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The Art of Tape Swapping

© Katherine Wharmby

What do you do for your house music fix if you live in an area devoid of good record shops or non-mainstream radio? One solution is internet radio, which I've talked about before. Another is the time-honored practice of bootlegging and tape-swapping.

Grateful Dead fans have done it for decades. Despite the demise of the band, they're still doing it. One avid collector I knew had an entire case of bootlegged show cassettes. Even though the same songs are sure to show up on more than one tape, the Dead was renowned for never playing the same song the same way twice. That's also the case with house DJs. They arrive with two turntables, a vast array of records, and maybe some electronic musical equipment. They can cut and mix hundreds of tracks in countless new ways. As Dead fans swap tapes, so do lovers of electronica.

There are a number of places to find good bootlegs. One, of course, is online. Tapes of pirate London radio stations from 1997 to the present are available here to trade. Another personal site has a large selection of UK and US DJ live sets. The Art Of The Mix has a huge list of tapes compiled by the online community for trading, but you'll have to do some digging to find a good house mix. Search the Web for "tapes to trade" or "DJ tapes" and you'll find lots of people willing to trade.

Offline, many DJ bootleg tapes can be found in open-air markets like Camden in London or Soho in New York City. If you don't have access to places like these, find a friend who does, and make him or her your personal shopper.

Many DJs now play sets specifically for radio broadcasting. This makes it easy to produce a kickass mixed tape instantly, just by hitting record on your tape player. One great source for DJ sets is London's Radio 1 Essential Mix, which broadcasts on Saturday nights and has been going since October 1993. Each week a DJ spins live from a club. The first Essential Mix featured Pete Tong. Since then, DJs have included Paul Oakenfold, LTJ Bukem, Basement Jaxx, and Richie Hawtin, among many others. If you're in the UK, tune your radio dial to 97-99FM for Radio 1, or choose Channel 911 on Sky Digital. In Europe, the Astra Satellite broadcasts the Essential Mix. Outside Europe, your best bet is to listen online through Radio One's Web site, or get a friend to tape the show and send it to you. An extensive list of previous Essential Mix broadcasts is available online.