99% Invisible - 214- Loud and Clear

Episode Date: May 25, 2016

Sub Pop Records has signed some of the most famous and influential indie bands of the last 30 years, including Nirvana, Sleater-Kinney, The Postal Service, and Beach House. Over time, the stars and hits have changed and the formats have … Continue reading →

This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars and this is the sound of well here I'm gonna play you the sound and if you're old enough you'll be able to identify it right away That's the sound of a brand new cassette tape being unwrapped and put into a cassette deck That's my friend and fellow radio tobian Benjamin Walker He hosts the show Theory of everything and he's definitely old enough to know that sound. Yeah, well, so are you, pal. Benjamin is sitting in a car. A car that happens to have a tape deck, with Andrea Hart, who works with these sub-pop

record label. At first when we started doing the cassettes for every release. If you're not familiar with sub-pop, it's kind of this small, but really mighty record label that is signed some of the best indie bands in the last 30 years. Nirvana, Slater Kenny, the postal service, Beach House, and Andrea has a job at Subpop that a lot of people might not imagine exists at a modern record label. I work at Subpop Records doing cassette production. It's crazy, I just don't think I've even held a cassette in my hand for a long time. This job, handling cassette production at Subpop, it disappeared completely for a while. But recently, record stores and distributors have been requesting Subpop to release their titles on cassette.

And Subpop asked Andrea to oversee the operation. I don't like nostalgia for the sake of it, and it's clear to me why cassettes have been replaced now a couple of times over by more convenient mediums, mediums where you can actually skip tracks and you don't have to rewind when you're down listening. But I do think there are a lot of good things about the cassette. First off, you can fix a messed up cassette with some patience and a pencil. Plus, there's never been a better way to make a mix. And you can have a tape floating around to the floor of your car for years and then

throw it in your tape deck and it sounds great. Well, it sounds okay. It never really sounded great. In any case, subpop is betting that some of us will want to hear our favorite albums on Cassette again. But there is one population that never stopped listening to music on Cassette. That's filmmaker Alex Lambert. We've been working together on this story and actually I'm just going to hand it over to her now. The United States Prison System has the largest prison population in the world. And when the more than two million prisoners in this country have access to music, it's often on cassette. Well, my number one thing to keep around here is my walkman, my tape, my legal papers, and some bottle water.

Yeah, they can have everything else. That's Adolfo Davis. At 14 years old, he was involved in a gang related shooting. He was tried as an adult in sentence to life in prison. Adolfo is 39 now, and he's serving his sentence at Stateville Correctional Center in Illinois. Listening to music on tapes is one of his only means of escape. In 1990 the year Adolfo was incarcerated. Everybody was listening to music on Gazette tapes. In fact, Adolfo had some with him when he went to prison.

Yeah, I got locked up with a Waltman and I think my sentence tape, yeah, when I was in the field, drugs, I have a fanny pack. And I have my Waltman and my fanny pack with my tape. And I've been listed to the Waltman while I'm watching out for security for the police. A fanny pack. We usually call it a couch, but it's a fanny pack. Let's be real. Just a few years after Adolfo was locked up, the cassette tape would be all but replaced

by the CD out here in the free world. But in prison, the cassette they've done. I've been telling my family family that I need order tape and the younger generation that I can tell soon, they don't even know what the tape is. And not just any old cassette tape is allowed in prison. Some prisons require a very specific type of cassette tape. It has to be clear, it has to be sonically welded

so it can't be taken apart and put back together, and the box it goes in has to also be perfectly clear. That's Steve Step, owner of National Audio Company, America's pre-eminent manufacturer of cassette tapes. The reason you can't have a five-screw cassette or maybe a colored cassette that's opaque, is they don't want a razor blade or narcotics or something else to be enclosed in a cassette. They do have people in the correctional facilities who look at and inspect incoming materials and they have to be able to see through or they won't allow them in. Steve has gotten familiar with this subfield of cassette tape manufacturing, even though it is not the focus of his business. Mostly he makes normal cassette tapes for a number of different markets. Music labels, spoken word,

audio books. Steve's factory in Springfield, Missouri produces both blank tapes and tapes with audio already on them. The machines collate all those parts together, transfer them across on a conveyor, and then wrap them with cellophane and put a tear strip in. Steve was one of the first people in the cassette industry, and he's one of the only people still in it. We're the only people I know of. Most of the people left in the cassette industry are mom-and-pop shops or small operations. If you purchased a cassette recently from anywhere, from Renewashack or from the merch table of some punk band you saw live, it probably started out in Steve's factory. His company ships out up to 100,000 cassettes a day.

And a small number of those cassettes are special orders for prisoners, made with clear plastic and without screws. Once the tape's leaf here, we don't really see where they end up. As for why cassettes have stuck around in prisons all these years, it's hard to get a definite answer because every prison is different. But there's one theory we heard from a few different people. Tapes are allowed because CDs are easier to weaponize. They say that it's the most safest way for them to listen to music because a CD you could break and

maybe cut somebody with. That's Chris Barrett. This tape of him was recorded a couple years ago for a short film. Chris used to run a service that helped families and packages to people in prison in New York State. He had a warehouse full of items that had already been approved by the prison authorities. Everything from food, clothing, boxer shorts, and yeah, cassettes instead of CDs. But he never really understood the logic behind it. They let me sell tuna fish cans that you know you pull off the top and that thing is metal like it's much more dangerous than a CD is my point, the tuna fish can and the CD. So I don't know why they come up with some of the rules that they come up with. We just try to stay within those guidelines.

Chris, whose package sending service recently went out of business, also sold a lot of cassette walkmins. Walkmins used to be available for purchase in prison commissaries, but they generally aren't anymore, which makes them extremely coveted items. And where and tear is not the only threat to the life of a walkman? Quarantare is not the only threat to the life of a walkman. Well, when it's like a major shakedown and they bring other officers from other institutions, they would just break your TV, break your radio, take your TV, take your radio, take your concept tape. Once you screw in my walkman, I cannot get another walkman.

It's probably one of the most prized items for theft. People try to hold out as much as they can, protect as much as possible. That's Efron Paredes Jr. He was a 15-year-old honor student when he was tried as an adult on a murder charge and sentenced to life without parole. He's always maintained his innocence. Efron is 43 now. And during his 28 years in prison, he amassed a pretty big collection of music.

So my favorite would probably be a Kendrick Lamar, I like young GZ, Rick Ross, Nick Mills, I like the Wayne. At Muskegon Correctional Facility in Michigan, where Eferna is serving his sentence, prisoners can actually have MP3 players. Inmates can purchase an MP3 player through the prison commissary and then download music to it through a kiosk provided by a company called Access Entertainment. Before downloading, they have to transfer money to the company and receive a credit for a certain amount of songs.

But there's a catch. And Michigan there's a policy that they try to restrict as much music that would be labeled as parental advisory. In other words, the state of Michigan will try and sentence a 15 year old as an adult, but when he becomes an actual adult, the state won't let him purchase music deemed inappropriate for a teenager. It's interesting that, you know, the Department of Corrections has never taken any steps to restricting cassette tape purchases. We couldn't confirm that there were no restrictions on cassette music, but Eiffren hasn't encountered

them. And that's why he says a lot of inmates still prefer cassettes. They listen to them all the time, on their personal walkmins and sometimes out loud. Actually, as we're talking right now, there's a gentleman in the bathroom washing clothes with his radio lines playing the song, play at your own risk. Writer, near the part of the prison where E-Fren is locked up is the wing that houses the prisoners in solitary confinement. We hear guys all the time yelling up to us saying, hey turn the music on, turn some music

on, you know, turn on, turn Rick Ross on, turn on Meet Meal. Hey, this is what they've been waiting for. You know, something so that they can hear down there. You ready? Something that's, you know, something so that they can hear down there. You ready? Something that's, you know, music from upstairs. Uh. I used to break the times like this, the rhyme like this, so I had to grind like that,

the shine like this, and the matter of time I spent on some locked up issues, and the back of the petty wagon, cuss locked on wrist, see my dreams unfold. Night man's control. It was time to marry. Prisons tend to be late adopters of technology. So maybe one day all prisons in the US will just make the switch from cassette to digital. Or maybe they'll go to CDs first just to

be illogically chronological. Whatever the format, the most important thing about music to E-friend and Adolfo is escape and connection. Here's the Delphiwe again. Music connect us all together. Everybody shed music each other. You know, music allows everyone to escape in this place. I can't, I can't do it without my music. In a day I rest my Waltman. I'll borrow Waltman from somebody else to live stay Waltman. So I can go to sleep. The days that you don't have your walk, man.

No, like I play my walk man like three days, then I let it rest like two days. Wow, he rests his walkman. That is love. 99% invisible was produced this week by Benjamin Walker and Alex Lambert with Katie Mingle, Sam Green's fans to review Seth Kirk Cole's dead Delaney Hall Avery Trouffleman and me Roman Mars. The audio you heard from Chris Barrett the guy who sent packages to prisoners was from the film The Prison in 12 Landscapes by Brett Story for more information about where and how to see that

film go to PrisonLandscapes.com. Special thanks to Elise Blenderhassich, he introduced us to both Atalfo and Ephraim. A slightly different version of this story will air on Benjamin Walker's theory of everything. Benjamin is one of my oldest friends in radio and you should definitely be friends with him too, but in case you don't already listen, this is one of my favorite clips from his program that has a little bit more Benjamin Walker in it. Enjoy. There's this painting that I keep with me, always. It's one of those little postcard reproductions. I've even made a gold frame for it at a balsa wood.

The painting is called The Artist in His Studio. It's by John Singer Sargent. I've brought it with me here to the studio. I have it right here in front of me, propped up next to the microphone. The painting depicts a man painting a picture in his studio. But this artist studio is not an ordinary studio. It is the artist's home.

The man has his painting propped up on the bed and the bureau. There is no easel. You get the idea that the only things in the room are the bed, the Bureau, and the chair upon which the man sits. The man is confined to extremely small quarters. The setting is grim, and it contrasts with the painting that the man is working on. A landscape. The man is painting a landscape. Horses meander through a soft green meadow, and the trees are lush and full, and the blue horizon is dotted with clouds.

Most sergeant commentators dismiss this painting. They consider it to be nothing but a silly joke, an artist painting a landscape in his cramped doleful bedroom. But I consider this painting to be a masterpiece, because it captures the idea that through art man is able to transcend his dismal, squal surroundings. This painting is not a joke. This artist is not painting a landscape. This artist is painting a window.

Look out this window for a moment. Here let me move out of your way. You'll find the view is breathtaking. I've spent my entire life looking for the way to get to the other side of this window. I've been told time and time again that I'm wasting my efforts, but I've never given up. I've always known that there is a way to break the glass and crawl out over the window so I've always been certain of it and I made a vow that I would never give up

until I discovered the secret. You're snickering at me. Well, go ahead and run. You think I'm crazy for believing that there's something on the other side of this window. Well, I'm not. The reality on the other side is just as real as the one we stand in right now. Sometimes, I think it's even more real. But we do not have to go into that now. I have not brought you here to this window to discuss the metaphysics of reality. I have brought you here to this window because I need your help.

You see, I believe that I have finally discovered the secret. So I'm going to go to the other side of the studio now, and I need you to kneel down here in the front. I'm going to count to three, and on three, I'm going to run towards you, and you are going to lift me into the air. You're going to have to poke me through the window. Trust me, this is going to work. With your help I am going to break the glass and land on the other side. So on three. One. Two.

Three. That's the introduction to something will happen soon, an episode from Benjamin Walker's theory of Everything, from Radio Topia. 99% of visible is a project of KALW-91.7 in San Francisco and produced out of the offices of ArcSign, in architecture and interiors firm. In beautiful, downtown, Oakland, California. California. You can find this show and like the show on Facebook. It follows all on Twitter and Instagram, but the best way to explore the 99% invisible activity that shapes the design of our world.

It's to spend as much time as possible on 99 bi.org. Radio tapio. From PRX.