’ it couldn’t compare to ‘Dragon Attack.’ In the following days and weeks, I would play ‘Dragon Attack’ for my friends. When I was working in the yards at Franks and playing the tape on Mr. Radio I was constantly pointing out ‘Dragon Attack’ to anyone that would listen. But when the tape played through to ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ that is what really caught their ears.

The album – well, cassette, was great. While ‘Need Your Loving Tonight’ was not as strong as any of the other tracks on side one but it was still a decent song. Side 1 ended with ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ which brought back to that ride home from snowmobiling.

Side 2 was not nearly as strong. Side 2 opened with ‘Rock It (Prime Jive)’ which started slow but kicked in nicely with little keyboard flourishes which were indicative of the coming New Wave. When ‘Don’t Try Suicide’ came on it was a little off-putting. While I thought they were a little trite with the subject but soon became a favorite of mine. ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’ was a softer song than ‘Rock It’ but had a better melody. And ‘Coming Soon’ had a strong beginning but never really gained much traction. The tape closed with ‘Save Me’, a worthy ballad though it may suffer from being ‘typical Queen’ with their trademark choir chorus.

‘Emotional Rescue’ turned out not to be as good as ‘Some Girls.’ And I soon realized I was not impressing my friends by cranking The Beach Boys’ ‘Keepin’ The Summer Alive’ when I pulled up. While I would purchase a few more pre-recorded cassettes they would turn out to be more of a fad for me that was shorter than 8-tracks.

While I embraced their portability I still preferred vinyl over cassettes. It wasn’t just because vinyl provided higher sound quality. Dave and my stereo was not capable of discerning whether albums or 8-tracks had better sound. We could not add a cassette player to our stereo – like John and Jim’s could. Frankly, I enjoyed the merchandising of vinyl. The potential for lyrics was vital. Even if cassettes included lyrics the point of cassettes was mobility. While I was sitting outside listening to music, I wasn’t listening and following the lyrics like I was when I was sitting on my bed.

Eventually, I would view vinyl as my ‘library’ and, like so many others, would spend hours, if not days, creating playlists, or as we called them back then – mixed tapes. When the Walkman hit I would record my records onto cassettes just for the sake of mobility. I would view the cassette as disposal media but for now, they gave me a new way to share my music with my friends. While my mixed tapes were still years away cassettes were an important part of my view of music and the albums I connected with.