Archive for March 2010
Dead Cassettes
My friend Mendez sent this photo around.
Take note of the scotch tape in the upper left, which rendered the cassette “dub-able”. The next consideration is the EP’s duration – 13 minutes, 54 seconds. Which rendered this marketing stunt virtually “inevit-able”, considering manufacturing plants generally don’t make cassettes with sides shorter than 10 minutes because of breakage concern.
Stunt, by the way, is a compliment. The thing I love about this picture / concept / stunt is how utterly harmless it is. As if music fans would accelerate their industry-killing ways, given access to comparatively expensive, hard-to-label, one-sided 14 minute blank tapes. That’s the genius of it – the Dead Kennedys were commenting on something that was plainly obvious, and yet stubbornly rejected by entrenched powers (see also: the folly of religious dogma).
Hopefully, Kill Screen can get stunts of this caliber. And while we’re on the subject of stunts:
“Lemonade was a popular drink
and it still is -
I get more props and stunts
than Bruce Willis.”
One of my favorite rap lyrics of all time. Speedy recovery to Guru.
