Celebrate Cassette Store Day on Saturday at these local shops
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This Saturday, October 17, marks the third annual International Cassette Store Day. CSD isn’t related to, nor is it as big as Record Store Day, an event which has now branched out to include a Black Friday event in addition to its April brouhaha. However, there’s something almost purely nostalgic about cassettes. With the spinning plastic cogs, one gets none of the audio fidelity arguments made regarding vinyl. The tape hiss and inevitable degradation of the magnetic tape are kind of the point. Still, they’re ridiculously cheap and nigh-indestructible, and having something which requires only a pencil to repair is pretty great.
The list of stores participating in the Kansas City and Lawrence areas is short, but all stores taking part assured us they’d be getting in a large assortment of titles being offered, the list of which can be found here.
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7th Heaven
7621 Troost, KCMO
7th Heaven’s Sherman Breneman said the store won’t be offering any of the CSD exclusives but will be putting their used cassettes on sale that day. As a bonus, the store has a massive selection of bargain-priced 8-tracks available for those wishing to one-up their friends with hipness.
Josey Records
1814 Oak, KCMO
Store manager Chris Labeau says Josey will be getting in most titles, but that otherwise for the store “it’s not a big day.” He did promise a big Record Store Day announcement coming soon, though, so keep an eye on their social media for that.
Love Garden Sounds
822 Massachusetts, Lawrence
“We’ll have some tapes,” owner Kelly Corcoran says, “but we’re not doing anything special.” The store will have an in-store that evening featuring Girlpool, but that’s part of KJHK’s 40th birthday weekend and isn’t related to CSD.
Mills Record Company
314 Westport Rd, KCMO
Mills is the only shop to feature an actual Facebook event for their Cassette Store Day festivities. Additionally, owner Judy Mills clued us in to the fact that they’re hoping to have a pretty solid selection of vintage cassette equipment for those who lack a tape deck. They also have an in-store that evening with Suicide Robins and Witch Jail — unrelated to CSD but still cool.
%{[ data-embed-type=”image” data-embed-id=”” data-embed-element=”aside” ]}%Local releases will be available at various locations, including the physical debut of Be/Non’s Mystic Sunrise/Sunset Magic and Sie Lieben Maschinen’s June Gloom, both on Haymaker Records.
Additionally, Woody Records has a compilation coming out entitled In The Future All Things Are Relevant. Woody has also recently released cassettes from The Mr. & The Mrs. and Hip Priest, for which you should keep your eyes peeled. The same goes for Kool 100s’ newest, Diet Black, which came out last month on Rainy Road Records.
Stores not participating: Records With Merritt, Revolution Records and Vinyl Renaissance.
If you know of any local Cassette Store Day releases we might’ve missed, leave a note in the comments.
