Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture is a 2005 book edited by musician Thurston Moore

Thurston Moore

Thurston Joseph Moore is an American musician best known as a singer, songwriter and guitarist of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside of Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label...

 on Universe Publishing.

Info

The book is a collection of stories, essays, art, and other contributions by various artists, musicians, and writers. It centers around the role of the mixtape

Mixtape

A Mix Tape or Mixed Tape is a compilation of songs recorded in a specific order, traditionally onto an audio Compact Cassette.A Mix Tape, which usually reflects the musical tastes of its compiler, can range from a casually selected list of favorite songs, to a conceptual mix of songs linked by a...

 and cassette culture

Cassette culture

Cassette culture, or the cassette underground , refers to the practices surrounding amateur production and distribution of recorded music that emerged in the late 1970s via home-made audio cassettes...

 in the lives of the contributors, which stands as a testimony to the importance of the medium starting in the late 1970s to its relevance today. Here tapes are used mostly to confess love or admiration, or to expose an acquaintance to new and underground music.

Quotes

"The mix tape is a form of American folk art: predigested cultural artifacts combined with homespun technology and magic marker turn the mix tape into a message in a bottle. I am no mere consumer of pop culture, it says, but also a producer of it. Mix tapes mark the moment of consumer culture in which listeners attained control over what they heard, in what order and at what cost. " Matias Viegener

"I have so many Mix Tape stories it's hard to know where to begin." Allison Anders

"The mix tape is a list a quotations, a poetic form in fact: the cento

Cento (poetry)

A cento is a poetical work wholly composed of verses or passages taken from other authors; only disposed in a new form or order.- History :The term comes from the Latin cento, a cloak made of patches; and that from the Greek κέντρων. The Roman soldiers used these centones, or old stuffs patched...

 is a poem made up of lines pulled from other poems. The new poet collects and remixes. Similarly an operation of taste, it is also cousin to the curious passion of the obsessive collector. Unable to express himself in 'pure' art, the collector finds himself in obsessive acquisition. Collecting is strangely hot and cold, passionate and calculating." Matias Viegener

Contributors

Lasse Marhaug

Lasse Marhaug

Lasse Marhaug is a Norwegian musician who primarily works in the field of noise music but frequently drifts into other areas such as improvisation, jazz, rock and extreme metal. Marhaug has also been involved in creating music for theatre, dance, art installations and video art...

,
Pat Griffin,
Ahmet Zappa

Ahmet Zappa

Ahmet Emuukha Rodan Zappa is an American musician, actor and novelist.-Early life:Ahmet was born in Los Angeles, California, the third of four children born to businesswoman Adelaide Gail Sloatman and musician Frank Zappa. Ahmet's father was of Sicilian, Greek-Arab and French descent and his...

,
Karen Constance aka Karen Lollypop,
Mike Watt

Mike Watt

Michael David Watt is an American bassist, singer and songwriter.He is best known for co-founding the rock bands Minutemen, dos, and Firehose; , he is also the bassist for the reunited Stooges and a member of the art rock/jazz/punk/improv group Banyan as well as many other post-Minutemen...

,
Glen E. Friedman

Glen E. Friedman

Glen E. Friedman is an American photographer and artist.Coming to prominence in the 1980s with his photography of skateboarders and musicians, Friedman is considered one of the most important photographers of his generation.He is perhaps best known for his work promoting rebellious artists such as...

,
Cynthia Connolly

Cynthia Connolly

Cynthia Connolly is an American photographer, graphic designer, and artist. She graduated from Corcoran College of Art and Design and worked for Dischord Records and d.c. space. In 1988 she published Banned in DC: Photos and Anecdotes From the DC Punk Underground through her small press Sun Dog...

,
Galaxie 500

Galaxie 500

Galaxie 500 was an American alternative rock band that formed in 1987 and split up in 1991 after releasing three albums.-History:Guitarist Dean Wareham, drummer Damon Krukowski and bassist Naomi Yang had met at the Dalton School in New York City in 1981, but began playing together during their time...

,
Tom Greenwood of Jackie-O Motherfucker

Jackie-O Motherfucker

Jackie-O Motherfucker is an American experimental music group that formed in Portland, Oregon in 1994.-Biography:Jackie-O Motherfucker began as a duo consisting of multi-instrumentalist Tom Greenwood and saxophonist Nester Bucket. The group has had more than forty members drawn from the U.S....

,
David Choe

David Choe

David Choe is an American painter, muralist, graffiti artist and graphic novelist of Korean descent. He achieved art world success with his "dirty style" figure paintings—raw, frenetic works which combine themes of desire, degradation, and exaltation...

,
Matias Viegener,
Lili Dwight,
Mac McCaughan

Mac McCaughan

Mac McCaughan is a founding member of the rock band Superchunk, and co-founder of Merge Records along with Laura Ballance. He also heads the band Portastatic, which began as a lo-fi side project and has blossomed into his main musical project...

,
Dodie Bellamy

Dodie Bellamy

Dodie Bellamy is an American novelist, nonfiction author, journalist and editor. Her work is frequently associated with that of Dennis Cooper, Kathy Acker, and Eileen Myles...

,
Dan Graham

Dan Graham

Dan Graham , is a conceptual artist now working out of New York City. He is an influential figure in the field of contemporary art, both a practitioner of conceptual art and an art critic and theorist. His art career began in 1964 when he moved to New York and opened the John Daniels Gallery....

,
William Winant

William Winant

William Winant is an American percussionist.In addition to his work in contemporary classical music -- notably performing Lou Harrison's compositions—Winant has worked in a variety of genres, including noise rock, free improvisation and jazz. Notable collaborators include Glenn Spearman, Thurston...

,
Jim O'Rourke

Jim O'Rourke (musician)

Jim O'Rourke is an Irish-American musician and record producer. He was long associated with the Chicago experimental and improv scene...

,
Leah Singer

Leah Singer

Leah Singer is a photographer and multimedia artist. She is the long-time artistic collaborator and wife of Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth. Singer performs with multiple modified film projectors that allow her to improvise and manipulate the film projections by adjusting the frame rate...

,
Ryan McGinness

Ryan McGinness

Ryan McGinness is an American artist, living and working in Manhattan, New York. He grew up in the surf and skate culture of Virginia Beach, Virginia, and then studied at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as an...

,
Jutta Koether

Jutta Koether

Jutta Koether is a German artist, musician and critic based in New York since the early 1990s.Koether was born in Cologne. Her paintings are exercises in colour, line, form and pattern and often feature text. Her solo show at Pat Hearn Gallery in 1997 featured a soundtrack by the artist,...

,
Richard Kern

Richard Kern

Richard Kern is a New York underground filmmaker, writer and photographer. He first came to underground prominence as part of the underground cultural explosion in the East Village of New York City in the 1980s, with erotic and experimental films featuring underground personalities of the time...

,
Rita Ackermann

Rita Ackermann

Rita Ackermann is a Hungarian-American artist.-Early life and education:Rita Ackermann was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1968.Ackermann trained at the University of Fine Arts Budapest from 1989 until 1992...

,
Robert Bellinger,
John Miller,
Trisha Donnelly

Trisha Donnelly

Trisha Donnelly is a conceptual artist living and working in New York. She works with various media including photography, drawing, audio, video, sculpture and performance....

,
Georganne Deen,
Sue de Beer

Sue de Beer

Sue de Beer is a contemporary artist who lives and works in New York, New York.-Background:De Beer received an BFA from Parsons The New School for Design in New York in 1995 and an M.F.A. from Columbia University in 1998...

,
Sharon Cheslow

Sharon Cheslow

Sharon Cheslow is an American musician, composer, and artist. In 1981, she formed Chalk Circle, Washington, D.C.'s first all-female punk band...

,
Slim Moon

Slim Moon

Slim Moon is the founder of the independent music label, Kill Rock Stars. He also started its sister label, 5 Rue Christine...

,
Allison Anders

Allison Anders

Allison Anders is an American film and television director. Anders has directed many independent films, on which she frequently collaborates with fellow UCLA film school graduate Kurt Voss.-Biography:...

,
Mary Gaitskill

Mary Gaitskill

Mary Gaitskill is an American author of essays, short stories and novels. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories , and The O. Henry Prize Stories .-Life:Gaitskill was born in Lexington, Kentucky...

,
Spencer Sweeney,
Elizabeth Peyton

Elizabeth Peyton

Elizabeth Joy Peyton is an American painter who rose to popularity in the mid-1990s. She is a contemporary artist best known for stylized and idealized portraits of her close friends and boyfriends, pop celebrities, and European monarchy...

,
Genevieve Delliger,
Loren Mazzacane Connors

Loren Mazzacane Connors

Loren MazzaCane Connors is an American experimental musician who has recorded and performed under several different names: Guitar Roberts, Loren Mazzacane, Loren Mattei, and currently Loren Connors...

,
Camden Joy,
Bret McCabe,
Christian Schumann,
DJ Spooky

DJ Spooky

Paul D. Miller , known by his stage name DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntablist, a producer, a philosopher, and an author...

,
Jade Gordon,
Daniella Meeker,
John Sinclair

John Sinclair (musician)

John Sinclair is a keyboardist who has played for bands such as The Babys, Heavy Metal Kids, Savoy Brown, The Cult, but is probably best known for his time in Uriah Heep and playing for Ozzy Osbourne's band...

,
Kate Spade

Kate Spade

Kate Brosnahan Spade is the co-founder and namesake of the designer brand, Kate Spade New York .- Early life and beginnings :...

,
Andy Spade,
Tony Conrad

Tony Conrad

Tony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...

,
Christopher Knowles

Christopher Knowles

Christopher Knowles is an American poet. In 1976, his poetry was used by Robert Wilson for the avant-garde minimalist Philip Glass opera, Einstein on the Beach In 2004 Knowles stayed in Long Island for the summer working with Robert Wilson. For one week the Harty family stayed in the house he was...

,
Christian Marclay

Christian Marclay

Christian Marclay is a Swiss-American visual artist and composer.Marclay's work explores connections between sound, noise, photography, video, and film...

,
Tom Sachs

Tom Sachs

Tom Sachs may refer to:*Tom Sachs *Tom Sachs , movie producer, credits include The Lady Vanishes and The Horror of Frankenstein...