A blast from the past . . .

If you are younger than a certain age, still enjoying the blooms and excesses of youth, you could be forgiven for not being able to make any sense of this photo at all:-) It is an obsolete piece of musical kit known as a cassette tape. Think of it as a non-downloadable mp3 that comes as a long coil of flimsy magnetic tape in a strangely designed plastic case. The sound quality was at best dubious - prone to a high frequency hissing overtone - the mechanism wasn't known for reliability and the tape would often stick (especially in damp weather) or uncoil to tangle itself in the works of whatever machine was trying to play it. A musical equivalent of Russian Roulette. Its advantage lay in its portability but little else. Unlike the superior vinyl records of the time, a cassette could played in the car where the noise of the engine helped to mask the weaknesses in sound quality:-) 

 . . . getting back to the photo . . . this humble cassette is one of the original “Runestone” demo tapes produced a whole 30 years ago at the end of 1992, which started off my recording career. Now celebrating its 30th birthday, copies were sent to 7 selected record companies with 5 saying yes (one of these companies taking a whole year to respond) one rejection letter and one no reply. Runestone folded back in 2011 but this tape holds great sentimental value to me and has been a regular item on display in my recording setup ever since. I have no idea if it still plays. The album was re-named “Stonehenge” by the record company and released the following year . . . on CD as well as cassette.

So . . . "fast forward" 30 years and I have just finished recording "Aurora" which will be my 56th published album. I have no idea how I have managed to produce so many but would like to thank all of you lovely people and Happy Hippies out there who have been buying and supporting my musical efforts during all these years:-)