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The second half of my article on Wall Noise, and its tape by tape review of None Shadow, will have to wait. A more important issue has come up that I feel needs to take center stage in the attention of all reading this. A shocking realization descended upon me, and also upon Cassette Gods editor, Brian Miller, in a flash of horror and abject shame. We, in the underground DIY music scene, are failing the mainstream. Allow me to explain.

Major record labels, as well as the big-ass indie labels (whose distributors get their CDs into stores like Tower, Virgin and Best Buy) look to the underground for an idea of what is coming up next. They examine what trends are gaining interest so that they can lovingly usurp them into the hegemony of mainstream music. This happens most noticeably when an established band from within a community of musicians gets signed to a bigger label, like Nirvana and Green Day did in the early 1990’s. But it happens in subtler ways as well. The major labels have decided to take inspiration from the aesthetics of the underground while they manufacture new artists with no history or ties to it, while the bigger indie labels, and the towering fortress of taste and opinion that is Pitchfork, bring up the smaller bands into their own sub-mainstream.

So: the Mae Shi needed some more street credit after they lost their original singer, Ezra Buchla, and started sounding like Fall Out Boy. They released their new/upcoming album, in rough demo recordings, on cassette, just like the real DIY dudes would. Unfortunately, HLLlYH is a one sided c96. The recording are so quiet that they are barely there, and what is there is a murky underwater mess of what should sound like a tight, clean, pop-punk album. And the tabs aren’t popped out. The artwork is vaguely clever; the j-card appears to be that of a pro-pressed major label cassette from the days when the medium was still profitable. The cover has a square image occupying the top two thirds, as if designed for an LP, but reissued on tape, while the bottom has the band name and track list in plain black type. There’s even a Dolby logo on it. Too bad it’s the only professional thing about the tape, and it’s merely parody.

And why did they do this? The Mae Shi are a popular band. What could have convinced them that releasing HLLYH this way was a good idea? The material doesn’t deserve to be treated this way (both “Run To Your Grave” and “I Get (Almost) Everything I Want” are ridiculously catchy and have been stuck in my head for months). Well, obviously it was an attempt to reach back into their roots and produce an authentic underground artifact. But the problem is this: the underground has gotten slack, lazy. The Mae Shi produced a crappy tape because that is what it means to be underground now. They are emulating DIY culture, but the bar has dropped so low among tape labels that crappiness has become, not just acceptable, but expected.

So here it is: a call to arms. We, in the underground are to blame for this. We should be ashamed. We failed the Mae Shi and, I’m sure, countless others with our uninspired cassette producing tactics. They were once like us, and we have allowed them to release this embarrassment of a tape. People say I am too hard on labels in my reviews, and that I attack poor aspects of a cassette on principle. Yeah? Well look what happens! We are responsible for this disaster. And we need to make a change.

Since I began writing for this website, I have been compiling a list in my head of unforgivable tape-making sins, offenses that have nothing to do with the material on the tape, but that do a severe injustice to that material to make it unenjoyable: quiet dubbing, overblown distorted dubbing, one-sided tapes, spray paint, using the extra pill-shaped sticker from the center of the label sheet anywhere in the packaging, pixilated artwork, inaccurate track listings, leaving the tabs in on the top of the cassette, recycled tapes, tape lengths that are way longer than the material on them, letting the CD master skip or fuck up during dubbing, only dubbing one of the stereo channels, and ugly typefaces like Papyrus or ones that simulate handwriting. If we make an effort to change our practices for the better, they will trickle up into the rest of music culture. When releasing a new tape, record or CD, think first about the bigger bands that look to you for an example, as a role model. They are going to emulate you whether you want them to or not. You are responsible for the habits they develop. How would you feel if the next White Stripes album was on a CDr with handwritten labels and a spray painted surface? Or if the new My Chemical Romance single were badly dubbed onto a recycled c45? Think about it. And this goes for all aspects of our culture. Don’t play wanky mixer feedback and expect Trent Reznor not to do the same. If you are going to spend ten minutes retuning your instruments between every song, don’t be upset when Coldplay start doing that too. And the next time you let your art school girlfriend cut your hair on the lawn in the dark, think about the fact that in three or four years, Davey Havok is going to have that same haircut, and while you don’t care how it looks on you, you don’t want him to look stupid in front of millions of people, do you?