BREAK OUT THE TABS

INDIRA NEVILLE

DESCRIPTION Orientation Tour Candidate C60 cassette, 1990

MAKER / ARTIST Bill Direen (b. 1957)

REFERENCE MS-Group-1913: MSC-021419 This Bill Direen cassette was sent to RadioActive 89FM in Wellington ahead of his 1990 Orientation tour of New Zealand universities.

In the early 1990s, the Hamilton audio-cassette label Plop Recordings used the slogan ‘We break out the tabs!’, a reference to removing the two small plastic squares that sat either side of the top of cassettes, thus preventing over-recording. This was not needed when you used cassettes to record your favourite songs from the radio, but it was crucial for small labels to ensure the music of their acts was listened to and preserved.

Audio-cassette labels, and the format itself, were an important part of New Zealand’s independent music scene in the 1980s and 1990s. In this era before burnable CDs and music sharing on the internet, pressing vinyl was prohibitively expensive, and so tapes allowed for the affordable capture of, and access to, all kinds of music, particularly that unavailable in the mainstream.

Tape labels were distinguished by their DIY ethic. There was an emphasis on underground music, small title runs (now worth substantial money among collectors), home-made covers, a lo-fi sound and a sense of community. They existed all over New Zealand, often in small provincial towns. They had paper catalogues, and titles were sent throughout the country and the world.

Many influential acts were originally released on cassette, Bill Direen (b. 1957) being one of these. His early band the Bilders (or the Builders) had its own label, selfreleasing before being picked up by Flying Nun Records in Christchurch in 1982 (the Bilders’ album Beatin Hearts was one of Flying Nun’s first albums). A large number of other, now acclaimed, musicians were also associated with the Bilders.

Direen has since gone on to form numerous other bands and collectives. He continues to tour Aotearoa and the world extensively, has been released by numerous overseas labels, has directed theatre productions and become a lauded spoken-word poet, and in 2010 was the Writer in Residence at Auckland’s Michael King Writers Centre. He is also the subject of film-maker Simon Ogston’s 2017 documentary Bill Direen: A memory of others.

In the early 2000s, many tape labels began to release on CDs and then via the internet. Blank cassette makers ceased production and the format appeared obsolete. Recently, however, tapes have enjoyed a revival, used by artists like Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish and Wu-Tang Clan. By July 2020, cassette sales had topped 100,000 in the UK alone, their highest numbers in 15 years, and blank tape manufacturing was again a viable business.

Many independent New Zealand labels, for example, Independent Woman Records and Dubbed Tapes, are issuing titles simultaneously on tape and the internet. This offers the advantages of both — the convenience of the download and the DIY aesthetic of the audio cassette.