Editing Cassette culture (section)

==United States==
[[File:R. Stevie Moore (6141175995).jpg|thumb|left|[[R. Stevie Moore]] (pictured 2011) is one of the better-known artists associated with cassette culture.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Unterberger|first1=Richie|author-link1=Richie Unterberger|title=Cassette Culture|url=http://www.moorestevie.com/press/unteramg.html|website=[[AllMusic]]|date=1999|access-date=4 February 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180312014328/http://www.moorestevie.com/press/unteramg.html|archive-date=12 March 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref>]]

In the US, cassette culture activity extended through the late 1980s and into the 1990s. Although larger operators made use of commercial copying services, anybody who had access to copying equipment (such as the portable tape-to-tape cassette players that became common in the early 1980s) could release a tape, and publicize it in the network of [[fanzine]]s and newsletters that served the scene, such as ''[[OP Magazine]]'', ''[[Factsheet Five]]'' and ''Unsound''. The cassette culture became an inexpensive and democratic way for artists to make available music that was never likely to have mainstream appeal, and many found in the scene music that was more imaginative, challenging, beautiful, and groundbreaking than much of what was being released by the established music industry.

In the United States, cassette culture was associated with [[DIY]] [[sound collage]], [[riot grrrl]], and [[punk music]] and blossomed across the country on cassette labels such as: [[Psyclones]], [[Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine]], [[Randy Greif]]'s Swinging Axe Productions, Pass the Buck, E.F. Tapes, Mindkill, Happiest Tapes on Earth, Apraxia Music Research, and [[Sound of Pig]] (which released over 300 titles), From the Wheelchair to the Pulpit, [[Walls of Genius]] (which released over 30 titles, including their own, Architects Office and The Miracle),<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.haltapes.com/walls-of-genius-comprehensive-archive.html |title=Archived copy |access-date=19 July 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140728115108/http://www.haltapes.com/walls-of-genius-comprehensive-archive.html |archive-date=28 July 2014 }}</ref> [[K Records]], brown interior music. Artists such as [[PBK (composer)|PBK]], [[Big City Orchestra]], Alien Planetscapes, Don Campau, Ken Clinger, Dino DiMuro, Tom Furgas, [[The Haters]], Zan Hoffman, [[If, Bwana]], Hal McGee, [[Minóy]], Dave Prescott, Dan Fioretti (who now identifies as female and goes by the name Dreamgirl Stephanie Ashlyn), [[Jim Shelley (musician)|Jim Shelley]], Suburban Campers, [[The Silly Pillows]], [[Linda Smith (home recording singer-songwriter)|Linda Smith]], Saboteur, and hundreds of others, recorded albums available only on cassette throughout the late 1980s and well into the 1990s.<ref>Pareles, Jon (11 May 1987). ''Cassette Underground'', The New York Times</ref>

The American cassette-culture scene has been quite well-served by documentary-makers, in contrast with the scenes in the UK and Europe. In 2009 Andrew Szava-Kovats, who was involved in the US scene under the name [[Data-Bank-A]], released a 60-minute documentary ''Grindstone Redux: A Documentary About 1980's Cassette Culture'' on the American cassette network, with contributions from many of those involved. In 2015 the independent filmmaker [[William Davenport (filmmaker)|William Davenport]] released ''The Great American Cassette Masters'', a 90-minute documentary interviewing many key US artists of the 1980s scene. ''Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape'' (2016), directed by Zack Taylor, George Petzold and Seth Smoot, is a 90-minute documentary which, as the title indicates, takes a broader view of the cassette format and its history and features the inventor of the cassette tape [[Lou Ottens]]. It examines nostalgia for the format and its return as a medium for contemporary independent musicians. In 2020 American author Jerry Kranitz published the highly illustrated book ''Cassette Culture: Homemade Music & The Creative Spirit In The Pre-Internet Age'' ([[Vinyl On Demand]]).