The Tom Tapes - 10th Anniversary

Happy new year! I hope all of you had a safe and enjoyable New Year's Eve last night.

Ten years ago this month I had begun training as a directory assistance operator. In my training class I met a guy named Tom. Tom co-ran a local dance club and had superb taste in music. We began a monthly tape exchange that, despite lasting only eight months, permanently changed the way I listened to music.

Up to that point, I had only begun to dabble in music that was outside of the 'mainstream' (as I understood it): Bowie, Joy Division, The Smiths, The Cure, Siouxsie, Christian Death, etc. Tom's tapes opened my eyes to music I had never dreamed existed or could exist. Though they sound so familiar to me now, my first exposures to COIL, Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, Swans, Current 93, Pigface, Cabaret Voltaire, and other 'industrial' mainstays short-circuited my parietal lobes. In addition to industrial, post-punk, glam, etc., Tom introduced me to music that was truly genre-defying and formless, presaging the current deconstruction of genre on independent labels. I believe this exchange was most influential in the development of my insatiable curiosity for music.

To commemorate this milestone, I have begun to digitize the original cassettes so they may be preserved my own enjoyment and for others'. I hope I can make them available via my podcast sometime soon. I feel I should first make a good-faith effort to contact Tom and secure his permission. Though he doesn't hold any legal rights to the music, I would want to treat the dissemination of the tapes in a manner of which he would approve. The tapes would be attributed to him, after all, and he did not intend such a use at the time (I assume). If I cannot contact him, I will post them on my webspace and include a link on this blog.