While vinyl records were basking in their glorious limelight like the winner of a beauty pageant thanks in part to a certain Record Store Day, the nearby cassette has been wringing its hands in second place jealousy. If one could listen into the dark background, you might hear this: “someday, I’ll have my own day, and then, and then…”
Well looky here lil’ cassette, YOUR OWN DAMN DAY! According to the official Cassette Day website, this is now a thing. Move over Record Store Day! Same with you Boxing Day! Go fuck yourself National Doughnut Day! Once September 7 rolls around, we are going off the hook! Me and the whole Riboflavin family are gonna be buying cassettes like Cracklin’ Oat Bran. New cassettes from Fucked Up and Fair Ohs we will stack to our eyeballs, not to mention HOT reissues of classics by The Flaming Lips, Deerhunter, and At The Drive-In. It’s like side A/side B Pokémon over here, we are gonna catch ‘em ALL!
“Buuut Wibofwavin,” you say to me in the most adorable voice, “I bowght a tape at wecowd stowre day. Pwus my town doesn’t have a cassette stowre!” Ditto, dude. All participating stores (who, and don’t kill the messenger here, may or may not be dedicated cassette-only stores), will be announced next week. So maybe your local Hastings will hit up the warehouse and fill the shelves with unsold Quiet Riot and Rush tapes, who knows. What I do know is that if Hastings starts telling people to, “come on dowwwwn and buy new music from Art Is Hard and everybody’s favorite label Mirror Universe,” I will gladly punch myself in the face in public. Is Hastings even a thing anymore?
• Cassette Store Day: http://cassettestoreday.com