Remembering The Tape Cartridge

We played a lot of local acts at KJHK. When I worked there in the mid 80's, the local bands sent music and if it was on cassette, we dubbed it to tape cartridge. Many of the carts were vintage to say the least. Sometimes the magnetic tape inside the plastic case broke, or the tiny pads that kept the tape itself in contact with the heads inside the cart player gave out, rendering it useless. Most of the carts were 30 seconds or 60 seconds. The kind we needed for full tracks were harder to get and were replaced rarely. I still remember several songs we kept in the studio that were available on cart and nowhere else at the time:

• EBS "How Soon To Watch"
  
• The Embarrassment "Patio Set"
  
• Tommy Keene "Take Back Your Letters" and "Back to Zero"
  
• Pedaljets "Selector"
  
• Psychic Archie "No Pictures of Dad"
  

Other ephemeral items stored foolishly on cart were station IDs and public service announcements. At KJHK, we had a large collection of artist drops including Lou Reed, Bono, William Burroughs, Jello Biafra, Patti Smith, and many others. Those carts eventually just gave out. Some of them survived on cassette. I have a few saved that way and I suppose the future is to convert them to mp3s. Save the classic KJHK media moments!