Tabs Out is an all-cassette podcast that’s been documenting the prolific tape underground with joyful obsession and humorous expertise since 2012. Tiny Mix Tapes has teamed with Tabs Out for a show called Laser Focus, in which tape aficionados/fetishists Mike Haley, Dave Doyen, and Joe B hone in on a specific label or artist. Check out the archive here.
One would find it difficult to swing a dead cat in Michigan and not hit a stack of tapes released by a local cassette outfit, operating on the outskirts of sanity. In the mid-00s, one of the best and brightest in the bunch was Excite Bike Tapes. ExBx was guided by Daniel Dlugosielski for nearly a decade, in that time dealing in the zoink and stern of majorly DIY, outsider party noise. Excite Bike lived like Rodney Dangerfield lived in Back To School. It raged like a nut, not giving a fuck. The catalog is splattered with Triple Lindy’s of one-off collabs, live gigs, arbitrary basement jams, and TONS of Dan D in multiple forms. This episode of Laser Focus actually features him on every tape. Along with Liquid Paper-smudged, eyeball-plastered collage artwork, Excite Bike had a heavy influence on early 905 Tapes (and probably many other labels whom I can’t speak personally for, but you can feel it!).
We talked with Dan a bit about the genesis of Excite Bike, his assimilation into the Michigan noise scene, the death of the label, the birth of a new one, NES, ICP, etc…
Includes material from:
- Mossy Throats “At Imo’s” C36 (2007)
- Birmingham Drains “Mutator Beach” C30 (2009)
- Body Morph “Sensorium Connect” C60 (2010)
- Various Artists “A Wish For Stress” compilation C92 (2011)
- Marinara Cooler “Without It, I’m The Same” C30 (2012)