The Rebirth of Spool

Oxfam sells audio tapes. They cost 49 new pence each or a round pound for three. This represents a bargain and I am gradually amassing a whole stack of cassettes that I am playing in my automobile and enjoying vigorously. My motor car contains no CD player but I quite like playing tapes; in these days of MP3 files and those new-fangled compact discs (Whatever next? A process to record telecasts onto tape maybe? Jugs that you plug into the wall in order to boil water through the use of electrical magic?) I appreciate the link with the past offered by the use of cassettes. On Saturday, I spent my pocket money on Club Classics Volume 1 by Soul II Soul, Girls + £ ÷ Girls = $ & Girls (I copied and pasted that) by Elvis Costello and an antique punk collection called Twenty Of Another Kind that features one song too many by Sham 69 but is otherwise quaintly pleasurable. I’m sliding the Costello bobbin of sound into my ‘deck’ most often. It is a compilation from 1989 and contains nugget after nugget. Costello’s original version of Girls Talk is a poignant gem while Brilliant Mistake is a stunningly honest and superb number.

Last week I bagged Doolittle by The Pixies, Songs To Learn And Sing by Echo and the Bunnymen and Let Me Come Over by Buffalo Tom. Americana aficionado D is particularly impressed by the latter purchase: ‘Classic Tom’ read his texted response. Frankly, I’m looking forward to my next foray into the shelves of sound at the ‘fam and am saving up already.