Metamatic Forums John Foxx John Foxx Foxx on tape

I've never been a great fan of buying albums on cassette. In the days when you could, I mean. Are such things still released?

But for some reason I have a copy of The Garden in this format.

Set me wondering who else has the first four solo albums on tape?
I doubt they have much financial value, but must surely be quiet collectable things. Especially perhaps TGS, which came with extra tracks.

I'd just be curious to see what they even looked like

I used to have Metamatic as a tape but my car tape player chewed that up. Somewhere in the depths of my rubbish I still have The garden as a cassette.
Like you Martin I was never a fan of cassettes much prefering vinyl.
Peter

I remember a chum of mine (Mr Moreton what ever happened to you?) owning a copy of 'The Golden Section' which had half-a-dozen or so extra tracks from the GS-era singles' b-sides. Otherwise there never was much point with the cassettes (although I do own a reasonably mint copy of 'Metamatic.')

I often buy up mint/sealed cassettes on eBay just for the hell of it and because they are usually dirt cheap. In ten years time they will be old technology like 8-tracks and Quadrophonic.

I never really made the jump to cassette either.
I used to buy the Vinyl, and tape it for the car. The car cassette invariably chewed them up, anyway.

I did pick up a load of Numan stuff from a charry, a couple of years ago. Some of that was on tape, eg Numa Records - Year One (compilation).
Bought everything they had, for a fiver-ish.

These days, though, I either tape my CDs, or plug in a dummy cassette and use my MP3 player. NOT iPod..
None of my cars have CD players, as I drive bangers. (by choice, google "bangernomics").

I've started backing up stuff onto data-DVDs as well. (although I don't expect DVDs to be around long either. I will not be investing in Blu-Ray, though. I will wait until after the format war, as per VHS/Betamax..)

I had (and still have) a lot of tapes - as a teenager it was far cheaper to swap/copy cassettes with friends than it was to buy albums - I got into so much music through cassettes. I never had a state-of-the-art hi-fi, like most I just had a personal stereo and a beatbox - so tapes were essential.

As Harold points out, 'The Golden Section' on cassette has many extra tracks, so many in fact that it becomes quite a different album (for me at least) from the vinyl edition. To my ears, the cassette edition of the album is the definitive edition of the album. I didn't buy the Edsel re-issue because in comparison to the cassette edition I know and love, some tracks are missing and in my head that makes the album incomplete.

so what tracks are missing from the cd then?

‘The Golden Section’ Virgin cassette edition:

Extra tracks – Side A:

This Jungle
Swimmer II
Dance With Me

Extra tracks – Side B:

A Kind of Wave
Young Man
A Woman on a Stairway

‘The Golden Section’ Edsel CD edition:

Dance With Me
The Lifting Sky
Annexe
Wings and a Wind
A Kind of Wave
A Woman on a Stairway

well, it seems 'this jungle' and 'swimmer II' would rather belong to the garden, but of course if you were familiar with that tracklisting already...

Thanks Garry.

I think you have the 'limited edition' cassette.
Presumably the cover etc is the same?
Metamatic discography informs us that there was a more general release of the tape without these extras

Hi Guys,

I never knew it was a limited edition - it doesn’t say anything on the box! Mine’s the Virgin mid-price OVED* edition – and still has all the extra tracks!

You’re quite right Psychocandy, 'this jungle' and 'swimmer II' do belong on The Garden – I’m just so used to hearing them on ‘The Golden Section’!

Another thing I’ve just remembered; on the blank B side of my ‘Systems of Romance’ cassette, someone had taped ‘Exodus’ by Bob Marley! Two fantastic albums for the price of one!


(*Anorak fact for today; Oved is Devo backwards as the first Virgin mid-price album was a Devo mini-album)