It's the only cassette we've been playing in the car for some time now. It's a special cassette, in that a facsimile copy of it exists on MiniDisc. It's also special, in that it has survived what could only be described as "chocolate-powder damage", sustained from residing at the bottom of my navy blue school-bag.

It's the tenth year anniversary of this cassette, El's Formal Tape and although I cringe when I am reminded of the unbelievable hype that accompanied this event, I cannot help but feel slightly warmed by the memory of its construction. After all, it was all done at the request of my date, TAFKATC, who insisted it was my task for the evening.

It was an exceedingly important task, preparing a selection of songs for that 15-minute car ride together. On the scarce occasions when we did speak, we only ever bonded over 1980s synth pop... but they were terribly significant conversations and I had the tendency to retain them, as I had the tendency to retain everything.

Again, both myself and my best friend, Missy Laur had to deal with this problem, this scarcity of time issue that tended to pervade every aspect of this absurd (and thoroughly implausible) partnership. Missy Laur and I whinced and made endless lists. We aggressively crossed out song names and with every strike-through came three new "consequential additions". It was a list that was impossible to cull.

Perhaps if the car-ride had been 1,115 minutes long instead of 15, I could have included all the songs TAFKATC was responsible for. All that New Order, Erasure, Depeche Mode, The Smiths and The Cure. But this was my task and my challenge. It was an ordeal to deal with the technological restraints of his feeble MiniDisc and my rickety 90-minute cassette, but I loved it. I would have made more: The Formal Mixes - Volumes 1 to 250.

But now when I drive and listen to this cassette, I am baffled by some of my song choices. Paul Van Dyk's For an Angel? Basement Jaxx's Bingo Bango? Really? Some other song inclusions make more sense, such as the brilliant New Order megamix and Erasure's I Love Saturday from their 1994 album, I Say, I Say, I Say.

It was TAFKATC's objection to the degenerated sound quality of I Love Saturday that sticks out most in my memory of that whole car-ride. You see, Missy Laur and I had dubbed that song from my mix-tape to her mix-tape to my mix-tape (and so forth). It was emblematic, it somehow signified the love and reverence both she and I shared for this song.

Perhaps I was naive in thinking that this kind of connection could have existed for both him and I? Was I mad in imagining such a thing?


Nothing in this world can touch the music that I heard...
If only I could have imagined what would follow, some ten years later. TAFKATC sent me an email with the subject line, FAC, requesting my company to see New Order at Festival Hall. My 15 minutes had been extended to a full 90 minute set and I couldn't help but giggle as we sent texts to each other, dreaming of what songs they should play (and what cover band we'd inevitably form when Barney fails to meet our expectations).

I tend to let my memories slip by when I think of TAFKATC. I am far too embarrassed to acknowledge the youthful flirtatiousness I once had... but then I can't help but feel it still when he looks at me, when he entertains my musings. I don't care to ever forget the moment before the band even started, when he handed me his plastic cup of beer to sip: "You're still 17." He smiled. I could hardly disguise my grin in response. "I'll always be 17."

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Funk & Soul Podcast #41
Munk - Kick out the Chairs
Clairy Browne & The Bangin' Rackettes - Love Letter
Billy Paul - Am I Black Enough For You
John Legend - Used To Love U
India Arie - Video
Colonel Abrams - Trapped
Stevie Wonder - Part-Time Lover
Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers - Why Do Fools Fall In Love?

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It was my kind friend, Adam of Pretending Life is Like a Song who suggested the proposition: "There's an argument that The Smiths' best song is Back to the Old House on Hatful of Hollow (1984) and their worst song is Back to the Old House on Louder than Bombs (1987)." I was more than willing to agree with him: Hatful of Hollow > Louder than Bombs. There is something remarkable about that acoustic interpretation, the resonance of Johnny's guitar, Morrissey's breathtaking vocal delivery, I'm sure many others would agree. Yet, it surprises me to admit that, because I heard the version on Louder than Bombs first.

You never knew how much I really liked you, because I never even told you - oh, but I meant to.
The realisation made me reflect upon that unspoken tendency to prefer the first version of a song we hear. The "first version" manages to become the more definitive interpretation with every repeated listening. This may occur even though the "first version" may, in actuality, be the more illegitimate. It may be a cover, demo or in the case of New Order's Brutal (2000), unduly sped up and distorted to shit. Familiarity with the "first version" may result in a difficulty to accept the qualities of another version. We come up with irrational pronouncements, like Mito's epic Italo anthem Droid (1982) cannot begin to compare with its cover by Hypnosis (1987): the cover is that much better.

A part of me thinks that musical familiarity has much to do with the subconscious. So often, I find myself inexplicably drawn to specific Italo tracks, only to discover I had heard them years before, included in DJ Zyron's Classic Italo Mix. I recognised Catcall's track, Swimming Pool (2010) during her support performance of CSS, not because I had heard the song on the radio, but because my sweet friend Louise of Eton Mess Life sang it in passing, well over a year before. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there exists this subconscious desire to find a version, a "first version" in an attempt to obsessively revisit and ferociously defend.

Yet, it is somehow more vindicating to discover a "second version" which far surpasses the first. It obliterates the comfort that comes from musical familiarity, however conscious. Such a discovery suggests that there continues to be a process of engagement, a process of assessing a song on its merits. Sure, it may never be possible to emulate the dizzying high: that initial moment where an interpretation becomes the first and absolute definitive. But, in spite of all attachments, it may be possible to fall in love with a song, over and over again.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Italo Disco Podcast #39
Big Ben Tribe - Tarzan Loves the Summer Nights
Michael Bedford - More Than a Kiss
Hysterical Fit - Come and Make Me High
Albert One - For Your Love (Another Version)
Buzzer - Complications (Moar Cowbell Mix)
Hot Cold - I Can Hear Your Voice
Mozzart - Malice and Vice
Ken Heaven - The Calling

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When I stop talking for a little while, I am usually thinking about London. I am usually thinking about a particular spot in Camden or the fake Roman antiquities in the Victoria and Albert Museum. I am usually thinking about dancing til my legs ache at some random indie club in Soho.. or else I am thinking about the colour of the morning sky on the bus ride back to Seven Sisters.

Sometimes I think about how I rushed about to get a last minute ticket to New Order in Hyde Park. It was where we first met, standing next to each other, watching the Psychedelic Furs. I had asked to see his program. It was very new-fangled in that it was laminated like a backstage pass. You see, I was lost - there were no freely available programs.

We spent the whole day together, walking in a muddied field, engaged in deep conversation. We talked about musical interests that (we believed) precious few shared. I so vividly remember how he described the significance of the Pet Shop Boys' This Must Be The Place I've Waited Years To Leave. I have no doubt in my mind that I told him of my profound love of Erasure's album The Innocents. We laughed and gushed, walking from tent to tent, stage to stage, talking about his musical writing and my radio fumbling. He was very obliging in letting me watch all the bands I'd wished to see that day: Battle, Graham Coxon, Fischerspooner and the Dears.

We were muddied and drenched when New Order started playing, yet it was perfect. I couldn't have imagined a circumstance like it. There were moments in New Order's set, their cadences, drum beats, lyrics and hooks that resonated so strongly. It seemed so terribly apt yet so wholly unexpected when they played Run Wild. I couldn't believe I was there.

We organised to meet up late Monday night, four days later. I remember him waiting outside the fake Marquee Club in Leicester Square. I was late of course. We had originally planned to go to a New Romantic club night in Oxford Circus. However, no real event really eventuated that night. Yet, somehow it was one of the most exciting nights of my life. Andrew, Gaby, He and I sat on the edge of the Piccadilly Circus fountain, sitting, talking and laughing all night long. It must have been one or two o'clock in the morning when we started to walk in circles around the center of London. From Piccadilly Circus to Soho to Oxford Circus, back to Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square to Trafalgar Square... and then back again. I remember the precise moment when I wished for him to hold my hand, he was speaking about London by the Smiths. I don't ever think I'd ever felt as much relief as when he did.

It seems like a totally mythical scenario, in retrospect. It was just like any of the songs we talked about: Tonight is Forever by the Pet Shop Boys, There is a Light That Never Goes Out by the Smiths, But Not Tonight by Depeche Mode. Nowadays, the memory seems to live in that strictly musical realm, that farfetched realm, that thoroughly perfect realm. Sometimes I have to stop talking for a little while longer to wonder if it really happened at all.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #12
Röyksopp - Happy Up Here
Pet Shop Boys - Love etc
Danger - 11h30
Whitest Boy Alive - Gravity
Hercules in NY - Deadweight
Dr Baker - Kaos (from Budbrain Megademo I)
Bitmap Brothers - Gods
Bomb the Bass - Megablast (from Xenon II)

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I remember sitting on the front steps of this guy's Art Deco styled, Grey Street apartment. We sat waiting for a taxi together, waiting to get to this party at the Public Offices. I had waited months, years, maybe even decades to be sitting next to this person, waiting for this party. Yet no matter how long I waited, I would still be far too young. Of course, I was in denial of this fact at the time. It only took me two whole years to acknowledge it. Once I did, I dramatically, defiantly and silently declared: if it's because of my age then you're a coward.

When we waited together on these front steps, I was far too anxious to meet his gaze. I would just play with the cuffs of the navy polyester jacket he lent me for the second part of the evening. We were talking about New Order. We would always talk about New Order. He was kind of ashamed of liking Erasure and he knew very little about Depeche Mode. We wouldn't talk about the Cure a lot - although earlier that evening, I acquired the god-fearing audacity to quote the 13th at him: are you seducing or being seduced? To this day, I emphatically insist that the quote was in context, it must have been in context. He must have been flirting with me for me to say something as provocative as that. Surely I wasn't just dreaming of the attraction and rapport? I must have been out of my mind.


Is it really such a sin? Cause if it is, then I'll give in
We were talking about the Reading 3-16 DVD. I laughed at Barney's teleprompter at the front of the stage. "Surely he's been performing these songs for the best part of 20 years, how could he not remember the lyrics of Blue Monday?" He laughed and said that he always felt that Barney was so out of place on stage. He attributed these thoughts to how Barney came to be singer of the band and how Barney tended to have a real lack of showmanship. "It wasn't the place where he was meant to be - he was meant to be an accountant or an architect or something like that. It seems to be a such a mistake."

I knew he was speaking about himself, in some odd way. I didn't have the nerve or the time to ever ask him what he might of meant by that - our maxi taxi was here. He grabbed my hand as we walked to the van and resumed the rest of our evening.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #9
frYars - Olive Eyes
Piney Gir - Boston
Supersystem - The Lake
Ace of Base - Wave Wet Sand
Erasure - Waiting for the Day
Queen - Action This Day (demo)
Berlin - The Metro
Dr John - New Looks

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