The Damned – Final Damnation Audio Cassette (1989)

The Damned were one of the ‘big three’ original British punk bands, alongside the Sex Pistols and The Clash. They released the first ever single to be acknowledged as British punk rock, in autumn 1976, and whilst their path was far from smooth and continuous, they remained active and high up in alternative public consciousness right through the early and mid 1980s.

Through the one decade plus from ’76 into the late ‘eighties, the band’s musical style morphed, and I suppose you could say ‘matured’ – although that would imply that original format punk was immature, which I don’t believe was the case.

BASF LH Extra I Audio Cassette (1984)

BASF were very well known for their high bias chrome formulation cassettes (see the Blank Tapes category for numerous posts relating to those), but they also made some very nice normal bias Type I tapes. A case in point was this, the LH Extra I, probably made in 1984.

Otis Rush – Ain’t Enough Comin’ In audio cassette (1994)

Ohhhh yeaaahhhh…. This. Is. The stuff. In 1994, an Otis Rush studio album release was a completely new experience to an entire generation. Not since the 1970s had Rush bestowed a non-live album upon the world, and whilst I’d heard his name before, it was the UK publicity which went with this release, in spring ’94, that alerted me to his capabilities. The early 1990s had seen an explosion of traditional American blues, and whilst this product from Otis Rush could have done with being recorded and released two or three years earlier (for its own commercial sake more than anything), it was most welcome, and it’s remained a very important release within the blues genre.